Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Solvay's Q1 2024 Earnings Call. My name is indeed Geoffroy d'Oultremont, I'm the Head of Investor Relations, and I'm joined here today on the call by our CEO, Philippe Kehren, and our CFO, Alexandre Blum. The call is being recorded and will be accessible for replay on the investor relations section of Solvay's website later today. I would like to remind you that the presentation includes forward-looking statements that are subject to risk and uncertainty. The slides presented in today's call are also available on our website. With that, I'll turn the call over to Philippe.
Thank you, Geoffroy, and hello, everyone. Let's start with safety. As you know, safety is a top priority for me and also for all my colleagues from the management team. Safe companies are successful companies. The beginning of the year has seen a continuing downward trend in accidents, with eight recorded in Q1 2024, compared to 10 in the last quarter. While this is encouraging, it is still not enough for me. This is why we recently took further actions. These included ongoing work to fully comply with the Solvay life-saving rules and to better address critical risks. We see clear evidence of safety messages flowing down the organization, and one of our major targets for 2024 is to increase the amount of time spent on the shop floor by all levels of management. Our target is very clear: it is zero accidents.
Safety isn't just one person's responsibility, it is a shared commitment. Our people can count on us, and we can count on them, as well, to keep focusing on safety every day. Now, Solvay has its Q1 as a standalone company behind it, and I'm personally proud of the progress we've made so far in 2024. First, we stabilized both our operations and our organization after the split. Second, we delivered solid results in the Q1. And third, we refinanced the bridge loan inherited from the separation process. Looking ahead, Solvay is now fully focused on implementing its new operating model with a senior management team, putting in place key measures necessary to rapidly deliver this new model, which will bring significant efficiency benefits. Alex will come back on the detailed Q1 financial performance, but let me first give you some market context.
We clearly continue to experience uncertain macroeconomic conditions. There is no firm market trend, while the future recovery everyone is expecting has not yet materialized. Yes, we've seen evidence of green shoots in Q1 2024 across different businesses, but not yet enough for Solvay to be confident in signaling a structural recovery at this point in time. It is too early, and we still have low visibility on the second half of the year. In this context, as management, we naturally look to ensure our teams continue to focus on our operations, and more specifically, focus on core elements of the business that are under our control: customers, costs, and cash. The customer intimacy we have built over the decades gives us a significantly better understanding of market conditions, and serving our customers remains our top strategic priority.
In the essential chemicals market, nurturing close and strategic relationships with our customers is critical to our future success. Cash and costs are also hugely important. Our EUR 265 million of underlying EBITDA and EUR 123 million of free cash flow delivered in the Q1 are precisely the result of controlling these two elements. Don't miss any opportunity on the top line and optimize the costs of today without jeopardizing tomorrow. Despite my previous comments, it does not mean that Solvay is not planting seeds to reinforce its growth potential. Look at what we achieved in Q1. We expanded the capacity in France and Italy to meet the rising demand for our bicarbonate flue gas treatment solution, SOLVAir, and enhanced the use of circular raw material across Solvay's Coatis facilities in Dombasle, France, and Rosignano, Italy.
We expanded our capacity of hydrogen peroxide in China to meet the growing demand of photovoltaic-grade hydrogen peroxide. Coatis launched its innovative bio-based, carbon-neutral Augeo cleaning products for the US and the South American markets. We signed a memorandum of understanding in La Rochelle, France, reinforcing our strategy to establish a significant manufacturing footprint for the rare earth permanent magnets value chain in Europe. Two weeks ago, we inaugurated in our plant of Rosignano, Italy, a production unit for Alve-One, an eco-friendly chemical blowing agent designed to support the thermoplastic forming industry to increase its health and safety standards for the benefits of the people and the environment. A theme that will quickly become usual in our calls is the transformation of the company. Recently, we started a thorough exercise to redefine the culture of the new Solvay. Solvay today is simpler than before the demerger.
It is an industrial company with its 45 production plants and their workers at the heart of its ecosystem, so it is key to associate our employees in that journey. Indeed, we hear every day that they are supportive of the direction we are giving to the new Solvay. We want them to embrace the strategic changes and be an integral part of our transformation. Also part of the transformation is the cost-saving plan. We didn't wait to start implementing cost savings measures, and EUR 19 million have already been delivered in the Q1 earnings. Our transformation office is now fully staffed with reallocated resources, and it's ready to support our cost savings initiatives. Let me give you some concrete examples of savings in Q1. In soda ash, we have seen yield improvements.
We also improved in Green River, Wyoming, the collection of the mine gas to use it in the dryers instead of venting or sending to incineration. We acquired a first set of 200 IoT devices that are being installed in the plants and will contribute to improve the efficiency of our processes. We have a simpler and leaner corporate organization with less layers of management than in the past. Now that we have a more consistent portfolio of activities, we launched a spend review challenge to review and improve external costs, such as maintenance. These are all examples of savings in variable and fixed costs. I could share many more examples, but we will use our Q2 earnings call to deep dive into our various initiatives and explain how we will reach the EUR 300 million target by 2028. I will now hand over to Alex for the financial review.
Thank you, Philippe. Good afternoon, everyone. Before I present the Q1 financials, I would like to take a moment to thank our finance team for their accomplishments over the past few months. They have done an outstanding job managing, at the same time, the operational split of the company, Solvay's refinancing through the bond issuance, and preparing our annual report in Q1 earnings. A big thanks to our people. Moving to the financials, let me start by repeating two important elements. First, the partial demerger was approved by Solvay shareholders at the EGM on 8 December 2023, and became effective on 1 December . As a consequence, the group presents the specialty businesses as discontinued operations for the period prior to the partial demerger in the consolidated 2023 income statement.
Second, there were some APM and scope changes starting this quarter that we already announced earlier, and on 15 April , we issued a press release with some historical and comparable data, which is available on our website. With that out of the way, let's now review our Q1 financials. To add comparison, I will comment on the organic evolution, meaning at constant scope and currency, unless otherwise stated. Let's start with Q1 sales. They were down 12% versus Q1 2023, mainly due to lower price in soda ash, but also to a lesser extent in other businesses, but solely reflecting lower energy and input costs. Volumes were slightly up in both segments, turning positive for the first time in seven quarters. You heard Philippe saying that the environment remained challenging.
This improvement in volume, which I do not see structural yet, is coming from the green shoots and restocking we mentioned, including, for example, bicarbonate, peroxide in Europe, or silica. Moving to EBITDA, it amounted to EUR 265 million in Q1. This is 14% below Q1 last year, but it is up 7% sequentially versus the restated Q4 of EUR 247 million. There are several drivers to this. As expected, the margin of our soda ash business is reduced due to lower prices. But on the other side, our saving plan is starting to yield benefits. The volume were slightly higher, and the corporate costs, which were low in Q1, at only EUR 60 million reported EBITDA, thanks to the discretionary costs that were particularly contained during the quarter.
We don't expect this to repeat when the macro and business environment will normalize, and we confirm that the annual run rate for corporate costs is still expected to be between EUR 80 and 100 million. Looking at the segment now, in Basic Chemicals on page 10. Once again, soda ash and derivatives, 18% lower sales year-on-year were entirely driven by lower prices. Soda ash volumes were essentially flat, as increased deliveries to seaborne market offset the volume, the lower demand in container glass application in Europe and North America. Bicarbonate volume were slightly positive year-on-year, driven by food and pharma applications. Peroxide sales in Q1 increased 13% year-on-year, mainly from the consolidation of the sales of Peróxidos do Brasil, as previously announced.
Organically, sales decreased 7% from full pricing linked to lower energy costs, which was partly offset by volume recovery in most end market, especially in Europe. The Q1 EBITDA of Basic Chemicals is down 22% year-on-year, but only slightly down sequentially. That is the restated basis of EUR 207 million due to lower soda ash net pricing, partly offset by slightly positive volume impact and stable fixed costs. The EBITDA margin remained at a high level of 28%. Turning to Performance Chemicals on slide 11. Silica sales for the Q1 were down 12% organically from lower prices due to formula indexation, while volume were slightly higher in both tire and consumer and industrial goods market. Coatis sales were down 12% from slightly lower volume year-on-year, but improving sequentially, especially in solvents. Finally, Special Chem.
As we phased out our thermal insulation, sales are 18% lower year-on-year. However, organically, they are broadly flat. Volume were positive in automotive and healthcare, while they were lower in electronics and other end markets. EBITDA of the segment is down 16% organically, with essentially stable volumes and fixed costs, but with a decreasing net pricing compared to the high Q1 2023, which was positively impacted by lag formula indexation, by lagging formula indexation. Moving to the free cash flow on slide 12, this is clearly one of the key achievement of Q1. With EUR 123 million of free cash flow generated in three months, we demonstrated how we can quickly react and adjust our cash spending, and particularly our discretionary CapEx. A couple of additional comments. Almost all the CapEx in Q1 were dedicated to essential CapEx.
Half of the EUR 45 million provision cash out is is related to restructuring plan that were launched before the split and other small litigation settlements. Thirdly, our tax cash out was low in Q1, and that's due to phasing of tax payment over the year. Finally, a word on the seasonality. It is also important to keep in mind that in Q2, we will have, as usual, the payment of variable remuneration negatively impacting the free cash flow. So all in all, we expect the free cash flow of Q2 to be only slightly positive. Turning to net debt on slide 13. Instead of going through the figures that should not present any surprise, I would like to come back to the refinancing of the EUR 1.5 billion bridge loan we inherited from the split.
We took advantage of the favorable market conditions at the end of March to issue a dual tranche bond with a 4-year tranche of EUR 750 million and the other 700...[missing audio]
... Twenty million benefit from fixed costs. Philippe, you talked about EUR 19 million cost savings in your speech. That might be a rounding difference, but where do I find the adverse impact from cost inflation in this chart? And staying with that chart, the EUR 8 million contribution from others, are these temporary savings, savings, or is that a net figure after deducting these cost inflation effects? The second question is on, let's say, the near-term outlook. Assuming the macro environment is unchanged in the Q2 versus the Q1, how do you see the chance that EBITDA in Q2 will be higher than the EUR 265 million EBITDA you achieved in Q1, due to, A, the normal seasonality, and B, the ongoing cost savings? And the third question is on capital employed.
It dropped from EUR 4.5 billion in Q4 to now EUR 4.1 billion in Q1, down by EUR 360 million quarter-over-quarter. And the main driver seems to be investments in associates and joint venture, which decreased by roughly EUR 300 million quarter-over-quarter. Can you elaborate on that, please? Thanks.
Thank you very much for the question. So I will start with your first one. So indeed, it's to be accurate, we're talking about EUR 19 million of structural cost savings in Q1. That's mainly half coming from variable cost savings and half coming from fixed cost savings. And I insist those are really structural cost savings. We also benefited in Q1 from some I would say non necessarily repeatable savings on our central costs, but the EUR 19 million that we are referring to are really structural savings that will repeat. On your second point, Q2. So indeed, I mean, we don't see today a big difference on our markets in terms of demand in Q2 versus Q1. We've seen some restocking effect in Q1.
We will check if this, how this evolves, you know, over the year. But we don't see any major change or any major recovery in Q2 versus Q1. However, we will continue to control our costs and our cash as we did in Q1 for Q2. So this is more or less how Q2 should look like. I don't know, Alex, if you want to complement a little bit on the first two, and then probably we will address the third question on the capital employed.
Okay. Now, maybe on the second question on guidance, I mean, we don't want to give too much of a precise guidance on Q2. I mean, we've seen over the past few months, I mean, including December last year, how quickly in such an environment you can see volumes shifting from one quarter to the other. And really, you should look at the full year guidance as being really the relevant one. We've seen geopolitical tension, climate events in Latin America. All of that can impact the quarter. On the third question, I will have to check, but normally there shouldn't be some major change in the capital employed, so maybe let me check on that and get back to you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, sir. Please go ahead, sir.
Next question, please.
Sorry about that. You're still not hearing questions. We're very sorry for that. Our next question will be coming from Alex Stewart of Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi there. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking some questions. I was interested in your free cash flow bridge. It seems that the net financing costs in that bridge were negative EUR 15 million, which seems very small in the context of your overall capital costs and well below the P&L finance charges. So I wonder if you could explain that. Secondly, I appreciate that Solvay is much more than just a soda ash company, but through 2021, 2022 and 2023, China exported an average of 300,000 tons of soda ash every quarter. In the Q1 of 2024, it imported 300,000 tons, the first real net import in years.
So with that in mind, could you tell us whether the strength in your seaborne market, in other words, the export market, was driven by a very unusually tight situation in Chinese soda ash, which was a confluence of good demand and delays in some plant startups? I'd be very interested to hear your view on that. Thank you.
Thank you. So I will probably let Alex answer the first question on the free cash flow bridge, and then I will take, I think, the question on soda ash.
Sure. No, I mean, the true in Q1, the interest cash out is a little bit lower than, I would say, the normalized interest cash out, which should be around EUR 100 million per year on a normalized basis. That was included in our forecast. I mean, this is the phasing of the interest on the bridge loan, so nothing unexpected for that. Again, keep in mind, normalized is EUR 100 million per year.
Thank you, Alex. On the question on soda ash, it's true that I think China has been a net importer of soda ash for the past six months, and that's quite unusual. I mean, we very often say that China has a limited impact on the global market because it is more or less balanced. But it's true that normally it's exporting on a net basis, let's say between 1 and 2 million tons per year. So now we see imports. Is it structural? It's difficult to say. It might be linked to the ramp up of the new capacities and the fact that the Chinese industry is already restructuring its least competitive assets. I think we are not necessarily betting on this to, you know, continue in the long run.
In our model, I would say, China is more or less has a limited impact, I would say, on the rest of the world, and we see it relatively balanced. So it's true that right now, it allows the other players to sell a little bit in the Southeast Asian market. But globally, the soda ash market will need capacities outside China in the coming years. But it does not change anything, I would say, on the view that we have on the evolution of the market.
Very interesting. Thank you. If I could just press this. So I suppose you have a sense of where your volume is going, which regions. If you were to look at Southeast Asia, compared to a historical average trend rate for Solvay. Would you be able to give us some sense of what that net import position in China is doing to your demand? Any sort of context you can give would be very helpful.
Yeah, it, it's not very significant. I mean, it's, it's true that, the dynamic, I would say, on the seaborne market and not only on, Southeast Asia, is, compensating a little bit the softness of the markets that we have today in Europe and also to some extent, in North America. But I would say it's not major, right? So it, it helps to compensate a little bit, but it's not big.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, sir. Our next question will be from Peter Clark, calling from Bernstein. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Yes, thank you. I've got two questions, please. The first one, and I hope—I, I got cut off, so I hope this wasn't asked before or you alluded to it, but the peroxide recovery in Europe. I'm just wondering how important Antwerp was within that, with the HPPO plant there, which obviously had some difficulties beforehand in terms of the market. And then, this probably has come up, but the, the soda ash business and the seaborne volumes obviously were helping the Q1. Obviously, it helped your utilization rate and overall margin or your—the profitability. Just wondering on the margin on that. And then just a last comment, actually, on Coatis. Obviously, Coatis, you saw some sequential volume recovery. That seems to be, at last, stabilizing. Just your feeling on Coatis. Thank you.
Yes, thank you very much. So indeed, I mean, peroxide went well in Q1, and not only, not only on the HPPO, so you mentioned Antwerp. So those are the plants, you know, the mega plants supplying the poly, the propylene oxide, so the polyurethane chain. It's true that these ones have run pretty high, and I think there was some restocking effect. But also the merchant segment, so the segment that is for the pulp and paper and for, you know, disinfection, this segment was also strong. So, yeah, I mean, that was a good surprise. Again, let's see if this materializes in the longer term. I think it's too early to say at this point.
As you mentioned, the seaborne market for soda ash was not bad. It was not booming. I mean, let's, let's be clear. It's just, it's not something big. Again, as I said before, it helps us a little bit compensate the softness that we see on container glass in Europe, but, but nothing really, really big. So all in all, there's no big surprise. And, your, your last question was on, on,
Coatis.
Coatis. So indeed, I think Coatis was clearly at the trough in Q4. It's picking up. I think we are optimistic for the future of the activity, and we see, in particular, our integrated chain bringing a lot of value, you know, that we are integrated both with the phenol on the solvent and on the polyamide chain, and this integration is bringing a lot of value. And we see the solvents market recovering pretty well.
Excellent. Thank you.
Thank you much, sir. We'll now be moving to Jonathan Chung, calling from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead, sir.
Hi, thanks for taking my questions. I've got two, please. First one on your P&L. You other gains and losses on net indebtedness, you recorded a EUR 10 million gain on net indebtedness versus -EUR 3 million in the prior year quarter. Can you explain what is the driver behind this gain, please? A second question is on CapEx. I think you mentioned in the start of the call, done some circular raw materials and greenify your soda ash productions. Can you give us a bit more numbers on how much of your CapEx is spent on decarbonizing your production base in Q1? And what is your expectation for the decarbonization CapEx for this year, and whether that's included in your guidance. Thank you.
Thank you very much. I will probably start with the question on the CapEx, and then, if Alex can manage to find the right answer for your first question, I will give him the floor. On the CapEx, yeah, very good question indeed. I remind you that the decarbonization roadmap is absolutely key for us, and the CapEx corresponding to the decarbonization are included in our essential CapEx. And so that's included, you know, in the envelope that we've estimated between EUR 250 to 300 million that we have to spend every year to maintain our assets, to be compliant, and also to do the energy transition.
More or less, you might remember that we communicate an amount of EUR 1.2 billion over 20 years, that we need for the energy transition. That's more or less EUR 60 million per year. Half of it is really CapEx for us, and half of that is financed through third parties, like we have already today in a few projects. So I would say in our CapEx for this year, we have more or less EUR 30 million of investments for the decarbonization.
Okay, on the first question that we find out, so this is linked to the revaluation of Syensqo share we hold for long-term incentive purpose. With the share price appreciation in Q1, it created a gain of EUR 9 million. That's the main, that's the main driver.
Thank you. And maybe I can squeeze in a just clarification question. So I think you mentioned free cash flow bridge for Q2, but I got cut off during the call. Can you just remind me just what's the moving parts in the bridge for Q2, please, when we think about cash flow?
Sure. I take this one. Yeah. What I mentioned is that Q2, you have to expect the free cash flow being slightly positive. Main reason for that is that we will have to pay variable remuneration. And on top of that, I also mentioned typically, tax was a little bit low in Q1. That's quite usual, and you have to make some payment to tax administration, typically in Q2. So these two element explains why the free cash flow should be a zero plus in Q2.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you very much, sir. Next question will be coming from Jaideep Pandya, calling from Onfield Research. Please go ahead.
Thanks a lot. I want to dig a little bit on the European side of the soda ash business. Could you tell us, like, in terms of European imports, where do you see the most competitive pressure from? Is this the US? And what is really the... You know, if I flip it around, what is the transportation cost these days to ship soda ash out of US to Europe? Is this north of $50, or is this sort of around $50? That's my first question. And the second part to the first question, on soda ash pricing really is, it looks like prices were down sort of 19% or 18% to 19% for Q1.
So could you just tell us within this now, how has been the dynamic for your really long-term contracts, your annual contracts, and then your sort of seaborne market? And then my last question, really on net pricing is, could you give us even some qualitative sense of how much was raw material/energy cost down in Q1 at a group level? Thanks a lot.
Okay, thank you very much. So regarding imports to Europe. Obviously, I mean, you know, you might know that Europe is a net exporter of soda ash. So you have, at the same time, imports and exports, but we have in Europe competitive plants, and in particular, the one that we have in Bulgaria, that is able to export anywhere in the world. The main flows imported to Europe are coming from Turkey, because the Turkish capacities in particular, those based on solution mining, are competitive. Here, you don't have any new volumes, I would say, this year versus last year. So this is a flow that has been existing since the start-up of those plants.
There is a sort of, I would say, equilibrium in place and so on. So I guess your question is probably more towards the US, from what I understand. Indeed, transportation costs are extremely high from the US because the US production sites are in Wyoming, so you need first to bring the product to the port, and then you need to put it on a ship and sail it to Europe, right? So that's why you don't see a lot of US imports. Today, historically, you've had some imports to the UK, but that's a very specific situation. You don't see a lot of imports coming from US to continental Europe. It's really minor because the logistic costs are too high.
To give you an order of magnitude, the cost to bring from Wyoming to Europe is much, much higher than the production cost in Wyoming to produce 1 ton of soda ash. So it's much more than $50 to answer your question. And our sites, after the, you know, reorganization that we've done over the past 10 years, all of our sites are the best ones on their market in terms of delivery cost. So if you take a site in France, a site in Germany, or a site in Italy, it is better than any import on a delivered basis. Now, your second question was on the evolution of the volumes, I think, between, [inaudible]
No, no, the fact that, pricing went down 19% and p art of the long-term contract-
Okay, sorry, sorry, it was on pricing. So on pricing, indeed, prices went down more or less 19% in Q1 on soda ash. And by the way... The main variation of the group's EBITDA between 2023 and 2024 is mainly coming from soda ash prices. Half of it is coming from, I would say, the decrease of our energy prices, because we have, since the European energy crisis in 2021, implemented, you know, energy clauses that automatically pass through increases and decreases on our soda ash prices. And half of it is coming from, I would say, the supply and demand equation, to give you another magnitude.
Thanks a lot. And then just on your-
There was another question. Sorry, there was another question, I think.
Yeah. I let Alex, maybe address your-
No, I think the last question was about raw material and energy impact in net pricing. I think actually you can see it now through the bridge. If you look sales bridge and the EBITDA bridge, you can see majority of the decrease in selling price is linked to energy and raw material.
Okay, all right. Thanks a lot.
Thank you much for your questions, Mr. Pandya. Our next question will come from Chetan Udeshi, calling from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks. I had a couple of questions. First one, just looking, you know, if I go back, and maybe this is for Alex, you know, you mentioned at the March conference call that you had certain delays in your separation costs. I think from memory, I had in mind EUR 200 million of separation costs, which were still to be paid out this year. It seems your actual cash out in Q1 has been much less than that. So can you remind me if there are any pending separation costs. If there are any pending costs which will flow through the cash flow in the remainder of the year, and how much is the magnitude of those costs?
The second question, I mean, there's always a lot of focus on soda ash for the right reasons. But, you know, when I look at your basic chemicals margin, if I'm not mistaken, in Q1, you did 28% EBITDA margin in this division, you know, which includes, primarily your soda ash and peroxide business. And I remember, Philippe, you've been talking about, you know, you think at least soda ash market at a trough. I'm just curious, why would this business make 28% EBITDA margin at a trough? And then you have the performance chemicals business, you know, which is also at a trough, but, you know, you can see the margins there are really weaker, on 16%. So what is the key difference between these two segments, which allow you to make much higher margins at a trough in one versus the others? Oh, sorry, other. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Chetan. I think I let Alex answer the first question, I take the second one.
Sure. All right, Chetan. So in fact, what I mentioned at the time, it was about EUR 100 million when we were looking at the bridge at the net debt at the end of 2023. And I mentioned that we were slightly lower, indeed, EUR 200 million lower than what was announced at the Capital Market Day. And that, half of that was linked to a Q2 cost that moved to 2024. So it was, we're expecting about EUR 100 million. We are trying also to optimize that. And in Q1, we paid about EUR 50 million in Q1. So yeah, we expect less than EUR 50 million to be paid over the next quarters.
Thank you. So I take the second one. Chetan, so your question on, on the margins, there are difference in the Basic Chemicals segment and the Performance Chemicals segment, and that's true. You're right to say that, at the trough, the Basic Chemicals segment is, at around 28% EBITDA margin. What you need to keep in mind is that this segment is much more capital intensive. So you need those EBITDA margins, and I would even say you need more, if you want to have investments in new capacities. Today, I would say the conditions are not there to have big investments. And you might see, I mean, except of course, the investments that are taking place in China, probably, under different assumptions. Those investments are not taking place today, yet, in the US.
I think the players are waiting for the conditions to improve a little bit. So these EBITDA, higher EBITDA margins are required to get the right level of profitability and return on capital for the new investments to take place, because these business are more capital intensive. On the performance chemical, it's much less capital intensive. And you might see that we are launching some of the investments, for example, in Rare Earths or in Silica, even though I would say the EBITDA margins are lower, because the return on capital is there.
Keep in mind also that Coatis is today really at the trough, and that when it will have recovered, and we hope to see that coming, you know, in the next months, then we will also get a positive impact on the margin for the performance chemical sector.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. We'll now move to Frank Claassen calling from Degroof Petercam. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir, good afternoon all. I've one question left on the cost savings initiatives. You achieved the EUR 19 million in the Q1. Can you elaborate what we can expect for the rest of the year? Do you have targets? What are the main projects? Maybe some phasing. Could you elaborate on this? Thank you.
Yeah, thank you very much. In fact, we launched immediately, you know, our cost saving plan, and it's true that, we already delivered EUR 19 million. And I gave some examples earlier in my presentation. We expect more savings to come quickly as well, because we are just starting, you know, our digitalization initiatives in the plants. I said we've already invested in 200 IoT in our plants, but we will continue, and we will accelerate on this point.
The other point is on the organizational changes and on the investment we'll do on our information systems. This will take a bit more time, and this will also contribute, you know, to the EUR 300 million cost savings that we want to achieve by 2028. So to answer your question, we will dedicate some time during the Q2 earnings presentation to give a full update on where we stand in terms of cost savings and the projection for 2024, in particular.
Okay, that's clear. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Claassen. Our next question is coming from Tristan Lamotte, calling from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, thanks for taking my question. Just one question, please. It's on PFAS exposure, which I know largely went to Syensqo I was wondering if you could possibly give some color on your level of remaining exposure to PFAS. Do you have any provisions outstanding for this now? And which businesses have used PFAS related chemicals, and is it just the TFA business? Thank you.
Yes. Yes, indeed, it's, it's only the TFA. So, so of course, we don't want to, to, to minimize the, the subject. We are taking this extremely seriously. It's true that all the fluoropolymer business went with Syensqo And, in the current scope of Solvay, we have one business line and, with one product and, and some derivatives, which is the TFA. TFA today is produced only, in one site of the group, in Sallanches, in France. By the way, it's the only site in Europe that is producing TFA today. TFA is considered as a PFAS, technically, from a chemical structure point of view, I would say. But it is, a two carbon molecule, so it's not a, a polymer, and in, in that aspect, it does not, accumulate in the body, you know?
So it's not the same mechanism as some of the fluoropolymers that are classified as PFAS of concern. So this is not the case for the TFA. That being said, of course, we are fully compliant. We've always been compliant on our side. We have invested to reduce the TFA emissions from our outside, and we continue to invest in order to reduce. What you need to know is that for us, it's a very small business. It's only, as I said, a production in France. And keep in mind also that it's an essential product, and it's used to produce agro and pharma products. So we need also to take that into account.
Thank you.
Thank you for the question.
Thank you very much, Mr. Lamotte. We do have a follow-up question now. It's from Jaideep Pandya of Onfield Research. Please go ahead.
Thanks a lot. It's just regarding your energy and raw material or rather, energy and electricity hedging policy. In the annual report, you guys say that, you know, you guys are always hedging the net exposure. Could you just remind us what is the hedging policy that you have? And how much, let's say, for instance, this year, you're benefiting or not benefiting from hedges of the past? Just to understand the movement for natural gas, electricity and coal.
Thank you, Jaideep. I will let Alex answer your question.
With pleasure. So energy hedging, I mean, the general framework. I mean, when we look at energy exposure, the first thing strategically is really to do the energy transition and move away from carbonized energy. That's the best way to reduce the volatility. Then we will try to hedge through commercial agreement, meaning that our selling price reflects variation of energy. That's especially true since the European energy crisis, which made it possible for producers like us to absorb the energy price increases, and on the other side, we didn't want to make a windfall profit on midstream downturn of energy prices.
So we progressively changed our contractual framework to have more natural exposure, and I think you saw it today in the bridge of sales and EBITDA, that now large parts of the variation of the selling prices is linked to energy, and to a lesser extent to raw materials. So that would be. That's the main line of direction. And this why when we say net exposure, really what we will hedge financially at the end, this is what remains between the purchase, the selling price, and certain contract we may have on site where we resell energy to an industrial partner. So we will hedge that remaining piece. We have the objective to be largely hedged financially for the coming year.
We will target, yes, to have to be largely hedged, but that's only remaining portion, and in Q1 results, you don't have significant gain on those hedges. This is more to protect us against spike of energy that could occur during a few months.
If I just can ask one more to Philippe, on any scope for like carbon sequestration projects, given maybe in Germany and France, you have quite a lot of cement producers around you. So any scope or any projects on your list right now where you're working on this? Thanks a lot.
Yes. Well, I mean, we are exploring a certain number of projects on this field. Probably not so much sequestration in Europe, because it's true that we have caverns that we could use, but those caverns are better used, I think, for more profitable activities, you know, like storage of energy. You know, with the development of renewable energy production, it's very much needed, you know, to be able to store energy in those cavities. But we are looking at CO2 capture projects, indeed, and in other region outside Europe, maybe potentially also sequestration. Yeah.
Thanks a lot. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Sorry to interrupt you, sir. We do not appear to have any questions at this time. I'd like to call back over to Mr. d'Oultremont for any additional closing remarks. Thank you.
Yes, thank you very much, and before we close, there was a question at the beginning from Martin, I think, about the ROCE calculation, the decrease of the capital employed, and more specifically about the movement in investments in associate and joint venture. Alex?
Yeah, but it's a good question. In fact, this is what we thought. So it's linked to RusVinyl of the return on capital employed is calculated as the average of four quarters. Our Russian joint venture was still there at the time. You also have to note that with the stop of energy activities, that has reduced also at the energy third-party activity, that has also contributed to reduce our capital employed.
Thank you, and thank you for your participation today in our call. The IR team of Solvay is available in the coming weeks to answer your questions, and we remind that we invite all our shareholders to vote at our general meeting on the 28 May, and that we will issue our Q2 earnings on the 31 of July. Thank you very much. Good afternoon.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Goodbye.
That will conclude today's presentation. You may now disconnect. Have a good day, and goodbye.