Good morning, everyone. I'm Amábile Silva, the Investor Relations at CBA. Welcome to our Earnings Call for the results of our fourth quarter in 2023. Today we have Luciano Alves, our 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 all attendees will only be listening during the presentation. Then we'll begin the Q&A session where participants can be able to raise their hand using the raise hand button on the platform to submit questions via audio or submit their questions through the Q&A button on the platform. The presentation is available on the company's Investor Relations website, where we'll also have the recording of the event after completion.
Before we proceed, we'd like to clarify that some of the statements here are expectations or trends, and they're based on the current assumptions and perspectives of the company's management. There may be material variations between the results, performance, and future events. They do not represent projections or forecasts. Now I'll pass the floor to Luciano Alves, who will discuss the main highlights in the fourth quarter of 2023. Please, Luciano, you may proceed.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you once again for your participation in another CBA earnings call. I wanted to start by showing you some of our highlights in this fourth quarter. This quarter we had an evolution in the stability of the furnace rooms and the pot lines, which are already operating at levels that are very close to normality, which reflects the increase in the liquid aluminum production of 3,000 tons compared to the last quarter.
We produced a total of 86,000 tons this quarter, and I want to remind you that it's important to mention that ever since July we have already been in a gradual process of turning on the pot lines that were paralyzed during the instability, which were related to the anodic paste we were using, and now the stability we have achieved is also reflected in significant improvement in some operational KPIs, and I want to emphasize the reduction of our fixed costs and also our variable costs, which reflected in the reduction of the cost of production of liquid aluminum as well when it comes to the previous comparison, but also when compared to the same period last year.
So when we look at our sales, our aluminum sales were 128,000 tons in the quarter, 5% higher than the fourth quarter of 2022 and 8% higher than the fourth quarter when we sold 119,000 tons. So we're going to break down the sales performance of each of the segments later in these presentations up ahead. Now, when it comes to financial performance, we had a significant release of our working capital in the quarter, especially due to the reduction in our stocks, and this, of course, leads to a positive cash generation in the quarter. We also had a reduction in our CapEx, and this is really in line with the readjustments in the project schedule that we announced throughout the year 2023, and we will continue to prioritize the projects we had already mentioned to you before in the market.
Now, Camila's also going to talk about this a little more during the presentation. Moving on to the main achievements in the quarter, in ESG we were able to evolve from fifth to third position in the ISE portfolio at B3, and on the digital front we were able to achieve the Inovativos Award for the second year consecutively, but now in Digital Transformation and Innovation Programs category. Finally, we completed our capital increase through a private subscription, which was announced on the 8th of November 2023 with the issuance of a maximum number of shares and increasing our capital to BRL 206 million. Just to highlight, the main objective here was to preserve our capital structure and strengthen the company's cash position. Now, on the next slide, we're going to give you an overview of the global aluminum market in Brazil.
In the last quarter, the global market had a surplus of 257,000 tons. Demand in China was practically flat in the last months of the year, with sectors related to energy transition such as solar panels, electric vehicles, and others kind of offsetting the weaker demand from the construction sector. In the rest of the world, the demand slowed down, which is still reflecting the high interest rates around the world. About supply, we were able to have, in November, the closure of our capacity for aluminum production in the Yunnan Province in China due to the lack of rainfalls. It's a climate condition issue, but this time the capacity closure was 1.2 million tons, and Yunnan has like 80% of its electricity coming from hydropower generation, and they've been suffering with a drought for quite a while.
So it's important to highlight that in the last quarter there was an increase in capacity in China with the closing of the smelters, the shutdowns of the smelters in Yunnan, which 2.2 million tons of capacity. So they reconnected a part of the capacity at a certain point in time, but then they quickly turned this off and shut it down. So although there is a possibility for them to turn this capacity back on with the return of the rainy season, the recurrence of this movement in the last few years demonstrates that there could be a chronic problem in the province, and maybe the installation of more power generation there would be necessary to have some stability in this energy power supply to the smelters in Yunnan.
For the overall market, we estimate that CRU estimates that the balance between supply and demand in 2023 has been a surplus of 574,000 tons, which also impacted our inventories and stock levels, as we're going to see on the next slide. So if we take a look at our total stocks at the end of the last quarter with 50 days of consumption, which is considered a balance point or a breakeven point, in the official stocks we had an increase compared to the third quarter, which reached 648,000 tons. But it's important to highlight that today between 80%-90% of the stocks officially at LME stocks come from Russian metal with high market rejection, especially in the West.
So that's why it's really important for us to monitor the behavior of this demand for aluminum in the next months, and we've been reinforcing this a lot with a more consistent improvement in the aluminum generation, which could lead to positive impacts in the prices in the future since the market has low levels of stocks, and most of these come from Russia. Moving on, I'm going to talk about how LME and premiums have behaved in the last quarter. So in the fourth quarter, LME had a peak of 1.6% compared to the previous quarter ending the period with an average of $2,190 per ton.
Although the prices were practically stable during these 3 months, there was a boom and an explosion in an oil terminal in Guinea, which generated an impact that was positive on prices at the end of December because Guinea is one of the main bauxite producers in the world, and there was a big concern of a possible impact in the supply of this raw material to China. But then quickly we got back to the price levels we had seen in the rest of the quarter. So premiums, in turn, had followed this downward trend in the fourth quarter, and this low demand continues to generate pressure on indicators, especially outside of China, in the U.S., Europe, and other places. So on slide 7, I want to talk about the Brazilian market a little more. And I think the demand here in Brazil grew compared to the previous quarter.
The fourth quarter, mostly in most of the sectors, had performance that was better. Some important highlights here are for home appliances and electronics in the city of São Paulo, they grew 25% and 51%, respectively, compared to the previous quarter. The fourth quarter compared to the third quarter. When it comes to home appliances and electronics, this was boosted by the heat wave that accelerated the sales of air conditioners in the country. On the other hand, the production of vehicles had a retraction of 8%, seasonal fact if you consider the fact that it's a stoppage period in the automakers and the OEMs. This demand was offset by better performance in other transportation segments such as the agricultural implements, which rose 5% compared to the third quarter of 2023.
So the Brazilian premium dropped 10% compared to the previous quarter, comparing to the previous quarter, kind of following the international premium trends. Great. Now I'm going to pass the floor on to Camila, our CFO and Investor Relations Officer, to discuss CBA's financial performance in the last quarter. Thank you.
Thank you, Luciano, and good morning, everyone. So continuing here with the presentation, I'm going to explain the sales volumes first. In the fourth quarter, we sold 128,000 tons of aluminum, which was the best quarter of the year when it comes to sales volumes, 7% higher than the previous quarter and 5% higher than the fourth quarter of 2022. So the operational advances in the pot lines were helping us to equalize the supply of ingots in the market and also improve the demand for higher value-added products in the entire portfolio.
In primaries, we had an increase growing 24% compared to the fourth quarter of 2022 with an increase of aluminum silicon, which is used to manufacture wheels in the auto sector, and an increase in the sale of billets for the civil construction sector. Now, compared to the previous quarter, the increase was 15% with a greater contribution from ingots and billets. Now, in Processed Products, sales volumes dropped 3% compared to the fourth quarter of 2022, and this was mainly due to a lower demand in aluminum sheets, reflecting competition with imported products. Now, when you compare with the third quarter this year, the increase was 3%, mainly due to the sales of extruded profile materials for transportation applications and also civil construction. Here, I'm going to note that CBA has had great performance meeting the demands for medium and high-end buildings through the Primora product line.
We've been talking about this a lot, and it was launched in 2022. Now, in recycling, we had a drop of 29% compared to the fourth quarter of 2022 and a reduction of 4% compared to the third quarter of 2023. This is mainly due to a lower volume of sales from Metalex, which mainly sells products to the self construction sectors or home refurbishing. Activities remain under pressure due to high interest rates, and although there's a downward trend, we still haven't seen that as enough to influence consumer confidence. Finally, here on this slide, we continue to prioritize the domestic market here.
On the next slide about the energy balance, I want to highlight that on the average cost side of the contracts, there was a reduction of 43% compared to the fourth quarter of 2022 following a result of the swap we made in one of our energy contracts at the beginning of the year last year, and that started to be adjusted to dollars. On the volume of our own power generation, I want to highlight an increase of 9% compared to the fourth quarter of 2022. And here, it's mainly because of our wind farms that entered the portfolio in the beginning of last year as well because they contributed with about 53 MW on average of power generated in this quarter. Another really important highlight is the calculation of the fair value of the surplus energy or power that we have in our balance sheet in future years.
So we recorded this fair value or mark-to-market of these other operating results line in our P&L, and the negative effect in the fourth quarter was of BRL 639 million. So here you have a mark-to-market that's already net of the balance sheet realizations for this period of the fourth quarter of 2023. This relevant amount was mainly because of the lower power consumption estimated for the coming years due to a postponement of our investment plan and the consequent delay in the startup of pot line rooms 1, which would have been in 2025, and then they were postponed for a few years. This amount refers to the surplus volume of the coming years, and it's estimated based on the price reference projected by the DCIDE reference.
Since it's an accounting metric with no cash effects, this MTM is one of the adjustments that we always consider in our adjusted EBITDA. It's an exclusion, and it's temporary because if there's a resumption in the production expansion plan or if we have an improvement in the energy price conditions at the future market price per power, we have other events connected to CBA's energy balance. This amount can be reversed considering the modification of this fair value in the exceeding volumes. On the next slide, we have the results, and our net revenue in this quarter was BRL 1.9 billion, among which BRL 1.8 billion is related to the aluminum business with a reduction of 4% compared to the fourth quarter of 2022.
This is mainly due to a 6% drop in the average price of aluminum, considering LME, and also the appreciation of the BRL versus dollar, which we also had considering the average exchange rate in the periods. So when we look at the third quarter of 2023, there was an increase of 4% in net revenue. This is mainly due to the increase in the sales volumes that I've already mentioned. When it comes to the COGS, we basically had this stable compared to the fourth quarter of 2022, even with an increase in sales volumes. Compared to the third quarter of 2023, we had a drop of 4%.
So this is here because of the reduction in the COGS for the aluminum business, but also considering the drop in the price of inputs that we've been talking about throughout the quarters, and also the reduction of the power when we consider the reduction of the exceeding amounts of power in the quarter. So with this, the adjusted EBITDA ended with BRL 102 million, and the adjusted margin was 5% or a bit higher than the third quarter of 2022 due to the recovery in the sales volumes and a reduction in costs. Now, when it comes to the losses in the fourth quarter of 2023, the main reason was the mark-to-market of this exceeding amount in our power balance sheet that I mentioned in our previous slide on the energy balance. Without this effect, we would have BRL 53 million in profits in the fourth quarter.
Now, when we talk about investments, we have the reduction in the CapEx in the quarter and in the full year, which is in line with these readjustments in the project schedule, postponing the completion of some of them, such as the pot lines one, which have already been discussed. Here, I always want to highlight that our projects are modular, and they have flexibility, so we can review them according to market conditions and our operating cash generation. So when we look ahead, we continue to focus on priority projects such as our Dry Waste Disposal and the ReAl for recycling aluminum packages with startups foreseen for the first half of 2024. On the next slide, I'm going to talk about our free cash flow. Well, here we ended the quarter with a positive cash generation of BRL 375 million.
Due to the release of working capital, BRL 532 million, we were able to mitigate the consumption we had in the first half due to the instability of the pot lines. Here in our working capital, we had BRL 221 million of stock reductions, reflecting our efforts with the recovery of the sales volumes and the flow of the main inputs. With the normality of our operations, BRL 104 million came from an increase in the average supplier's payment terms, which came from some shorter-term negotiations. When it comes to dividends paid, they're related to the distribution of dividends by CBA Energia to the investees. Then finally, you have the flow of investments, which refers to the sale of fixed assets and intangibles as part of the initiative in our sales recovery plan. Here you had the sale of non-operational properties.
Then here, finally, on the slide on our debt, on the 31st of December 2023, the net debt added up to BRL 2.4 billion, 21% lower than when compared to September 2023, considering the higher cash generation in the fourth quarter, but also the appreciation of the BRL compared to the dollar. So our leverage ended December with 7.7x and compared to 9.7x, which is what we had in December 2023. So we want to highlight that we have no covenants or financial obligations connected to the financial performance of CBA in our debt contracts. So in this quarter, we only had one release of a contract with Finep. This was in 2022, and this release was BRL 33 million. And this is mainly to fund R&D projects, but also the completion of our ReAl project.
So the total contract is $109 million, and we had a cost that's very attractive. And the final maturity is in 2022. So finally, I would like to mention that our debt profile is still extended, and we haven't had concentrations of relevant maturities in the next years. This is a reflection of the fundraising we've done throughout 2023. Now I'll pass the floor back to Luciano. Thank you so much, and we'll see you during Q&A.
Okay, thank you, Camila. Well, I'm going to talk about how we continue to evolve in our strategic pillars in the fourth quarter. So ESG, we had the opportunity to participate at COP28 in Dubai, and we were able to be present in two panels. One is connected to the UN Global Compact, where we refer to the relevant role for the economy and also the partnership with ABAL.
We highlighted the importance of Brazilian aluminum, low-carbon Brazilian aluminum. At COP, we also launched the Climate Initiative, which is focused on increasing resilience for Brazilian municipalities. So this was also a partnership with Votorantim. And this intends to support the companies and their main vulnerabilities. And we also had an important acknowledgment of the first process, which is also from the UN Global Compact. And this is the first initiative to promote this transparency and encourage companies and support them to go beyond their legal obligations. So CBA was selected also, as I've already mentioned, for the second consecutive year to be part of the ISE portfolio. So it was an evolution. And this represents 78 companies from 36 sectors in Brazil. And CBA is also highlighted in another important initiative, which is CSA from S&P.
This was our first year, and our score was 40% above average. Some strategic projects include significant advances here in our innovation project for battery foil. We've already talked about this some quarters ago, and it really intends to focus on the development of these aluminum sheets for lithium ions. In the first phase we had already disclosed, we performed some tests regarding this. And we advanced significantly to the second phase and now partnering with Finep for the tests of these electric batteries. And we're at this moment evolving with a project that's really interesting for our future here in the company. Important to highlight that here in Brazil, we don't have suppliers for aluminum sheets for vehicle batteries.
So we're validating this sheet so we can be the first and only supplier offering low-carbon aluminum and also contributing even more to electrification in the country. Besides this, to wrap up on the fourth quarter, we also continue to evolve with our digital movement. So we're able to conquer the Inovativos Award in the Digital Transformation Innovation Program. And this is a recognition that demonstrates the importance and relevance of our efforts to strengthen this innovation strategy and digital transformation initiative at CBA. Great. So now we're going to move on to our last slide. Once again, we're reaching the end of this presentation. But before we get into Q&A, I just wanted to highlight some important points in this presentation. First, about the market. In Brazil, the demand has been demonstrating to be consistent with even more prospects for 2024.
If we look at 2023, where packaging was maybe a segment that suffered a bit more in Brazil. Generally, indirectly, we saw aluminum to these segments. For 2024, the prospects are positive. On the other hand, in the global scenario, the situation is still very challenging. We already talked about this in the beginning of our presentation, but the recovery of the demand around the world depends on the reduction of the interest rates around the country, but especially in developed countries like the U.S., Europe, and others. In China, the energy transition has been offsetting part of the slowdowns in the civil construction, and the future movements still depend on how this will be developed throughout the country. If we look at the midterm, we continue to see a scenario that's more favorable for aluminum.
The economic recovery we expect for the next years should be leveraging the demand for aluminum in the future. There's no perspective for an increase in relevant supply around the world because of the pipeline of projects we can see that's being developed around. Besides this, the market has stocks that are historically low and a lot of Russian metal volumes. If you highlight all of these factors, any future movements in the demand and the overall market could lead to a positive impact in prices for aluminum. Here at CBA, in this more challenging environment that's been lasting ever since last year, we've continued to work with different initiatives that could help us navigate better through this period. We have some initiatives for the recovery plan that we've already announced throughout 2023, and they've been improving these results.
You've seen part of these initiatives being implemented in what we disclose now in the fourth quarter. We continue to work on different initiatives in the business to strengthen our resilience and our competitive advantages. We'll continue to keep up with the same focus in 2024. We have many different initiatives that still haven't been performed, but we're also searching for ways to bring even more new initiatives to improve our results throughout the year. This increase in capital that we announced was an example. The sale of properties, as well as Camila mentioned in her presentation, is another example with our efforts to stabilize our pot lines and many other initiatives we can mention in this sense to continue to evolve and reduce costs and improve competitive advantages in the company. The pot lines, we've been operating very close to normality.
So this is something you guys can see in our numbers and production for sales. Also, there was an improvement in the KPIs, a reduction of the production costs. We mentioned this in the past. These are reductions that are still smaller than the increases we had in the past, but these are reductions that are consistent for our costs and improvement of our competitive advantages in the market. We also keep up with this investment plan review that we announced with the postponing of certain projects, but we kept those priority projects. We have two, that is, Dry Waste Disposal and the ReAl Project that has a startup plan for this first quarter of the year. We're following this schedule aligned with what we mentioned last year. Once again, thank you so much for your time and attention during this presentation.
Now I'll pass the floor on to Amábile so that we can start our Q&A.
Thank you so much, Luciano and Camila, for the presentation. Now we're going to get into the Q&A session. I'm reminding you all that you can raise your hand through this button or submit questions through audio. To do this, please or you can send the questions through the Q&A button as well. So we already have some questions. The first one is coming from Leonardo Correa from Bank of America. Please, Leonardo, you may proceed.
Hey, good morning, everyone. Can you guys hear me?
Yes, we can. Thank you.
Great. Thank you so much. So I wanted to explore the topic with the costs. I think it's a super relevant topic. We've seen a really important drop in the cost of production for liquid aluminum with the normalization of the pot line operations. And the question that remains is, what's coming ahead? What are the next steps? And what can we expect when it comes to guidance for cost reductions up ahead? And which are other initiatives we should consider also on our radar so that possibly we can maybe generate some important cost gains? And then with this line as well, as we talk about energy costs a bit more, what do you expect now for the first and second quarters and the recent activities in energy prices and also exceeding balance in your energy prices as well?
Well, hi, Léo. Good morning. Thanks for the question. I think starting off by 2023, we really had, when you look at December 2023 compared to December 2022, we had a reduction in our total cash of at least 15%. So that's really in line with what we had been looking at ever since last year. And then now we're closing the year with this. But this is the cash cost. And we always talk about that lag we have to transfer in our CPV. So we already see this a bit in our CPV, as we can see, in the fourth quarter. But there's even more coming along in 2024. So how much this is going to add on to the cash cost is going to be difficult to foresee because we know that our main inputs have this specific dynamic for each of the points.
So in 2023, the main drop comes from the COGS, but there were also others. And now we expect that for 2024, we'll continue to have this drop trend, dropping trend. But how much and how, this is a challenge, right? So when it comes to energy, we had a year of 2023 that had a very favorable rainwater situation in Brazil and the overall system. And this flow was not as good in 2024. So for CBA's balance purposes, this is reflected as a lower water flow in our plants. And this means that maybe in the cash costs, we're going to have a bit of energy from the contracts that maybe have an average price per megawatt hour that's a little higher. So this is a caution point for us to understand the level of generation for 2024 because 2023 was atypical.
But no doubt at all, it's a positive factor for the inputs as we continue with this trend, as I mentioned, for the transfers and new drops in the cash costs. So finally, when we look at power, considering this exceeding amount now in December that I explained, so once again, the prices now have a higher curve than what we ended with. And that's reflected into a reversal of part of the MTM. But of course, we're going to see that this is something that's always considered another operational result and also an influence in the volume and price. And this price, when it comes to recovery and the increase of our exceeding amounts in the short term, and this increase in the curve has already been reflected in 2024 and 2025.
And so, how much in the mid-term or long-term we have as an exceeding amount that could lead to a reversal of this negative impact as long as this continues to take place?
Camila, if I could just hop in with your point on power to make things clear, two important points. Last year, as Camila mentioned, rain was higher than the historical average. So not only were the power plants able to generate more energy, but also the reserves were also at levels that were higher. So this year, even with this slower volume of rain that we're imagining in the first quarter of the year already, since the reserves were at higher levels last year, the impact is going to be lower than what it could be just considering the rainwater effect.
Of course, there's an impact, which was a little better and better in the energy power generation this year. But also, Camila's point is valid when it comes to the contracts. And then also the cost of our energy that impacts our cash cost and then our COGS, which is the seasonality. So because of these effects, it's natural that we'll have a cash cost for power that's a little lower in the first and second quarter, which is where when it rains and we have more power generation, so our cash cost is lower. But the increase of this cash cost in the second semester and the drought, when we use these contracts that are more expensive that Camila mentioned, right?
Wonderful. Thank you so much, guys. Very clear. Then just to follow up on the issue of the COGS drop, as you mentioned, Camila, 15% drop in December versus December last year, which is the amount of the liquid aluminum production, right? If we compare the cash cost, this liquid aluminum of December 2023 compared to 2022 in dollar, which is approximately 15%. Okay. So if we consider the average in the quarter, it was about 13%. So we could imagine that, okay, we don't know how things are going to evolve, but just maybe this lag would have about 2 or 3% gain still, right?
Yeah. So of course, time depends on our mix, which is the time where we transfer this depending on each item. But no doubt at all, eventually, it'll reach this result in 2024.
Great, guys. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Léo, for the question.
Well, once again, guys, to submit your question by audio, just raise your hand on the platform. Or if you have a question submitted in writing, just send it through the Q&A button. And we have another question also coming from Edgard de Souza at Itaú BBA. Please, you may proceed.
Okay, guys. Thank you so much. Good morning. Thank you, Amábile, Luciano, Camila, everyone. Well, 2023 was a more challenging year, but with the deliveries pretty much in line with what you guys consider in the market with the release of working capital and the drop in the liquid aluminum. So this transparency has been in line with the market. But when we get into the questions here, I think maybe just to start off with Luciano, if you could stress or explain a bit more about the market situation in 2024.
Of course, we have different uncertainties with the potential for resuming operation in these capacities in China, some questions on the potential for demand in China as well. But what's the base case that you guys have been working with to consider the market balance, right? So you've been talking about 2023, Luciano. That was the first year with a surplus ever since 2018. So if we exclude 2020, what would be the perspective you guys have or the main consulting services you guys look at if it's a similar surplus year or a more balanced year with the information you guys currently have available?
Still for you, Luciano, another point we got back to receiving some questions about, which was a question, a conversation we had ever since this follow-on of moments that were more challenging where the company maybe thought about shutting down some capacity or being able to sell this capacity outside. So my question is more about, of course, we recognize the assets are part of CBA, and maybe it's just a matter of expression, but maybe there won't even be CBA without these assets, right? But how do you guys look at the potential shutdown of this capacity to sell power? Is there an aluminum price it should reach so that you can start thinking about this a little more? Or is this something that's still very distant from the conversations you guys have internally?
And then last, just very quickly here for Camila, if you could talk about how cash generation is going to look like up ahead. And I think you guys really had this release in the working capital. That was very strong in the quarter. What's your guys' mindset up ahead? And also for the CapEx, we saw this reduction in the fourth quarter. So what do you think would be a better reference for 2024, maybe the fourth quarter annualized or closed numbers in 2023? I remember we were talking about this, BRL 100 million-BRL 150 million per year. So if you could give us some color on this, that would help us with our modeling work.
Well, thank you. Thank you, Edgard. Well, yeah, starting off with your questions about the market, right? So if we had to summarize the market, it's really demand-based, right?
So the aluminum market has different types of behaviors throughout the years. But today, what we need to look at more profoundly is the demand. The supply is pretty much controlled. We don't see major groups with projects of new capacity starting or big impacts in the market. Stocks are low, the official stocks, right? And also in the overall market. So in practical terms, the variable that we need to monitor here is our demand. And here, it really depends on some signs for an improvement in this demand in the developed markets with the U.S. and also in China. So if you look at the price in aluminum today at the LME, there's a reflection in the market dynamics that's still a bit restrictive, right?
With the surplus we saw throughout the last year where you also have high costs in industry and a price compared to this cost that's still low. So if you look at this price we have today, it won't actually adequately compensate the industry for the levels we see in industry. But this price remains for quite a while, even with the higher costs, because there's not a more consistent demand coming from the rest of the world. So Brazil is kind of separate from this. We're not that bad yet. I think the packaging market was where we had suffered more. But for the future, it's going to really depend on the recovery of this demand. So if you look at the banks and specialists projecting prices, they're expecting a recovery in the demand up ahead.
So if this does exist, you would naturally have a recovery in the price. And then each one will have this level depending on this recovery. But the warning here is that we should really monitor this demand and consider it effectively improving from now on. Because if not, we would tend to have this continuity of this price up ahead. So the market sees there's an improvement and an improvement in prices or maybe at least an improvement in the profitability of the industry. But of course, that would depend on more consistent improvements from here on. So now we're talking about the shutdown of capacity. It's interesting to see your question. We always did this, right? In the past, we would perform the analysis between the trade-offs of selling this energy or producing. It's not something simple to do with the shutdown of capacity.
But today, if you think about all of the improvements and competitive advantages at CBA and our cost standards and even the profitability that the industry offers, although it's very low, still offers profitability to us. And the price of energy would have to be a lot higher than what we see in the market to be able to start thinking about this. So this decision is pretty far. But one example, we can always see that this MTM in the fourth quarter was because we postponed our project for potline one. And as I don't produce this aluminum, but this energy price doesn't generate this negative process. If I'm using this energy to produce aluminum in the future, then I would have all the benefit with this delta of this MTM. But that's where you really prove that it makes more sense to continue producing aluminum here.
So that's why I mentioned the decision is not something that's on our radar because the breakeven of the power costs and aluminum costs are really distant. So in practical terms, it's not something we should think of in the short term. What we need to do is to improve our results and search for other initiatives where we can have an improvement in our cash position or competitive advantages, etc., which is what we have been working on daily. Camila, I think the next question's for you, right?
Okay. Thanks, Edgard, for the questions. But on the working capital side, we also ended the year with a cash position that's very robust, BRL 1.7 billion. And throughout the year, have been having a higher consumption concentrated in the first quarter. And this is also in line with your question on CapEx.
We don't provide official guidance about this amount for the year. But when it comes to actual volume, since we're redirecting this based on our current visibility, we would have a total value that's very close to what has been 2023 because we have these issues set. We have a sustaining level that would remain. And we have a growth related to projects that we chose to continue with, as you mentioned in the presentation. So these two projects we continued with in this startup have some payment concentrations with higher cash consumption. And you can see this inverse ratio of normality because in our case, it's the opposite, right? So we would redefine the schedule and postpone things. And with this, it's a higher concentration in the first semester than what it would be in the second. So you have this robust cash position.
This is going to consider this. This makes us get back to generating more cash gradually throughout the quarters. So on the stock side, we had this divestment in line with all the efforts. We would also resume our normality when we had the instability in the first semester last year. But now we also have all these other plans that Luciano mentioned that are still on our radar to keep a balanced cash position with an FCL that's balanced out in the year. But of course, this will depend on the external factors that influence our EBITDA and the recovery of the LME and also a relevant currency issue.
Perfect, Camila. Thank you, Luciano. Thank you, everyone.
Thank you, Ed, for the question.
The next question comes from Guilherme Nippes from XP Investments. Please, Guilherme, you may proceed.
Good morning. Can you guys hear me? Thanks, Luciano, Camila, Amábile, for taking my questions. I have two here. One is a follow-up in regards to our cash position. This was probably the quarter where we would have this important release of our working capital. When we look at the previous earnings calls, we already noticed this improvement in the cash position, which also generated these results. I would like to hear what else we could expect when we consider up ahead and the cash generation. So if you could help us quantify this a little better and whatever you can do about this greater room for stock reductions and other initiatives as well to improve this cash position, that's my first question. My second question is about volumes. So you talked about the dynamics. I wanted to hear what you guys expect for volumes in 2024.
So if you consider these two points, which would be the reductions of volumes that you mentioned impacted the year of 2023 and also an improvement in recycled since that was affected by a worse dynamic in 2023. So if we could expect this kind of recovery in the volumes if you look at these two main points. Thank you so much.
Well, I can start off with some of the initiatives for the recovery plan. It's really in line with what we mentioned. We don't have the numbers now to present, but there's a lot of value in CBA's balance sheet with tax credits and optimizations. And so also the optimization of the KPIs for the normality scenario and even the optimization of the makes, etc. So even with some of these lines with more VAP products and some new developments that are customized with customers as well.
So, these are all initiatives that will establish our margins besides the price of the inputs that we have. And so I think that this consistency and discipline with our CapEx will with what we decided to continue to do. So, there's the non-operational properties and other initiatives that are macro initiatives that together add up to a pretty high value. But nothing is concentrated on a single one that we could say that's more short-term. It's an ongoing effort in this line.
Well, if I could add on to this point, maybe Camila, what you mentioned is that specifically when it comes to CapEx, there's a concentration of these disbursements in the first quarter, which is something we already expected. Here, we had some postponing, but we had two big projects entering operation now as well, which naturally will lead to the payments considering the completion of the project.
So this is why we have still a bit of a CapEx disbursement, which is going to be concentrated most of the year. As Camila mentioned, we have discussed other initiatives to balance out this and continue to work on the rest of the year. So about the volumes, your question is very interesting. So if you look at just CBA, the volumes are doing pretty well. We mentioned some segments that have been impacting this. Civil construction has been doing really well. And this year, this continues to be good. And for the auto sector with transportation as well as other segments in the market. So with recycling, as you can see the drop in volume, this is a segment where we still have a challenge. And why? Because it's more concentrated in Metalex.
Because in recycling, we have some different sales volumes at CBA overall, but especially Alux and Metalex. So Alux is mostly with the auto segment, and they're doing pretty well when it comes to volumes and results. But Metalex specifically also works with civil construction, but not the big construction projects. They work with self-construction more, which is probably the most affected by the interest rates and the economic environment in the country. So, which is probably where we have the biggest challenge. And that, of course, will depend on our movement to reduce our interest rates, which would reflect on a higher demand from this self-construction or do-it-yourself business. But for the rest of CBA, we have pretty positive perspectives for the year.
Perfect. Thank you, guys.
Thanks, Guilherme, for the question.
Well, we're reaching the end of our presentation. Since we do not have more questions, I will pass the floor back to Luciano for his final remarks. I want to thank you all for your participation. I want to say that the IR team is always available for additional questions. Luciano, please.
Thanks, Amábile. Well, once again, thanks to you all. Thanks for your participation. And one more earnings call. We're always available, me, Camila, and Amábile, and all of the IR team. And we'll see you all in the next Earnings Call. Thank you.