Hello, everyone. Good morning, everyone. I'm Amábile Silva, the IR Director at CBA. Welcome to our E arnings Call for the Fourth Quarter of 2022. Today, we have Ricardo Carvalho, the CEO at CBA, and Luciano Alves, the CFO and Investor Relations Director. We'd like to let you know that this event is being recorded, and all participants will only be listeners during the presentation. Soon after, we'll start the Q&A session, where participants will be able to raise their hand on the platform to submit their questions by audio, or they could send their questions in writing by the Q&A button. The presentation will be available on the investor relations website. And before we proceed, I'd like to say that any statements here are just expectations or trends and are based on some hypothesis and current perspectives of the company's management.
There may be significant variations in the results and future events which do not represent forecasts. The actual results could differ significantly from those listed in these statements as a result of many factors, such as the general conditions and economic conditions in Brazil and in other countries, the interest rate levels, protectionist measures in Brazil and in other countries, changes in laws and regulations in general, competitive factors nationally, globally, or regionally. Now, I would like to pass on the floor to Ricardo Carvalho. He's going to be talking about the main highlights in the fourth quarter and in the year of 2022. Please, Ricardo.
Thank you, Amábile. Good morning, everyone. Thank you so much for participating today in another earnings call at CBA. I'd like to start off saying that we have some highlights for 2022. The last year was really involving a lot of volatility and uncertainties in the national market, international market. We've noticed that over the past few months, there was a significant increase in prices of many different raw materials that are very important, such as power, so caustic soda and other aspects, which kept this cost curve for aluminum a little higher and steeper. As a consequence, the industry's margins were very pressured. In the first semester last year, the LME was levered by the recovery and the demand, and especially the fears in the Russian metal that did not take place as expected.
With this expectation, aluminum reached $4,000 per ton, and then it dropped till the end of the year to about $2,100 per ton. It even reached this point, right? $2,100. Despite the market challenges, we were resilient, and we were able to have favorable results that were better than the average in the industry, that we've also been advancing in our strategy, performing the investments or divestments necessary, as well as entering a new markets segment with the acquisition of Alux. We also had a follow-on with the objectives of improving liquidity in the company, reaching an ADTV of an average of BRL 50 million. Besides this, CBA B3's stock entered all of the ESG indexes for B3, GPTW, ISE, and others. On ESG still, it's important to mention that CBA was listed in the climate change index as well, an important achievement and benchmark.
Finally, we announced a change in the organizational structure in the company that will start being valid from May 2023. As you all know, I won't be the CEO anymore, and I'll take on the position as a board member. My successor will be Luciano, as well as Camila Abel, which will be taking on the role of CFO and investor relations as well. Now I'll pass on the floor to Luciano, who's gonna bring in more details on the aluminum market and CBA's financial performance.
Thank you, Ricardo. Good morning, everyone. I will start giving an overview of the aluminum market globally. In 2022, we had a deficit and stocks below the levels expected to be considerable. We had a super average of 129. We could say the market's pretty much balanced because this, the results considering the energy crisis in China and Europe were offset by a slowdown in the aluminum consumption. The industry's dynamic was very different when we compare the first and second semester. In the second semester, we had an increase in inflation, peak in interest rates, and other restrictions that pressured the consumption of aluminum a lot more. That's why prices appeared to be a little more pressured. There's still some uncertainty. There's a perspective with the opening in China after the flexibility in the COVID zero policies.
There are still some other restrictions and other cases with cuts on production due to energy crisis in Yunnan. On the next slide, we can see how the premiums and prices of aluminum behaved in the last few months. In the beginning of 2023, the news on the reopening of China brought in some optimism, making the LME that was about $2,200 would go over $2,600 per ton. The recovery in the demand in China is an important driver for prices, but the speed in which this will happen is still uncertain. All around the rest of the world, the concerns with economic growth are still present, although they are smaller than a few months before, providing some kind of volatility in LME.
About the regional premiums, the averages observed in the fourth quarter were smaller than the ones in the previous quarter and in the same period of 2021. The reduction in international rates and the uncertainties on the demand made the premiums follow this drop track record in the last months. Another important factor was the decision from the American government to start the rate of 200% on Russian aluminum. That will start being applicable from March 10th onwards. These fees are gonna be applied on the aluminum, like the billets and also other aluminum sub-products. The imports of aluminum, Russian primary aluminum, were about 200,000 tons, about 5%. However, this is not that relevant. It's not clear what will be the impact for the global prices.
There was not major changes in the LME after this news. According to CRU, it's possible that the deployment of these kind of fees could generate some volatility in the American premium. On slide six, I'm gonna talk about the costs in the industry. In the fourth quarter of 2022, the margins of the smelters were still very pressured. As you can see, there's a drop of over 50% in regards to the margins in the fourth quarter of 2021. There are very little variation, although there was a drop in prices in some raw materials. Even with the drop in aluminum in the fourth quarter of 2022, prices went up again and because over 40% were operating, the refineries were operating with prices above the international costs.
When it comes to the energy prices in countries excluding China, there was a reduction in regards to the prior quarter, but prices are still high compared to the fourth quarter of 2021. In China, the price of energy went up again compared to the third quarter. There was a worsening also in the energy crisis there. Another important input is the anode paste, which is considering basically the international prices that are still high for coke and pitch. In CBA, we produce our anode paste, but we recently had a drop in the quality of this input that has been impacting the costs in our furnaces. To improve this, we developed a blend with petroleum coke and pitch. This imported material is a little more expensive.
Besides the impact in the price of the raw materials, we have this additional impact that remains up ahead. To summarize this, we still see a structure of costs that's really high for the global industry, with a good part of the smelters operating with costs above the LME. Despite this pressure, CBA remains resilient following the first quarter of the global cost curve. On the next slide, I'm gonna talk about the Brazilian market. In 2022, the aluminum demand had a small reduction, but still at very healthy levels. In 2021, the demand had gone up a lot, over 10%. There was a flexibilization in the measures for restriction in COVID, and that's why it's a pretty high comparison basis in regards to 2022.
The consumer goods sector had an influence of a small drop, but the demand for house renovations is still pressured, and both segments were really levered in 2021 after the recovery post-pandemic. Now, with the increase in inflation and deletion of the benefits, and we've noticed a correction in this demand. Some other sectors that are also performing very well, like the auto sector and the packages, especially for the flexible packaging, and the reduction of the semiconductors, the production of light vehicles went up again, benefiting the consumption of aluminum. In the fourth quarter of 2022, we had some increases in imports, but volumes are still lower than what we expected. In 2021, the level of imports were increased due to a stronger domestic demand.
When it comes to the Brazilian premium, we had a drop compared to the same period in 2021, following the same trends of the international premiums. Despite this, it's important to mention that the Brazilian premium had less volatility. In 2023, we still have a scenario of a lot of uncertainties politically and economically. The highlight for this quarter was a decision from the government to implement a fee of about 15% on imports from sheets and slates, and about 30% of the volume is imported. In the next chapter, I'm gonna talk about the performance of the financial indicators at CBA.
In the fourth quarter of 2022, the volume of sales was stable, about 122,000 tons, the drops in primary volumes were offset by an increase in recycled recyclables. In annual comparison, the volumes were very similar, with the first semester's a little weaker and recovery in the second semester. In primary goods, the volume of sales in the quarter was about 5% lower than the fourth quarter in 2021 due to the auto construction sector, which took a setback in some of the income transfer programs and increase of the inflation. With this, we had a drop in the sales of billets, this was pretty much offset with the other sales in the market. In transformed or industrialized goods, this was mainly pushed by sheets.
On the other hand, we should also mention that the increase in sheets, especially for flexible packaging, and HHF took place in this quarter. An important highlight in the recycling business with an increase of 30% sales actually considering the integration of the volumes with Alux do Brasil. On the next slide, we are going to talk about our financial indicator performance. For 2022 was a year with all-time highs for CBA with a net revenue that is consolidated about BRL 8.8 billion, an increase of 5% compared to 2021. The adjusted EBITDA is about BRL 1.6 billion, a growth of 6% compared to 2021, with an EBITDA margin of 18% stable on a net income that is historical of BRL 957 million versus BRL 838 million in 2021.
The increase of 11%, the average aluminum price in the LME, in 2022 was the main lever for this results, considering the first semester was very strong in regards to the prices and premiums, and the second semester was a little more pressured. On the other hand, you had an increase of 5%-6% in the cost of the products sold in 2022, mainly due to the inflation in the global industry as well, besides the adjustments in the average prices.
When we get into the next part with the quarter results, the net revenue reached BRL 1.9 billion in the fourth quarter, with a reduction of 19% compared to BRL 2.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2021, especially considering the reduction of BRL 415 million in the aluminum business in the comparable periods. The drop in the net revenue is mainly due to the end of the operation with the ingot trading and compared to the fourth quarter of 2021. If we consider this delay in the impacts on our sales of about 45 days, this reduction in the aluminum price is probably even higher.
On the other hand, this drop was basically partially offset by the recovery of the strategic hedge and the end of this operation that didn't occur in the fourth quarter this year. In regards to the cost of the product sold, it was pretty much stable compared to the fourth quarter in 2021, although the continuity of the inflation of some inputs will still impact the production. There was a drop of BRL 108 million due to the in the aluminum business with the end of this ingot trading business. We had an increase of BRL 132 million in the fourth quarter with the increase of energy prices due to the increase in the average price of the energy contracts.
The adjusted EBITDA was BRL 103 million in the quarter, 79% lower than the previous year. The EBITDA margin consolidated about 5% with a drop of 16 percentage points compared to the fourth quarter of 2021. Considering the impacts in the revenue and costs, we have some other accounting adjustments as well. The main adjustments are in the EBITDA, the reversal of the impairment considering the update of the ARO environmental liability in Niquelândia, and reclassification of the investments in MRN with act in this asset, and also the sale of the nickel asset in São Miguel Paulista.
Finally, the last quarter 2022 had a net loss of BRL 80 million versus net income of BRL 615 million, especially due to the drop in revenue in these periods, as I mentioned previously. In the next slide, we're going to talk about investments. The total CapEx was BRL 1 billion, showing the increase in our investment portfolio, and over half of the CapEx was invested in expansion projects, and the rest of the CapEx was split between maintenance and fixing the furnaces and hot pot lines. We've also had an upgrade in the anode paste room. Another project also for an electromechanic assembly process and also the additional production of recycled aluminum.
With the increase in recycling at Metalex and Project Rio, which are both at deployment, and they have a startup forecasted for the second semester of 2023. Well, in the next slide, I'm gonna talk about the free cashflow CBA. The free cashflow was negative by BRL 481 million in the fourth quarter and BRL 624 million in the year, where the main effect was the negative working capital variation period and the inflation of the main inputs such as the coke, pitch, soda, and gas. In the fourth quarter, especially in the working capital, was negative by BRL 58 million, with a positive effect regarding the increase in the balance of suppliers and drawee risk, and also the increase of the cost for those main inputs and the volume of suppliers related to the CapEx.
These effects were offset by the increase in the balance of the stocks and inventories, the net effect of the taxes to pay and to receive, and also the recognition of the accounts payable regarding the second installment that should be paid in 2023 due to the acquisition of Alux in the quarter. On the next slide, I'm gonna talk about our debt profile a bit. At CBA, we ended the year with a very good, comfortable capital structure with an extended debt profile and other fundraising with an ESG bias. In November, we started some funding with Finep as well to develop some projects for innovation and research, with about 109 million BRL. The total period is 10 years. In December 2022, we had the first release of 36 million BRL.
We also established 2 contracts with BNDES to have funding for the modernization of our technology in some of the pot lines, and also the deployment of a new treatment center at Metalex for scraps. Funding was also considered to be a credit facility related to the environment. We have better conditions. The release of the resources will take place as you prove the expenses, and this will take place throughout the execution of the project. It's important to mention that CBA's debt continues to be dollarized, about 89% in dollars, including the swap contract due to with the funding at BNDES, considering the IPCA in reais and the fixed rate in dollar. We ended 2022 with BRL 1.2 billion in cash, with 38% considered to be in dollars.
CBA still has a revolving credit facility of about BRL 100 million that guarantees additional liquidity for the company. It could be accessed at any moment. Finally, the net debt in December was BRL 1.7 billion, rising the leverage considering the net debt to EBITDA in the last 12 months was 1.05 times in December 2022. Now I'm gonna invite Ricardo once again to talk about some of the ESG highlights. Thank you, see you during the Q&A.
T hank you, Luciano. Now, as important ESG highlights, in the environmental front, one of the main highlights was our participation in the A-list with CDP, which represents leadership and transparency from a corporate level, and also our performance in regards to climate change. This is a worldwide benchmark as well in the aluminum industry with this rating A.
We would like to present some of the initiatives to reduce emissions in the aluminum industry contributions for a low carbon e-economy. We participated in the 27th edition of COP27, and also the first company in Brazil that adhered to the program called the First Movers Coalition, which is a partnership with the World Economic Forum and the U.S. as well focused on decarbonization. We also launched our Alenium seal, which guarantees and ensures that our aluminum is low carbon and was produced with 100% renewable energy. These are the main highlights when it comes to environmental matters. Moving on to the next slide, when we get into some of the social aspects, we reached 17% women in our company. In leadership, this was about 21%. The growth is relevant.
We ended completing 59 different initiatives from the social front. In the main areas we focus on education, public management support, and income generation. We also started participating in all the ESG B3 indexes when it comes to governance. Our first year after the IPO. In the ESG index, we were able to take on the 6th position in the ranking. This is very relevant since it's the first time we're entering this index. CBA was considered a company that's like ambassador of the 100% transparency movement for the Global Pact, and also other contracts to fund projects that have an ESG approach with Finep adding up to BRL 109 million, as well as with the National Bank for Economic Development, BNDES.
These were some of the main highlights from an ESG perspective, that we wanted to share with you today. As some of the main messages here, the average cost in industry continues to be at high levels. We had industry cost inflation that was very high last year, but CBA continues to be resilient despite this moment because we are in the first quartile. This resilience is what we can share. There still is, of course, a lot of uncertainty in regards to recovery and demand in China, and of course, keeping this kind of volatility in the prices of aluminum. The drop of the LME along with the cost pressure impacted our performance financially in the quarter.
However, on the other side, we were able to keep up firmly in our projects and our commitments for modernization and expansion, as well as our growth strategies in the company. Many other ESG achievements as well, as I mentioned. These are the main highlights that we wanted to share with you. Now I will pass the floor on to Amábile for the Q&A session so we can begin.
Thank you, Ricardo. We're going to start our Q&A session now, and I wanna remind you that you can raise your hand on the platform to submit your questions directly by audio, or you can send your questions in writing through the Q&A button as well. We have some people that already raised their hand. The first question is from Thiago Viegas from Bradesco BBI. Thiago, you may proceed.
Hi. Good morning, everyone.
Yes, we can hear you. Good morning, Thiago.
The first question I have is about energy and nickel. That has been a drag in your guys' results. What's the expectation for these two lines in the next quarters? The second question is about premiums. For this year, we should be expecting maybe as a, as a reference of Rotterdam still, or what's this premium dynamic like in 2023?
Thanks, Thiago, for the questions. For nickel, I think we didn't have that many changes. But maybe there was like an occasional impact due to the success in sales at São Miguel Paulista that impacted the fourth quarter a little more. These are occasional expenses, so we've been searching for alternatives, now on this site, in Niquelândia, which is still applicable. When it comes to energy, there's an interesting dynamic here. You can remember we have an average generation at CBA that is the same as the consumption in the company. We consume pretty much the same as we generate in energy, but on average, annually. Normally, we generate more in the first quarter, still a lot in the second quarter, but a smaller generation in the third and fourth quarter due to seasonality and the rain period in the country. This is always gonna be the dynamic.
In practical terms, whenever we generate more, we have an exceeding amount of energy, where we have the purchase of energy, and this is commercialized in the market. What happens now is that it's been a very good year, which means also that the plants have been generating a lot, not only at CBA, but the overall market. For us, of course, it's natural in the generation. On the other hand, we have an exceeding amount of energy as well. When you look at this market price, we still have very low levels, so the potential benefit you could have here also. You have some market prices as well.
As you have a market with a bigger offering, with higher rates of rain, you also have some reliance on the prospective prices that you'll have in the next months, so that this can actually reflect some of the CBA's results as well. In practical terms, generation's doing pretty well. Of course, you have this process at market prices. If I could just get back on nickel. What would be the timing for this, in your opinion, to be able to kinda clean out this line and solve these issues? I think it's very difficult to provide some timing, but we also do desire to find some kind of solution quickly. It's something we've been working on a lot.
About some of the premiums you mentioned, we always try to show that the Rotterdam premium and the Midwest premium is important because it's a important reference, but it's not the main reference in the market because it was really volatile ever since 2018 with all of the American measures in that market. Nowadays it reflects more of a local dynamic maybe than an actual international dynamic. I'd say that Rotterdam is probably more related to the local premium in Brazil. We should have some kind of correlation. It's not perfect, right? One goes up, not necessarily does the other one go up, but there's a bit of a correlation where they kind of meet at certain points.
That's where you could maybe suppose that the premium should kind of follow the European premiums. They're very similar market dynamics, and that's pretty much our vision on this matter. What about perspectives for these premiums in this year? What we had were some premiums that are on a dropping trend. In the end of last year, if you keep up with Rotterdam, they still had a drop, and now they started going up again. The premiums last year were at levels that were historically pretty high because of 2 factors. One, it's that factor where you have a, as a consequence of the pandemic and the inflation in prices, where the freight costs went up a lot, and naturally this impacts the premiums back there.
The second factor is the local demand and supply dynamic, which is influenced by a lot of extraordinary factors throughout the year. You had some premiums at bigger levels, and over time, they'll get back to like a normality. The point here is that it really depends on a supply and demand issue. Maybe abroad at this moment, they're more impacted by a reduction in demand that's very occasional, that could be recovered in the future. Here in Brazil, it's pretty stable. I would say that we are at a level where if you look at the historical levels of prices, it's a level that you could consider up ahead. Of course, this is subject to some other effects that could take place regarding depending on the variables in the market.
Okay. Thank you, Luciano. Thank you, Thiago, for your question. We have another question here. The next one comes from Guilherme Nips from XP. Guilherme, you may proceed, please.
Hi, guys. Thank Amábile for taking my questions. Good morning, Ricardo, Luciano, and everyone. Well, a question here that's more focused on costs, which I think is wee been discussed here more, and it's what most concerns the market. We've seen that CPP continued to go up a bit, maybe at a slower pace, about 3% or 4% on average in the quarter. It was lower than what went up than the impact of the last quarter, but it's still pretty high.
Since there's a bit of a delay in the CPP, to move on to the CPV, I think we could imagine that maybe in the first quarter of 2023, you guys would still have costs being pretty pressured. If I'm wrong, correct me. I would like to know, from a perspective up ahead, when we should expect some stability in these costs and an improvement in the margins. That's my first question. My second question is from the perspective of a demand dynamic, right? You split between the global market and the internal market. We saw that in the past, China really flooded the market with aluminum, which made prices drop a lot.
I wanted to understand, when you look at what you've seen, up front in the first quarter in the global scenario and even in the internal scenario, what you guys have expected in regards to the exports volumes in China and the prices in the international markets, and also from a internal demand perspective?
Thank you for the questions. About costs, so the fixed costs kind of follow the Brazilian inflation. When we look at the three main cost factors at CBA, we have electric power, alumina, and the anode paste. In the electric power, you have this behavior, which is kind of what I mentioned to Thiago before, which is it's seasonal. It's naturally you'd have moments where you have energy and power costs that are lower in the first and second quarters due to seasonality because of the rains and the hydropower plant. That's natural. We need to be careful because in this year specifically, whenever you generate more of the power plants, you also end up having a cost of generation that's lower at CBA, but have an exceeding amount that's gonna be commercialized. It depends a bit on the prices.
You'll have margins that could be higher or lower in the energy segments and commercialization of energy. That's just the warning I wanted to share. When it comes to alumina, last year was interesting, because a lot of the players in the alumina market, would produce alumina. They had a growing cost, and the caustic soda is also one of the main impacts also in the transportation costs, right? From transportation of the bauxite all the way to the factory as well. You saw this in our results, but if you're buying alumina, we even show this in our presentation, right? The alumina prices dropped last year. Basically, you had an occasional inversion in values, which is not very common, but it's because the alumina market prices were also just as pressured as the aluminum prices. It shouldn't be like this forever, right? That's kind of what happened last year.
When you look at us now, we can see that we have a cost, till the end of 2022, but from now onwards, it's really gonna depend on the behavior of the items here that I mentioned. Basically freight, natural gas, and caustic soda. I wanna remind you that from the moment when I start buying the raw materials at lower prices or more expensive prices, and this price reflects in the CPV, as you all mentioned, even if I start, buying from now on, it's gonna take a while until this is impacting our costs.
When you look at the market indicators and you see some indicators that kind of forecast the price references, eventually you may even see a drop throughout the year, but it's not going to be such a big drop like you'd be able to see in the numbers we're forecasting. Once again, it happens, but it happens in a way that it impacts our results because it takes a few months until this is actually gonna be reflected. This is a point that's important, and eventually, depending on the behavior, this could continue to follow this trend that the market's projecting. Finally, in the anode paste, it's kind of what we mentioned in the presentation. We have an effect, it's a natural effect with the increase in the fixed pitch and coke prices.
For us at CBA, there's another important factor, which is, since we have purchases of raw materials that are worse quality, we have to consider, like, the structural aspects of raw materials that are used to produce the petroleum coke we buy. We have some impacts between the costs. That was pretty much the issue that I mentioned previously, but also the needs that we had to perform a blend, so stop using a certain type of materials, considering a composition of import materials as well. This maybe had a bigger impact than others. This is a change that remains. The fact that we have this kind of quality in raw materials, we also have the need to start having to buy this import material from now on.
Also about your question, it really depends on the price component, so the cost I just mentioned as well, which will of course depend on the price dynamics a lot. We have a price of aluminum in the market which they don't compensate adequately, and we can see the industry still has high costs and a price of aluminum that is not gonna actually compensate this cost in the correct way. Our margins also, of course, depend on how the price will behave, the price and the premium will behave, right? Finally, when we talk about demand, I think the global demand really depends on China. Of course, we have uncertainties, but I think that maybe the market today is really influenced by the uncertainties coming from China.
China had a drop in demand, especially in the civil construction market. There's an expectation for the recovery of these volumes with the reopenings that they had recently. The level or the intensity of this recovery is what's going to define, eventually some kind of an improvement in the demand in the market. Since China has 60% of the market of aluminum, and the market in civil construction is very relevant as well for China, then monitoring this variable is really important to help us understand what happens with the global demand. When it comes to the supply, I think there's no major surprises. What we expected was in the market. We had the closing of the capacity that remained up until now.
We have some additional closing in the capacity, which is still marginal in China, in the Yunnan province, due to a very occasional situation with an energy crisis. In practical terms, I would say that the most important variable is the demand at this moment, and not the supply. Finally, we already talked about this in the past, but whenever we have the Brazilian market that is not demanding the products offered by CBA, we have the opportunity to export. We said we did this in the past, and this export, it was bigger in the beginning of the year and smaller than in the end of the year. In practical terms, it really depends on the market dynamics.
What we feel about in certain segments is that the market's pretty stable, so we can't see one segment being a lot worse than the other. I wanna remind you that in the year of 2021, it was very good. We had a really high basis. 2022 had a trend, then a drop in certain markets, and 2023 kind of follows the same pace. For CBA, when it comes to sales, the similar behavior with a certain seasonality in our sales. It starts smaller, and it kind of follows this growing trend, which is where our customers kind of stock up. It's natural that we would see this kind of behavior. What we're expecting is that there'd be kind of similar behavior than what we've historically had towards our sales.
Okay. Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you, Guilherme, once again for your question. Here we have one more, and it comes from Caio Greiner from BTG Pactual.
Caio, you may proceed. Hey, good morning, everyone. I would like to explore the price topic once again. We are seeing that this moment is really bad for the overall industry. What most calls our attention is how this shock in the cost curve seems to not generate much of an effect. It seems like it's not leading to so many impacts in prices. You spent quite a while explaining this, and I want to understand your more recent performance. Now, with the reopening and re-acceleration of the Chinese economy, we consider that consumption should recover. When we see the performance of aluminum versus other commodities that have a positioning that's pretty similar with a rupture in consumption chains such as copper and even steel, they're doing a lot better than aluminum throughout the year.
What I wanted to hear from you is understanding why aluminum is still behind, right? Why there's still about 50% of the cost curve operating kind of negative. I wanted to know if you have any information that could explain why this is happening specifically with aluminum. My second question is a little quicker here, is about leverage. CBA went from over 1x leverage, and it should continue to accelerate in the next quarters.
We just wanted to understand a bit of what's the tolerable level for leverage today, right? If you guys are already at a moment where the internal guidance is to preserve the cash position, or if we should start seeing some CapEx for expansion and modernization being postponed, and how you're looking at this leverage issue.
Thank you, Caio, for the questions. About pricing, it's pretty much your question is also ours. Just to bring in a little more color maybe on this topic. If you look on the fundamentals of the industry, it doesn't make sense, because in practical terms, it's maybe not compensating the global industry, right, on average. What we feel is that maybe the prices in aluminum today are a lot more influenced by macroeconomic factors than the actual industry fundamentals. That's maybe one of the explanations. The macro perspective, basically it's a bit of what we mentioned previously, which is there's a recovery in the Chinese demand as well, but apparently this is not at the expected level. In the beginning, we're expecting something a little bigger than that, right?
I think it's too early still to say if yes or no, but the pace and the expand of this is really gonna determine the behavior of the prices in the next months. I think this is a variable we need to look at carefully. All around the rest of the world, I'd say that having an offering that has pretty much no surprises because you have the same assets operating. The European assets continue to be closed, but eventually with some adjustments here that are pretty much marginal, we don't have that many changes. When you look at the demand, I would say that the scenario we see is pretty much priced in this way, and it's not much of a surprise.
In a way where we kind of focus our discussion to China, and as I mentioned, we have to really look at the civil construction market there because it's a lot more relevant than the worldwide average, where civil construction is relevant. Auto is as well, and packaging is as well. Civil construction is really the most important. If not the most important, it's probably very important. I think this is the segment we need to look at, and I wanna remind you all that for other metals, consumption is still at other moments. Aluminum comes more in at the end of a construction process, et cetera. Eventually you have this kinda delay in in regards to other metals.
About the leverage, just to remind you all, we have a financial policy that places a limit of 2 times net debt EBITDA, and we understand that this kind of management, anything between 2 times EBITDA would be ideal, which is kind of what we're gonna be searching for in a normal cycle period. Eventually we could be lower than 1 time EBITDA as we were last year, or even above 2 times EBITDA in a way where this could be managed, right? When you look at this up ahead, I see that even when I'm above the policy, we are gonna be able to bring this leverage back to more normalized levels. So for now, we're kind of moving along with our schedule for the projects. We spoke about these projects a lot throughout the years, and up until now, we have not changed their deadlines.
We were able to accelerate line three, and we've been able to follow with the other ones. Yes, this is already a big change as well that we've implemented probably, and with bigger cash generation we've had. We kind of followed this very accelerated pace to try to deliver this before expected. What's happening now recently in the market is that we had to return this pace to a little closer than what was expected. That's pretty much the dynamic we have so far. We're continuing as expected, and what we're looking at at least now, when we consider the perspectives for the business at the moment.
Great, Luciano. Thank you so much for that. Thank you, Caio, for your questions. Our next question comes from Edgar from Itaú BBA. Please, Edgar, you may proceed.
Well, good morning, everyone. Good morning, Ricardo and Luciano. Thank you for taking my questions. My first question is really just to understand a bit more about the market dynamic and competition in the internal market.
How do you consider the competitive dynamics from the domestic market considering the recovery of Alumar? Of course, we had seen the market, the national market as a market that really depended on imports in some way. How are you considering the competition when you look up ahead? Maybe these levels of imports are reducing and the volumes are gaining more share versus exports, or is the market really tighter, and maybe you'll have to lean on exports a little more. If you could explain a bit of the competitive dynamic for the internal market, that would help us a lot. The second question, guys, is, it's a bit of a follow-up from Caio's question. What's your mindset on CapEx in 2023?
I understand you're not gonna accelerate the projects more, but considering the cash generation that's a little more limited, considering the levels of aluminum in the current moments, what's your mindset towards the CapEx this year? Also follow up on costs. What's your opinion about this when you look at the consolidated results in 2023? I think throughout 2022 we had some pressure with higher prices for petroleum coke, and I understand also that you would have this blend factor with imported products. In the all-in, how are you looking at the consolidated costs of aluminum, net aluminum, liquid aluminum, production as well for 2023? That would also help if we could get an insight on that. Thank you. Okay.
When we talk about the dynamics in the market, I'm gonna split this into a few different points. I think you have this point with Alumar and imports. The perspectives we have is that you'd have a substitution in the imports. I wanna remind you all that in our case, we always focus a lot on the sale of products that have more added value. The industrialist products, the billets, ingots, and ingots press, which is pretty much a commodity, ends up being kind of like an additional sale when we look at the added value products. If you take a look at this, Brazil has always been a main importer of ingots, this is a smaller volume than the other products, and that's why the impact is also minimized.
Even if it is, in practical terms, it's really a substitution of the imports. You had a market that was more of an importer, now it's a little less, but the prices and premiums kind of follow the same dynamic. We shouldn't see major distortions because in practical terms, you'll always have an alternative to import if you would like to, but you'll also have an alternative to export if you're selling metal. I think that I would not consider there to be a big change as an assumption in the market due to this. That's pretty much the model.
When we talk about exports. Typically, for billets, we'd say that we have about 10% of our volume exported. This is an export that's recurring, and it happens especially in the American market with the sheets and other products. This is kept, so we don't have that much of a variation. What could happen is that we could maybe have some additional exports for those volumes we're not being able to sell in the internal markets. This was dropping over the year. In the first quarter, we had some exports as well with billets that are bigger and this is always going to be an alternative. Just to give you. I don't want to give a guidance here.
Whenever we have this, we would also have the alternatives to export. Our products, ingots, and billets are gonna be really well accepted in the market regardless of a, an offering demand, since it's a product with low carbon footprint. This would not be a difficulty to place the product. This is a dynamic that we would have to see because, as I mentioned, it's 10% of the exports that are relatively constant. Whenever you have this kind of occasional volume in exports, it won't be going over 2% or 3%, so in practical terms, in our total sales mix. There's a bit of stability when you look at this year-over-year in our earnings at CBA.
For CapEx, we normally don't mention a guidance, Edgar, but in practical terms, when you keep this normalized market situation, we should expect a year that is similar to last year. Of course, everything depends on some variables. Last year, when we were in a better moment in the market with better cash generation, we were able to accelerate investments. This possibility will always exist. Whenever we have additional cash generation, we'll always make a decision if it makes sense or not to accelerate the investments or future capture the risks before. Generally, we kind of follow a scenario of normality and a perspective that's very similar to what occurred last year. Last, for the costs, it really depends on the market dynamics.
Last year, we had a growth in costs over the year from the first to the fourth quarter. This was a growing cost, but it was basically having pretty high speed, so you had quick growth. When we look up ahead now and we see the perspectives in the market, even if there's some kind of a reduction, it will be smaller and it'll be more phased out. When you compare the average against the average, you have a year where you maybe have very strong growth and a year where you have a drop, but it's a little softer. Naturally, you would have a cost component that could be more impacted.
Anyways, even with higher costs, as we just mentioned, in the fourth quarter, we still are going through the first quartile and their industry is suffering just as much with the higher costs of raw materials. It's something that's impacting the whole industry, right? This is a bit of an overview on how this dynamic will take place. Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you, Edgar, for your questions once again. Guys, since we do not have other questions, we will now pass the floor on to Ricardo for his final remarks. I wanna remind you always that any additional questions can be sent to the IR team. They'll be available to support you. Ricardo.
Thank you, Amábeli. First of all, I just wanna thank you all for participation in this other earnings call as well. Also thank you all for the relationship we've had in the past two years. This is my last earnings call that I'll participate in. From May onwards, Luciano will take on as the CEO at CBA in a process for a transition that we've been working on since November when we first announced this move and this change. Luciano is not only super prepared and skillful, but qualified, but choosing him was a natural process. The board chose him naturally. The shareholders already believed and bet on him and kind of incentivizing the path CBA has been setting ever since a few years when we started some big transformations in the company that led to an IPO.
Now as we talk to you investors, I wanna thank you all once again for this opportunity and the relationship, which has always been really based on transparency and information and quite frequent as well. Camila, that appears now on, as you can see here at the video, she will be taking on as CFO in the company as well. It's a great pleasure to have her. She's already been participating in these calls with you girl for quite a while, ever since we went public. She's also extremely qualified and has a lot of experience. I just wanted to end by thanking you all and warm regards, and we'll see each other soon. Thank you.
Thank you, Ricardo. It's an honor and privilege to have been working with you. We'll continue now with you and the board. Welcome, Camila.
Thank you all, guys.
Thank you all. Have a great day.