Good morning, everyone, and welcome to another earnings call for CBA. This time we're related to the fourth quarter of 2024. I'm Amábile Silva , the company's investor relations manager, and today we have Luciano Alves, the CEO, and Camila Abel, the company's CFO and investor relations officer. We'd like to let you know that this event is being recorded and that all participants will only be listeners during the presentation. Then we'll begin the Q&A session. When participants here can also raise their hand using the raise hand button on Zoom to submit questions. [Foreign Language]
Or submit them by the platform's Q&A button. The presentation for this event is available on the CBA investor relations website, and we'll also have the recording of the event provided there after it's ended. Before proceeding, we'd like to clarify that some of the statements here may include statements that represent expectations about future events or results, which depend significantly on general economic, political, and business conditions in Brazil and in the global markets, as well as existing and future government regulations, among other factors. Operational data may affect CBA's future performance and lead to results that differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. Now, so we can move on, we'll invite Luciano for his presentation. Please, Luciano, you may proceed.
Good morning, Amábile. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for participating once again in our earnings call at CBA. We will continue to demonstrate how we've been advancing with the deployment of our strategy, and here I'm bringing in some of the important highlights here for the fourth quarter. We're among the most competitive in the world, considering this vertical integration in our productive chain, and we're also benefited by the depreciation of the dollar. Globally, we've been also talking about how ruptures in the bauxite and alumina production chains continued to pressure the aluminum producers globally, as they buy these inputs with higher costs due to a peak in these prices, especially for alumina.
It was an all-time high there, actually, in the last quarter, and CBA wasn't impacted by this, which really leverages our value because of our vertical integration and the high efficiency we have in aluminum production. In the fourth quarter, we also completed the Rio Project, our patented technology that's capable of separating the aluminum that's in flexible and carton packaging. With this, we can ensure the circularity of our aluminum, and it also allows us to reuse this aluminum in our productive process. Our production plant has the capacity to recycle 1.3 billion carton packages or 9,500 tons of polyaluminum per year. Our sales mix is another point we want to highlight.
We've been talking about this in some other previous quarters, but we continue to have this mix concentrated on products with higher value, with an emphasis on this last quarter with the sale of these rebars that are used for cables in the primary segment and for electrification. We also had important adjusted EBITDA advances, BRL 486 million reais adjusted EBITDA margin of 21%. The adjusted EBITDA was more than four times higher than the results in the fourth quarter of 2023, and this is mainly due to the stability of our operation, our competitive costs, as I mentioned, and also better prices practice. And so then the price is considering the peak, the rise in the LME and the currency with the dollar prices higher, but also because of this richer mix of products we had.
Now, about our debt, we had the prepayment of BRL 571 million, and we refinanced an export credit note that added up to $200 million in this quarter, so basically we reduced the concentration of the maturities from 2027 to 2029, aiming to lengthen the debt profile, and finally as part of our strategy to focus on the core business, we performed the sale of 3% stock stake in Alunorte. We had already mentioned this, and it was an asset where we're already self-sufficient in aluminum, and so it was an asset that had already been considered as available for sale in our balance sheet. On the next slide, I'm going to bring you a bit of the highlights on the ESG front, which consolidates CBA as a reference in the market. Now, in November, we participated in COP29.
We had interesting dialogue with global leaders on sustainability, and we've also been highlighting our differential with our low carbon aluminum around the world. Now, around the circularity of aluminum, we developed a co-product catalog. This is a pioneering project in the aluminum sector to transform waste management and incentivize or foster the circular economy. We're searching for the best ways to dispose of these products, but beyond this, it's about generating positive impacts on the environment and additional financial results. This case, together with the dry waste disposal project that we had already announced last year, that product that would make our waste dam drier and safer, were published by the Brazil for the Environment movement by AMCHAM Brazil.
Here we have some awards and recognition with the evolution of CBA in the CSA Corporate Sustainability Assessment questionnaire by S&P, and we reached 72 points out of 100 among leaders in the aluminum sector. Based on this scoring, CBA started integrating the S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook. This recognizes the company as the best sustainability practices around the world. Besides this, we also won the AMCHAM Brazil Award, and the frequency rate at the end of December was 1.6, the best result in the last eight years and the second best in the history of CBA. On the next slide, I'm going to share with you a bit more of an overview of the global aluminum market.
In the fourth quarter, the global aluminum market closed with a deficit of 164 tons, which caused the year of 2024 to reverse previous expectations and also end at a deficit of 35,000 tons. We could say that it's a market that's pretty balanced. The demand in China reached the highest levels in history, driven by domestic stimuli and the recovery of consumption, even with the challenges in the real estate market and construction sectors. The Chinese government continues to implement this demand related to the energy transition, and that also impacts the civil construction sector. The Chinese government continues to implement stimulus packages, and this could also sustain a healthy level of demand in the next months.
In the rest of the world, demand slowed down compared to the third quarter, reflecting a bit of the uncertainties and lower economic activities in the industry in the U.S. and Europe at that time in the beginning of winter. On the supply side, we had a drop of 25,000 tons in the global production in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter. That's mainly due to the capacity reductions connected to the rise in the price of aluminum. So it was going up a lot in the last quarter, and that impacted the cost of the operations around the world. So part of this drop in the production is related to the increase in the aluminum prices, and that impacts the producers' costs, but especially in China.
Now, moving on, the deficit market on the fourth quarter, as I mentioned, caused the stocks, when it comes to consumption days, to continue on a downward trend, so they reached the previous quarter with 48 days, pretty much the same or equal to the lower levels in the last two years. Now, when we talk about the official inventories or stocks, we had the entrance of the metal and the LME, which came in the second quarter of last year with the non-official stocks that hadn't been mapped out yet. That increased the volumes in the warehouses at that period, but ever since, official stocks or inventories have been having an ongoing downward trajectory, and they ended January with 764,000 tons, the lowest level since the fourth quarter of 2023. On the next slide, I'm going to talk a little bit about LME behavior and the premiums.
In the fourth quarter of 2024, LME was up 8% compared to the previous quarter, and they ended the period with a price of $2,575 per ton. The increase in the cost of aluminum was one of the factors that pressured the global supply and sustained prices due to the economic and political uncertainties that we had in that period. At some moments, the price was kept above $2,600 per ton in the last quarter and in the first quarter of 2025. The global economic policies will continue to influence the market, and the seasonal trend of increasing demand may provide additional support to LME prices. And it's worth mentioning, and we always need to highlight this, that at every quarter, we become closer to reach the Chinese capacity cap, which can influence the market significantly in the next quarters.
Now, about the premiums, the expectation for the import tariffs in the United States already positively impacted the Midwest premium, and also with the recent announcements of the 25% import tariffs in February, there was a trend of an even higher level in this premium, and maybe the American premium will reach historical levels and settle at levels that are really high if these, of course, are kept. The Rotterdam premium also had an increase a lot lower, though, and that's because of the restrictions in the supply in the year, but clearly a very different trend than what's going on with the American premium. On the next slide, I'm going to share a bit of the cost of the industry and how CBA is positioned in this market.
The global aluminum market, as I mentioned, there's an impact in costs that was really strong with the increase of the alumina prices in the last quarter. Alumina had a peak of over the aluminum costs went up over 30% compared to the third quarter, both in China and the rest of the world. This is a factor that has contributed strongly and compressed margins in the industry, so especially for Chinese producers. Those that were most impacted in the alumina prices were the non-integrated producers, which are mostly Chinese. The market estimate is that about 28% of the aluminum smelters in China operated with negative results or on red alerts, let's say. Because of this, in the fourth quarter of 2024, CBA was consolidated as one of the most competitive operations in the world.
So our complete integration and production chain became a more evident competitive advantage for us, especially those that depend on the purchase of some inputs, which in this case, in the last quarter, was alumina, and so you see a difference between our costs and the producers that buy alumina, and it's not only about the cost, but also the dollar appreciation, and since most of our costs are in reais, so the currency variation also affected and benefited our operation. Now, on the next slide, I'm going to talk about our market in Brazil, which continues to be very positive, so the aluminum market in Brazil closed the fourth quarter with good performance, above expectations, and once again, going over the expectations in 2023, and so the transportation sector had another heated quarter. The first graph you can see shows the performance of light vehicles.
There was an increase of 18% compared to the fourth quarter of 2023, according to ANFAVEA's data, which made Brazil recover the eighth place in the position as the largest producer of vehicles in the world, which for the aluminum market strengthens the demand for alloy ingots. On the second graph, we also highlight the good performance of the highway implement market with demand from trucks and also favoring the aluminum sheet market, which impacts the aluminum sheets mainly. In home appliances sector, such as white goods and brown goods, remained positive in the fourth quarter.
With higher domestic demand and the recovery of the stocks throughout the year, this is mainly a reflection of the increase in household income, and this is now in the summer, which stimulates the consumption of packaging away from home. In the domestic premium DP Platts, there was a drop of 2% compared to the previous quarter, but it remained at a balanced post-pandemic level. Now, we want to call Camila, our CFO and Investor Relations Director, to talk about CBA's financial performance in the last quarter. Thank you.
Thank you, Luciano, and good morning, everyone. Now, I'm going to start talking about the sales volume in this quarter that we kept at an excellent level. We sold 125,000 tons in this quarter with a concentrated mix on products with higher added value that we mentioned in all of our segments. In primaries, we had a reduction, as you can see. That's mainly related to the drop in ingot sales, which is a P1020. This is the pure metal without transformation. Now, the increase in the share of products with higher added value in primaries was 10%.
The highlight was the rebars, which is used to manufacture cables for the electrification sector. Now, the growth in the sale of transformed products is driven by the good performance of sheets, and that was favored by the packaging transportation markets. In recycling, we had greater volatility between periods. The peak in the year was mainly due to the recovery in the self-construction sector, which was driven by greater access to credit, while there was also a drop in the quarter following seasonality. In our market allocation, we continue to be mainly in the domestic market. Now, on the next slide here on the energy balance, in this quarter, we had an occasional increase in the volume of contracts by 40 MW on average. This was due to an occasional hire of energy for short-term commercialization.
Now, the increase in the average cost of contracts in the year-on-year comparison occurred due to the change in the swap contract we had in a long-term power contract in 2023, which is dollarized, and so an important point on the volume of contracts is that from the first quarter of 2025, we have an average of additional 50 megawatts added to our portfolio that we hired for 14 years at a very competitive cost in dollars, and that's prefixed values, so there's no adjustments by inflation indexes besides the currency exchange rate, so the objective was to compensate or offset the capacity to generate water concessions that have already matured or expired in our portfolio. We have this information on the Excel with the timing for each of these concessions, and that we continue to study possible renewals for in these cases.
With this, the total volume of contracts will be around 150 MW on average till 2028. And I'm saying till 2028 because the year of 2028 will be when the contract with the highest price we have in our portfolio, which still has about 100 MW volume per year from 2025 to 2028, will expire. So with this, after 2028, we'll be able to have an average contract price that's a lot more aligned with the market, and that will reinforce our competitive advantages, considering the average total cost of our current portfolio. From 2025 to 2028, the average price of our contracts will be approximately $82 per MW/ hour, which represents an increase compared to what we had in 2023 and 2024, which was $45 per MW/ hour. And that was a result of the time swap we performed with the benefit in 2023 and 2024.
And then from 2025 to 2028, this increase in the prices with a slight difference in the volume among these years. And a VPL that is quite interesting for us, having this liability aspect dollarized when you look at the full contract as a whole. Although there was appreciation in the dollar and increases in the cost of energy, we have about half of our costs dollarized and 100% of our aluminum revenue in dollars. So the dollar appreciation increases our competitiveness and profitability. Now, on the cost of production for aluminum, we can see that the dollar costs dropped. When you look at this in reais, the increase in the prices of the main inputs that are part of the anode paste of the alumina were a consequence mainly of the loss in value of the currency.
Besides this, we had a more significant increase in the negotiation cost for caustic sodium, and so even in the dollar, there was an impact, and that was 14% impact on the cash cost when we compare with the third quarter, especially related to this impact, so it was a consequence of an increase in the global demand and also added on to the supply constraints in the global industry that generated this effect, so the increase in depreciation was also a reflection of the increase in our investments in fixed assets, which we've been working on annually, and also in the flow of recognition of different contracts that we have classified as leases.
Now when we talk about the cost of sales of the consolidated product, the increase was mainly in the business and in the energy business due to the increase in the average cost of contracts, also impacted by the rate devaluation. There was also an increase, and this was a reflection of the production of the cost of liquid aluminum that came in since the beginning of 2024, considering the timeline that you have to take in the cost of sales of this product. That was a consequence of the transit of product sales costs and the production costs, and that led to the production cost of the product.
Now, at the consolidated results, evident revenue that was BRL 2.3 billion in this quarter, with an increase also being a consequence of the higher average LME price of aluminum and the loss in value of the real, in addition to the improvement in the sales mix. 94% of CBA's consolidated revenue is related to the aluminum business, which has all of the pricing linked to the dollar. So that's why I've already mentioned that the loss in value of the real actually increases our competitiveness and profitability. But with this, the adjusted EBITDA also had an increase significant that reached BRL 486 million in the fourth quarter, with an EBITDA margin of 21%, continuing the gradual recovery of the results we had in 2024, with stability in the potlines and also an increase in production compared to 2023.
In the CapEx, the concentrated management of investments in this quarter was due to the flow of maintenance and expansion modernization projects that we've already showed, and this continuity. The RIO Project was completed in the fourth quarter of 2024, and now in 2025, we have some ongoing projects, which are the modernization of the paste room and the modernization of the technology of the potline rooms, which are also updating their studies in the third phase of the process, which is what we call the Phase 3, and then we'll get into the final approval and recovery in the year. We also generated BRL 410 million of free cash flow. And here, you can also see the improvement in the EBITDA performance and also highlight, which is the sales we had with a stake of 3% in Alunorte.
And also on the debt level, we're going to continue to follow this plan for the optimization of this using the free cash flow generation and also the reduction of the leverage. The reduction of the gross debt in this quarter was offset by the negative relevant variation we had in the balance of this debt in foreign currency. And we also had an increase of BRL 124 million that considers the leases, especially related to service provision for bauxite. And so even with the higher net debt, the recovery of the EBITDA generated strong leverage, and that reached 2.8x . And we continue without financial covenants connected to CBA's performance in all of our debt contracts.
About the schedule for the amortization, we refinanced the $200 million export credit note, which we reduced the concentration of maturities from 2027 to 2029, and that optimized our debt profile with new maturities in 2030, 2031, and 2033. We also prepaid $571 million of our outstanding balance, with $428 million related to the liability management strategy for the reduction of our gross leverage, and $144 million referred to the partial return of BNDES credit due to the postponing of the investment in the potlines that we had announced ever since 2023. With all of this, the average term increased from 4.6 to 4.9 years in this quarter, keeping the average cost at 6.4 per annum in dollars. Now, to finish my presentation, I'd like to go over some points that we talked about throughout our presentation and some important highlights.
First, the demand for aluminum in the domestic market continues to be heated, with an emphasis on the high-voltage electric cable sector and the expansion of our energy matrix, and of course, the growth forecast expected by ANFAVEA for 2025 of 8.4% in the production of light vehicles. On the global consumption perspective, the capacity and global supply side, sorry, China's capacity cap of 45 limits the growth of world production supporting a market that is tightening and should continue. The currency devaluation continues to favor our competitiveness. And in this quarter, with the integrated model we have in our productive chain, mitigating the impacts of the peaks in the aluminum prices in the market since we're already self-sufficient as well as due to the currency, we were among the smelters that are most competitive in the global cost curve.
As a caution point, we also saw a reduction in the aluminum price, which could lead to some relief for the industry and some commercial wars or trade wars and protectionist measures that could also impact this and high interest rates and inflation risks around the world. The effects of aluminum import tariffs imposed by the U.S. also generated some uncertainties, but the direct impact towards CBA should not be relevant since the Brazilian domestic market is our main market. With this, we're ending this presentation. I want to thank you all for your attention. I'll pass the floor on to Amábile so we can begin our Q&A.
Thank you, Camila. Now, let's begin our Q&A session. I want to remind you all that you can raise your hand on the platform here to submit any questions by audio or send the questions to the Q&A button on the platform. I want to remind you that any questions that are not answered can also be sent to CBA's Investor Relations Department, and we'll answer subsequently. We already have some questions. The first question is from Rafael Barcellos at Bradesco BBI. Please, Rafael, you may proceed.
Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions and congrats on the results. Luciano, if you could just give me a bit of your strategic vision on the company. You've already optimized the assets in the last few years, and that contributed to reduction in the leverage in the last quarters. But I wanted to understand, because after the sale of the stake in Alunorte, what other strategic movements do you assess in the company?
And from now on, another question is, well, the company has some investment projects that you mentioned in CBA Day, and I wanted to understand if the idea is really to see the company generating more cash and consolidating the leverage, or if it's maybe something you guys could accelerate more with the investment projects you've already mentioned at other moments. I think that's my first question. And my second question is about the domestic demand.
And you've already talked about how you've already seen the demand pretty solid, but we're in this environment with higher interest, and we have some indicators also. I want to understand how the company has been positioning itself and how you're seeing this demand as well with the level of orders and what you can share in regards to this and with this demand from now on? Thank you very much.
Thank you, Rafael, for the questions. Well, about our strategy, a lot is related to our strategy for CBA Day. We have investments for modernization at CBA. We also have the upgrades in the paste rooms and technology of the potline rooms. This is actually a long-term project, and there's a few years of duration. We're basically working on one room per year. We have some recycling investments. And we also have the restarting of potline room one. We postponed that a bit, but it's still on our horizon as part of our future investments.
So, it's the growth of the company really focused on recycling and the growth of aluminum, liquid aluminum, and sales on our hands. And so, I just want to remind you that for some of these projects, you have the payment of the CapEx for some of these projects throughout the last few years. And just to say that this strategy, and as we mentioned, that we're at a very good moment, we have important cash generation. We continue to have a priority was to reduce our leverage. So, you should expect this initially throughout the year. But when the leverage is at that level that is more comfortable between one or two times net debt to EBITDA, then we'll be able to sit down and see what we can do with these investments. For 2025, I wouldn't expect an acceleration.
I think the focus here is going to be on the reduction of our leverage, but eventually, we can talk about this and consider this more. So then we'll look at each project and what would be more indicated in each of these periods, right? But of course, nothing for 2025, and eventually, we can think about this for 2026 onwards. And on the market, we also have the same concern, right? But our visibility, I think this is still going to be a good quarter considering the market visibility, and we're still seeing the first quarter overall as being very good. Concerns are in the second quarter as we can't really have market visibility that's so high, but it's what we've heard from the market. And eventually, considering the interest rates and what has been going on, we could maybe have some reduction in demand.
But in our markets, what we can see as visibility, and I think the main point here that we've been discussing is in civil construction. It's an important segment for us, and the visibility we have is our customer's customer, right? But what we see here is maybe a portfolio that's a little less full, let's say. And our customers had some visibility in our portfolio that was above 30 days, but now it's a little below this. And you can notice that in civil construction, we had this movement that kind of impacts us. But just to remind you, even if we have some impact in these markets here in Brazil, we don't expect it to be a relevant impact. It could be a marginal impact, and CBA will always produce net liquid aluminum in its full capacity.
If we have any impact on the demand, one thing that will happen is a shift in the sales mix. Not necessarily a shift in the total volume of sales. We would remain with this pretty high, but I continue to operate the potlines in full capacity, but maybe I'll have a mix that's a little poorer. The rich mix we've been feeling in the last quarters here at CBA could be impacted. For us, the impact is more related to margin and profitability than actual volumes.
Even with the volumes in ingots that are our worst product with the lowest margin, even if we have to migrate to the sale of ingots, with the costs we have and the prices in the market and the currency, we still have profitability that's really good. So in our vision, even if we have an impact, it could be softened by these factors I mentioned.
Perfect. Thank you, Luciano, Camila, and Amábile .
Thanks, Rafael.
Thank you, Rafael.
And our next question comes from Edgard Souza, Itaú BBA. Please, you may proceed.
Good morning, everyone. As you can mention, the leverage and growing EBITDA. We also wanted to explore the cost of liquid aluminum, and we also mentioned the impact of energy with the higher contracts they currently have, and also a bigger impact maybe on the depreciation of the currency. So how are you seeing this process with the cost of production of liquid aluminum up ahead? Now we've reached a level that was close to the levels that were really high in the beginning of 2023.
In this currency scenario, if this is stable, close to the current levels, how should we experience this cost trajectory for the aluminum up ahead? Still in line with this, we know that there's a setback between the production cost and the CPV. If you could maybe talk about this and how we should expect the CPV dynamics throughout the next quarters and how this will be impacted with the increase in the production cost of liquid aluminum. My second question may be focusing on energy, where we also have an impact in the cost of production. We'll see the reset of the contracts, and I think you were very clear on this explanation, Camila, with the average cost of these contracts getting closer to $82 per megawatt.
We've also seen that it depends on the results we'll see in energy versus the pressure of liquid aluminum and the consumption also in the contracts in the aluminum division. And so we also see this increase from the first quarter. We can already expect this to go back to, can we already expect this to get back to negative levels? And how are you considering this, looking into the energy balance and power balance for the year? What's the magnitude of this negative EBITDA, let's say, for the energy in 2025? Thank you, guys.
Great, so Edgar, thanks for the questions. As we start off here with the cost of production for aluminum, it really increased in 2024 compared to 2023 because we had this year that was worse in 2024. We generated less energy, and as you mentioned, we allocated more of the cost of the contracts considering the cost of the aluminum. So this generated an impact even though the average cost of the contract was not as big as it should be in 2025.
And so that already added to an effect in 2025, and then we talk about the lag of three-to-six months to go over to the CPV. And then we can continue this in 2025. In 2025, we would actually have a scenario that is maybe a little worse than what we expected than what was the average in 2024. So GSF, it's a little greater. And if we continue to operate this, and that's what we expect in our maximum capacity for production, we'll continue to consume contracts within this cost.
And so it's not going to be an increase that's that significant, but considering that we had this new contract that's 14 years in dollars that's prefixed at a market level, it's about $30 per MW/ hour. Although we have the increase in this total cost of contracts from 45 to 82, we tried to be very clear in this difference. The biggest part of this price difference is going to be in the energy segment, right? Because we have this new contract that is at the market level, and it's going to be the first used in the energy cost. So although we have, I'm going to bring in some energy that's different, but it's not going to be the highest cost, as we were mentioning, in the exceeding amount.
So for cost, it's really difficult to foresee the cost of energy because GSF actually started off the year. It's been a really rainy year, but we're already in a drought period. The government has already started some programs to have the voluntary reduction of demand with the companies at this level in February still. So that's very atypical in this period, right? And so it's really important to mention how the rain situation will be, but the logic of these contracts is pretty much the following. So now on the negative EBITDA, it should get back to being negative as it was before. As we can see this, we can foresee that this is very difficult with dividends at Intercompany, and that's what we've seen in the previous years.
If we keep up with the same level, it's going to soften the negative EBITDA a bit, which is how we calculate this average price of $82 minus the commercialization of the exceeding amount we're going to have. It's difficult to talk about this number, but it gets back to being negative because of these factors I mentioned just now.
Great. So just to follow up here, and just to mention this, the liquid aluminum production cost, we should see some stability. But when we consider this at a consolidated level, maybe stability up ahead and some possible pressure in CPV in the beginning of the year because of the pass-through of this cost. And that's a CPV, and then that continues to come into a CPV for energy throughout the first quarter of 2025.
Okay, perfect. Thank you, Camila and Luciano. Thanks.
The next question is from Ricardo Monegaglia from Safra. You can proceed, please.
Good morning, everyone, and thanks for taking my questions. Congrats on the results. I have two questions here. One is for Luciano, a little broader, but I wanted to understand your opinion on the tariffs in the U.S. against aluminum, and I think that the premium in aluminum inside has gone up, and maybe that'll keep up. But my question is, how are you considering the impact of these tariffs on the price of aluminum? And also, if I could also request some interpretation of this announcement of the tariffs on this price, right? And then maybe we'll have a correction in the next few months, as happened in Section 232 originally. And then if you have any other comments also that you think are relevant, that would be great.
The second question for Camila is the level of leverage is a lot less disruptive. It's clear that the priority is to reduce the leverage of one to two times. So we wouldn't expect an acceleration in these investments yet. But with the good trajectory, you already start discussing the other priorities for capital allocation besides these projects. Could we already consider a buyback program, and maybe those opportunistic M&As would get back to seeing? That would be really important to understand. Thanks, guys.
Okay, thank you. I'll answer the first one, and then we'll pass on the floor to Camila. It's still too early to estimate what could happen with these tariffs, right? It's something new for everyone, and also something that's very uncertain. So you announced this, but in practical terms, the implementation is still pretty uncertain. So how are we preparing for this?
Just to remind you, we focus our sales in the internal market. 90% of this is in the internal market, and from the exports, which are about 10% exports, 2% are going to go to the U.S., so that varies from quarter to quarter, but it's about 3%-5% depending on the quarter, and so I want to remind you also that other companies also have the same situation, right? We've already had these tariffs throughout Section 232, and that's still valid till now, but what happened before is that for some specific clients and specific products, this is happening even for some CBA customers. Since you don't have a product that is similar produced in the U.S. or a national similar product, that customer had a quota, so he was exempt of this tariff because he had that quota, let's say.
But of course, he had to prove that that product he was consuming was not produced internally because he didn't have this internal supply, and so there was not a tariff. But this happened from 2018 all the way to 2024 now. But for 2025, everything's really uncertain. We don't understand if this dynamic will remain or not. For now, no. But of course, we had part of these quotas announced that they would not be renewed. But once again, everything depends on this. We are not sure if this is going to happen, actually, but generally, that's the situation, right? So the impact is softened a bit because of the lower sales and also because the products we sell are specific products that are more connected to aluminum sheets, and they don't have a similar national production.
So even if this happens, we don't see the impact on the price of aluminum. We think that the price of the aluminum will follow other trends that we're going to mention up ahead, but the biggest impact is in the premium. So we already see the American premium growing, and we've demonstrated this even in our report. It went from this natural level of $300-$400, and it already went to over $800, and the market says it could reach even $1,000. But if we look at the difference of $700 approximately between the $300, $400, about $1,000, it's pretty much the 25% upon the final price of the product. So that suggests that what's going on with the premium in the U.S. is already like an anticipation of this tariff impacting the premium in the U.S.
When you look at the Rotterdam premium, there wasn't major impacts. The premium here in Brazil didn't have major impacts. In practical terms, our expectation or the trend we see in the market is that it could be more concentrated in the U.S. That may mean that this will generate prices that are a little higher for aluminum in the U.S. But what this could lead to is a bit more uncertainty. When it comes to competitiveness, as everyone knows, nothing will change too much because in relative terms, everything will change because everyone's going to pay the 25%. But on the other hand, the aluminum prices in the American market could have an impact on demand. You could have a possible reduction in this demand because if this happens, you'll lead to prices that are higher there.
But all of this is very uncertain. We're not sure about anything because despite having these announcements, we still have not had anything really discussed or demonstrated, and we won't have this impact. So I think here it's about waiting a bit and understanding. And what we've done on our side is searching for alternatives. So we have alternatives in the local market as well as in the European market and in other consumer markets as well. And then we can consider that same concept that I explained in the previous point that Rafael discussed, where even if we have an impact, it's going to be in the impact of the processed industrialized products, and it could transform this through VAPs, ingots, and there could be other products that could also impact the sales mix. But in our vision, it's still too early to estimate this, right?
We're still optimistic about some possible dialogues that could take place and possible impacts that are eased out when we consider that the products we sell there have no national similar products. So I think it's difficult to quickly have this shift unless you have major investments there to have this product made in the U.S. So just quickly about the price, I think this impact won't impact the price of the LME. It's a lot more related to the supply and demand ratio in the world. But last year was really supported by cost. So the higher alumina costs last year supported higher alumina prices, especially in the second semesters. But now aluminum is maybe at a more normalized level. Alumina went from $300-$400 to over $800 due to those ruptures that took place in that supply chain, and now it's back to $400-$500.
Alumina doesn't offer this additional price support, but it continues to be at a higher level. Why is that? Well, because of a bit of the expectations and what the market considers. And so at every quarter that goes by, we are closer to the capacity, the cap in China, and you can then see that you could have a scenario that's a little tighter with that. So the price reflects this expectation a bit. And so China continues to increase demand, and you have this scenario where you could maybe have a more favorable moment with the pricing. So it's a supply and demand dynamic that's favorable, and it's not necessarily the American market impacting the price directly. So I'll let Camila answer the second question.
About capital allocation, I think it's really this sequence of keeping up with the CapEx plan, as Luciano mentioned. I want to remind you that we have BRL 500 million of sustaining, and what's considered in the year is really fitting in the modernization projects within the plan for the next five years, as you mentioned. In the Investor Day last year, the free cash flow and exceeding cash generation allows the leverage reduction of the net debt to define it as a limit of two times [Foreign Language] . We have to reach an optimum level that's a little bit more for. We can consider other utilizations for this robust cash flow we have, and then it's going to be a discussion up ahead. It's a great discussion that we can have throughout the year.
Clearly, with the results being stronger, we can have this distributed result and then buyback program also, which in our case, you have this limitation of 10% of the free cash flow, the relevant value that we're going to consider, and the options we're going to be looking into in the near future. But for now, that's pretty much it.
Okay, thank you, Ricardo. Our next question is from Lucas Laghi at XP. Lucas, please, you may proceed.
Good morning, everyone. Congrats on the results. I have a question that's just to add on. What Camila mentioned about our own cash generation, possibly impacted by the water and rain situation. I just wanted to think about also the context of some maturities with concessions, and what can we consider looking up ahead to mitigate the cost of the contracts that are not considered CBA's own generation?
I think these affect the cost mix, but if you're looking up ahead, there's still this volume that's considerable. And so what could we expect possibly as financial operations or operational aspects that could mitigate this cost that's a bit higher in regards to the energy division? And when you look at the leverage impact, if we consider the fourth quarter and we see the net debt to EBITDA ratio of closer to 2.8 times, we know we can't always analyze the results in the quarter. But if we consider the EBITDA at the run rate of the fourth quarter, setting the pace for currency that's closer to spot value, you can see leverage even below two times.
In this energy context, with the impacts expected for 2025, do you guys estimate maybe how far we are from reaching these two times net debt to EBITDA considering this expected reduction in the EBITDA due to the energy dynamic in 2025 and a possible burning of cash related to this specific issue? I think these are the two points on the power topic and also with the leverage considering the split in 2025, this division.
Thanks, Lucas, for the questions. Great questions. On the cost of power, we don't really have much to do. It's a contract. It's an energy PPA. It's a defined price. Condition where you have an estimate connected to the original contract. Yes, we could maybe have an additional financial operation if we would like to soften up the impact, but it would be a temporary effect.
At the moment, we are considering a flow with the contractual current conditions we have. With this, that's why we have the clarity of this price increase for 2025-2028. That's what we have hired. If we find at some moment another favorable moment for reprofiling or a new swap, then we'll definitely provide transparency on this and consider this competitive advantage of this new transaction that would be financial. Our original contract doesn't change, and it's going to expire in 2028. The terms and conditions are very clear. The prepayment value is also considering the contractual market conditions of a normal long-term agreement that was signed many years ago, and we would have to pay a fine and still the mark-to-market. At some moment before 2028, we could also consider leaving this contract before it expires if we follow the prepayment conditions.
These are the options. There's not much of an exit. About the leveraging, especially considering the cost of energy, we cannot simplify and analyze the fourth quarter. On the other hand, we also had a reference of exogenous or external factors. We have an average currency of 5.85 in the fourth quarter of 2024 and an LME of $2,520 that's already been operating ever since the beginning of the year. The average of January all the way here is about $2,600 per ton. At the exit, we already have most of the first quarter with these two factors being better than what they were in the fourth quarter. Of course, we have to see the continuity of the external factors and the combination of the demand so we can understand our operational EBITDA.
From a power perspective, we'll be stabilized at a level that's a little higher in the cost. There's this difference in the exceeding value, but overall, there should be an EBITDA that's very strong when you compare 2025 and 2024 if you look at all of the current conditions despite a higher power price offset by the rest of the improvements that we see. With this, we would have a deleveraging scenario with the possibility of reaching this complying with the policy in 2025 still, which is below the two times net debt to EBITDA.
And just to add on, Lucas, we're always going to continue to look at how we finish the year with a balance of BRL 1.5 billion. And we have some specific dates to perform the prepayment of some debts without penalties, considering the usual contracts that are quarterly, biannually, and annually, or even with a gradual reduction in the fees. When we look at the best moment for the prepayments, we'll continue to work on liability management quarter over quarter. So in the first quarter, we should already demonstrate more prepayments than what we demonstrated in the fourth quarter of last year. And that will generate a reduction in the gross debt. For the net debt, it won't make much of a difference because we want to use our cash position.
But in the next quarters, of course, it's going to depend on new cash generation, and we can accelerate the reduction of the net debt of the gross debt, sorry, but that's going to have an important effect in our free cash flow when it comes to the reduction of financial expenses. It takes a while. You prepay, and then you change the base. But maybe what's most significant will be around the second semester of this year. And in 2026, we'll see a financial expense base that's better because of these prepayments we already had in a relevant manner in 2024 and will continue to have in 2025. Okay, so the deleverage is going to help the financial results and the debt mix will also contribute to this improvement in the incremental cash generation due to the financial results.
Great. Perfect. Thank you so much, Camila.
Thank you, Lucas.
Thank you for the questions, and well, guys, with this, we've officially ended our call today, and I want to remind you that if you have any additional questions, you can submit them to the IR team. We'll be available to answer. I'll pass the phone to Luciano for his final comments. Thank you very much. Have a great day.
Thank you, Amábile . Thank you, everyone, for being with us today in another earnings call, and thank you for your questions. They were very good, very constructive, and we're definitely going to continue to be available in our IR channel now and in the next quarters as well. Thank you so much. Have a great day, guys.