Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for holding. At this time, we would like to welcome everyone to CSN Mineração's conference call to present the results for the first quarter 2023. Today, we have with us the company executive officers. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded, and all participants will be in listen-only mode during the company presentation. Ensuing this, there will be a question and answer session, at which time further instructions will be given. Should any participant require assistance during this call, please press star zero to reach the operator. We have simultaneous webcast that may be accessed at the site ri.csnmineracao.com.br, where the presentation is also available. The replay of this event will be available for one week after the end of this call. Once again, you can flip through the slides at your own convenience.
Before proceeding, please bear in mind that some of the statements herein are mere expectations or trends and are based on the current assumptions and opinions of the company management. These events could differ materially from those expressed herein as they do not constitute projections. In fact, actual results, performance or events may differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements as a result of several factors, general and overall economic conditions in Brazil and other countries, interest rates and exchange rate levels, future rescheduling or prepayment of debt pegged in foreign currencies, protectionist measures in the U.S., Brazil and other countries, changes in laws and regulations, and general competitive factors at a global, regional or national basis. I would now like to turn over the floor to Mr.
Pedro Oliva, the CEO, he will present the financial and operational highlights of CSN Mineração for the period. You may proceed, Mr. Oliva.
Good morning. I would like to thank all of you for your presence today and begin with the highlights. We had a strong price realization and a sound commercial activity, boosting the quarter results, reaching BRL 2 million in EBITDA with an increase of 49%. The company went through the most critical period of rain without major impacts, maintaining its guidelines with a good outlook beginning in the second half of this year. Jointly, the dividends approved at the general meeting means that CSN Mineração will be a strong distributor of dividends of BRL 2.5 billion, corresponding to BRL 0.448 per share, to be paid as of May 17th.
In terms of ESG, as of 2023, CMIN will be evaluated by ESG rating agencies independently of the CSN group. As a result, Sustainalytics rated the company as the fourth-best among 156 steel and iron ore companies. Additionally, if you require more information, you may look at the integrated report that was launched last week. We had a production of 8.9 million tons, representing a drop of 4% vis-a-vis the first quarter of 2022, in line with seasonality of the period, but an increase of 38% vis-a-vis the same period last year. Of course, this enables us to have confidence regarding the rest of the year. We do believe there will be a production increase with a better management of fixed costs, enabling us to deliver unit costs that are lower going forward.
Regarding inventories, we had 4.6 million tons with a growth of 5%. We had foreseen even stronger sales than we had. All of this was impacted by operational difficulties in the railway. All of this seems to be normalizing going forward. When we speak about sales, the company reached 8.6 million tons, a drop also expected of 11% due to seasonality, along with that difficulty in the railways and problems in the domestic market. A growth of 24% vis-a-vis the same period last year. When it comes to the FOB net revenue, it was $92 per ton, 34% higher than in the fourth quarter of 2022, a reflection of the improvement of iron ore prices throughout the quarter. In the next slide, we show you the breakdown of our price realization.
We have an increase of 27% in terms of flat quality adjustment that was marginally better for the quarter. Here we normally have a market window that remains open for opportunity products. We're making most of that window in terms of maritime freight, a reduction of $2.4 down to $18.2, a very positive impact vis-à-vis previous periods. In terms of our exposure going forward, we have 6.45 metric tons going forward at a FOB price of $71.8, the realization will be at $82.3. This realization of $99.some is an increase of 30% for the period. COGS reach BRL 1.9 billion. This growth of 20% results from two factors, a larger volume of purchases, besides a higher volume of production that we had this year.
We are also purchasing more, along with the increase of flats, has had an impact on COGS. Of course, this increase in volume has led to an improvement of EBITDA to BRL 2 million with an adjusted margin of 49.1%. When we speak about the breakdown of what explains this variation, we have a positive impact because of the increase of flat prices, a drop in freight costs, and flats of course, also impacted the provision prices and offsetting the drop in volume and the worsening of mix during the period because of seasonality. In the next slide, you can see our CapEx of BRL 248 million for the quarter. Resources mainly allocated to the P15 project and the purchase of spare parts. Here we highlight the signature of a contract of $2.4 million for the long term.
This will enable us to allow this project to stand up and be comfortable for the company. Regarding net working capital, there was a growth because of an increase in accounts receivable and inventory impacted by the appreciation in iron ore. In the next slide, you'll see the rather comfortable cash position of the company of 9.25 million BRL. We're going back to having a net cash, a sound position to cover the amortizations that we have for a period that is lengthier than 15 years. Regarding the cash flow, we had a strong EBITDA of BRL 2 million for the quarter, and positive at BRL 379 million, mainly affected by financial expenses with hedge operations and the increase in the company's working capital. When it comes to the hedge, this is a one-off event.
We had a significant impact this quarter. Early this morning, the present day position shows that the company is gaining $3.5 million because of its hedge position. This means that beginning in April, the open position will more than offset this impact that we had during the first quarter. Very well. All of this is truly in line with what the company had expected in terms of sale of opportunity products with a market vision of the commercial group to reduce volatility and work with interesting prices that will, of course, generate good margins and opportunities for the company as a whole. On the ESG front, once again, we have a declaration of stability renewed in our dams, especially for the CSN Mina de São dams.
In March of 2023, CMIN begins to integrate the B3's ICO2 portfolio and of course, the laudable fourth position in ESG rating from Sustainalytics for steel and iron ore. We continue to work better with a drop of 84% in accident severity rate compared to the year 2022, and a drop of 62% in the attendance rate compared to the 2020 targeted base year. We have an environmental license for the TECAR Port that has increased to 70 million tons. With this, I would like to conclude the presentation, and I would like to give the floor to the Chairman of our board, Mr. Benjamin Steinbruch, that will make a comment, then we will go on to the question and answers.
Good morning to all of you, and it's very good to be here with you at the CMIN presentation of results. I would like to very quickly refer to how we foresee the evolution of CMIN, based on the present day moment. First of all, in terms of our guidance, we're quite optimistic of working at the highest maximum levels of the guidance, and perhaps we will surpass the ceiling in terms of volume. Production is doing extremely well as our purchases. In terms of cost, our perception is that there will be a drop of costs already in the second quarter because of consumption and the larger amounts that exist. We are quite comfortable in reaffirming our guidance and guaranteeing our expectations that we will reach the maximum levels set forth in the guidance.
As Pedro has mentioned, there is something different that appeared in the first quarter, the edge and something that we began at the end of last year, basically set forth to guarantee our results. In one of our less rich products, we have the concern of producing and guaranteeing the marketing. That is why we have worked with hedge beginning in January. If I'm not mistaken, the price reached $127. Proportionally, at the beginning of the year, we began to work on this to guarantee the annual production. In the first quarter, with the price increase, our results were not very good. In the second quarter, with a slight drop in prices, we have surpassed what we had projected in the first quarter. Regarding the port, it is operating very well, which is good news.
We wanted to ensure that we could have a better result because of the better purchases that we have in terms of iron ore. Besides having an improvement in Pecas Port, we had a negotiation for a port in the southeast, enabling us to have greater possibilities, partially with greater possibilities to attain our guidance. Regarding the P15 project, I would like to mention that we have $1.4 billion from a Japanese bank. All of this is very positive in terms of interest rates as well, and this will give us support to properly invest in P15 according to the schedule set forth. Regarding ESG, we have gone beyond CSN. That was in the fourth place, and now CMIN is in the fourth place of Sustainalytics.
We're always in the fourth or fifth place, which of course is something very positive, makes us enthusiastic and proves that what we have adopted in terms of ESG have worked positively. This is a very realistic vision of what we foresee for mining. We had very good results in terms of the first quarter. They will be better in the second quarter because of the reduction of cost and increase of volume and the offsetting of our hedge. We're quite optimistic when it comes to continuing the year in this very positive way for mining. Thank you all very much for your attendance and we can go on to the questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now go on to the question and answer session for investors and analysts. Should you have a question, please press star one. If your question has been answered at any point, you can withdraw from the queue by pressing star two. We request that you please lift your phone when posing the question to allow for optimal sound quality. Please hold while we pull for questions. Our first question in English is from Carlos de Alba from Morgan Stanley.
Yeah. Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. My first question has to do with the hedge volumes. Could you maybe elaborate a little bit more as to what you know, what is the size of those volumes and what is the potential impact on the second quarter? I don't know if you can share details at what levels you hedge. We can better model that aspect of your financials. The other question is with CapEx. You're very pleased to hear the comments about P15. However, the first quarter CapEx was, you know, increased but not as much as we would expected.
Could you maybe, share comments as to how do you see the profile of your CapEx in the coming quarters as you get ready to, you know, to start investing in future growth? Thank you.
Carlos, thank you for your question. Regarding your question on the hedge, between January and March, we had 5.6 million tons at an average price of $156.65. This gave us consistency because the price was between $100-$110. Since April, we have 7.2 million tons hedged at an average price of $142. This is our open position, which this morning showed or proved to be $13.2 million positive. We had a hedge for one year of 2.8 million and $113.41 with a positive accrual. When it comes to our CapEx, I do think the P15 is advancing well. We're quite satisfied with this project.
We're making strides in the negotiations and details in our infrastructure package, the second package for equipment. We expect to have something more relevant beginning in the second half of this year. The company has the expectation of a total CapEx of BRL 2 billion for 2023.
Is the CapEx profile increasing as the year progresses?
Yes. In the second quarter, we will have a more expressive growth, but greater increases beginning in the second half of this year, Carlos, so we will have an incremental CapEx during the coming quarters.
Great. Thank you, Pedro. Could you maybe repeat a little bit just the levels of the hedges that are still open? I think it's BRL 7.2 million from April to or the second quarter, and then a one-year hedge of BRL 2.8 million.
Yes. I'm sorry I was speaking too fast. April has closed, but between April and September, we have an amount of 7.2 million tons at an average price of $119.42. This has not generated any results, impact, I'm sorry, for the company.
All right, great. There was a $2.8 million open contract for one year contract, right?
12.8 million is what has been accrued between April up to September at $113. If we look at the total hedge carried out this year, it was 12.8 million tons. Part of this has already been paid off at an average price of $113.41.
All right. Great. Thank you, Pedro.
Ladies and gentlemen, we would like to remind you that should you wish to pose a question, please press star one. Our next question is from Thiago Lofiego from Bradesco BBI.
Thank you, and good morning to all of you. Still speaking about the hedge to better understand your rationale. You're going to hedge in an opportunistic fashion looking forward, or will we have a sequence of hedging, something that will eventually end up being recurrent? The second question, if you could give us more color on your cost dynamic as well as on quality, if you could share more details with us? Thank you very much. Thank you for the question. Regarding the hedge. Yes, there is that opportunistic view of the company because of the market where we still have a great deal of volatility.
The prices were consistent or better than they were last year. The frequency will depend on our market reading. I can say that because of the present-day situation, I don't expect large volumes of hedi-hedging going forward. We may have a completely different vision in coming months. Regarding costs, the increase foreseen in volume going forward will help us to reduce the fixed costs, and we will have the drop in prices of diesel, for example. When it comes to the quality front, I think that during the year, we will attain better quality and production, and we're going to continue to take to the market those opportunity products. This could generate fluctuations during the year. The clear trend, of course, is to improve and enhance quality with an increase of volume from our main plant.
We will have a transformational increase in quality once P15 begins its production. The quality materially will be much better in the coming quarters. In the coming quarters, we won't be very far from what we have presented at present. Well, thank you, Pedro. Now, at that level of iron ore prices, you're not working with a hedge. If you could speak about what you see in the market, this would be my third question. The iron ore at $34, China reopening with a great deal of activity, enhancing its consumption. What is your mindset in terms of the market for the coming quarter therefore? Well, they do have a very constructive vision. We're still in a period of volatility because of some of the closures that we observe in China.
We always have a negative margin, and in April, there has still been a great deal of pressure in the Chinese sector. On the other hand, we have a very high use of capacity of 80%, and inventories in the plants that are still very much below their historical levels of 6, 7 days. An inventory at the port, differently than what it was last year at 128 million tons. Now, after a very long period of lockdown because of COVID in China, there has been an expressive increase in the savings of the population. Despite this, and even after the opening, people are still quite cautious in terms of investments. This low degree of confidence impacts the investments of the private sector, of course. We do expect an improvement from the viewpoint of China.
During the coming three months, we believe there will be a speed up in industrial activity and in the demand for steel and much more. Because of these factors, we do have a very constructive vision. The growth of infrastructure continues at full steam vis-à-vis the same period last year. Investment in properties, of course, is still something that we are about to see. We're still dealing with volatility, but our reading going forward is very constructive. It's very possible that this was a trough that is over, and it is about to improve. Thank you. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, we would like to remind you that should you wish to pose a question, please press star one. We have no further questions, we will return the floor to Mr. Pedro Oliva, CFO and IR Officer.
Once again, I would like to thank all of you for your attendance. We're celebrating this fourth position globally in ESG from Sustainalytics. This is something, of course, that is a true reason of pride and pushes us to working ever stronger. In the coming quarters, we will have a very relevant moment, a drop of prices, a drop in the fixed costs, and a scenario that we hope will once again improve in terms of prices for the coming months. All of this allows us to have a very constructive reading for the rest of 2023. I would like to thank all of you once again for your presence. With this, we would like to end this call. Have a good day. The results conference call for CSN Mineração ends here. We would like to thank all of you for your participation.
Have a good day. You can now disconnect your lines.