Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the AURUBIS AG Conference Call on the occasion of the publication of the 3rd quarter results. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen only mode. The floor will be open for questions following the presentation. Let me now turn the floor over to your host, Elke Brinkmann. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, also from my side. As you heard before here, the presentation and The report and the presentation are already available on our website since early this morning. We are here together with our CEO, Roland Harring our CFO, Rainer Sarfussen and Heiko Arnot, our COO. After the presentation, All gentlemen will be available for Q and A. And now I hand over to Roland Harring.
Okay. Thanks, Elke. Also from me, welcome to our call today. And I'm very pleased to present to you, together with my colleagues, the very good 9 months figures of our Rubis this afternoon. As you can see and you have the slides in front of you, I and the presentation, We navigate we continue to navigate well through the pandemic, and we are also able to leverage and benefit from the overall very good market conditions in which we operate.
This combined with stable operating performance and The strong demand that we see for all our products leads to, from our perspective, very satisfying results. But let me start with a brief overview of the very strong 9 months figures of our fiscal year 2021. With an operating EBT of EUR 268,000,000 we more than doubled our results compared to the previous year's period. Again, market and stable operating performance were the key factors here. The corresponding ROCE, one of our key leading indicators of 13.5% shows also the strong development compared to last year's results, where ROCE was at 8.5%.
Despite the fact and you know that we have some major shutdown in our plant in Purodorp, we had to build up higher stock level. Nevertheless, our ROCE significantly improved at the end of last quarter. Market conditions in Q3 remained positive. You heard this in our last call. We still benefit from very strong good RCs.
We will come in more detail to this later. Good The availability of recycling material, in general, high metal prices and I stated it already, a very strong demand for all our Aurobus products. And if there is one negative impact on our results, it was the increasing it are the increasing energy prices that we are seeing compared for last year. Regarding net cash flow, it nearly doubled Exactly double to be precise, which is a key result of very strong earnings and also of the increased sales of our various metals, especially lead, nickel, tin and also zinc. With this performance after 9 months, we are here to confirm our expectation that the operating EBT for the total fiscal year will be within the range of €270,000,000 to €330,000,000 and that ROCE will be in the range of 9% to 12%.
And in order to preempt certainly the questions as you Probably can imagine, although referring to our call last time, we will be at the higher part of this range given the good performance that we have achieved after 9 months. Arubis is benefiting and also leveraging the integration of Berze and Berango in our smelter network. And we will today talk also about our new recycling capabilities, the new plant, Aspa, as we call it, advanced sludge processing by Arubis, which Heiko Arnold will talk more about at the second part of this presentation to give you more insight what this is all about. Although reconfirming what we stated last time, Our PIP, our performance improvement program is well on track, and we do confirm that the contribution for this fiscal year of €70,000,000 will be reached. In the news, you saw the tremendous tragic event, flooding event we had in our FRP plant in Stolberg, which was a shock to us and to all of us.
Fortunately, we were able with the early evacuation of the plant that none of our employees or business partners was hurt or suffered from any incident. However, the plant has been massively damaged and the cleaning and investigation work is ongoing. But clear, given the size of this operation and of the FRP segment, We do not expect any financial impact, although given that the damage is insured, any financial impact on the group level for this fiscal year. If we go to the next slide, you see a quick overview of the year to date figures. And clearly, revenue is quite impressive increase by 37% for the 1st 9 months compared to the period before.
Clearly, metal prices are here the main driver. And however, although gross profit increased by 25%. So strong development in markets and you heard me say this already, stable operating performance and the very Successful integration of Berse Berango delivering synergies and also increased throughput are the key drivers for this very good performance. Overall, EBT at EUR 268,000,000 nearly or no, it doubled compared to the last year and underpinning underscoring the strong performance and the very robust solid business model of Arubus. If we go to the next page, just a quick Snapshot on the CO2 and the energy.
On the left side, you can find a breakdown of the various type of energy that we require for our production process. Clearly highlighting that we have electrified Our production process already to a large extent that electricity represents today already 82% of our energy source. Having said this, compared to last year, energy prices in total increased by about EUR 27,000,000 resulting now in total energy cost of about €166,000,000 versus €139,000,000 in the last year. The significant increase, mainly coming from the electricity price, is driven by higher prices for CO2 certificates and also for cold price. On average, the CO2 prices for Q3 were about around €50 per ton versus only €21 in the respective period last year.
And also On the coal, which is an element in our pricing formula, the coal, which was at USD 43 per ton last year, was at the same quarter Q3 at USD 89 per tonne. So over here, we have a significant increase of energy cost. On the right side of the slide, you see an update of the CO2 emissions of the calendar year 2020. As I stated already, the Aruba's production process is already mainly electrified and Two thirds of our CO2 emissions are Scope 2 emissions and come from the electricity production. We are, with this, clearly on track to further reduce our CO2 footprint by replacing today's fossil based or coal based electric Energy by Renewable Energies going forward, which is a clear and we talk about this later in the sustainability part of our presentation.
It's a clear focus in our decarbonization efforts, and we will have a deeper look on this later. Coming to the market conditions on the next slide. The market conditions kept a very positive momentum. The graph quite impressively show product demand remains strong and price levels are expected to stay at very good levels also in the actual quarter. Overall, we had for concentrates A very good supply situation.
Mines are running and we have all the qualities and quantities of concentrates available to operate our smelters. With some maintenance shutdowns And some adjustments in the smelter industry, mainly in Asia, we see a slowing concentrate demand. And CRU estimates that the Chinese demand for concentrate will decrease by around 800,000 tonnes of demand in this calendar year. So a significant relief on the concentrate side, also supported by strong mine production. Clearly, high copper prices additionally incentivize mines to fully ramp up their production and even accelerate new mine projects.
Again, CRU confirmed that the global concentrate supply will increase by around 4% in 2021, and this is exactly what we see in our daily business concentrates are available. On the spot on the TCRC spot level and the buying floor that the Chinese smelter purchase team announced for this for the last quarter sorry, for the running quarter, we see that The lows that we have seen in the first half of this calendar year are behind us and numbers are going up and the floor which has been communicated is now at 55.5 for TCRCs for the concentrates. So hence, what we stated in our calls and our discussions that there will be that we have seen the bottom of TCRCs and there is The strong rationale for better TCRCs for the smelting side going forward has been confirmed by these last developments. But again, I want to underline that we are hardly active in the spot markets. Our business model is long term relationships and contract for the supply of concentrates.
So we are more observing the spot market than being active there. Talking now after concentrates about the scrap RCs. Also here, scrap markets kept the positive momentum during Q3. High metal prices overall And also a good availability of scrap number 2 and other recycling materials remained stable in this last quarter and in total we see also positive outlook. CRU, again, to have give you a reference point, estimates that the average RC for the Q2 2021, so that's what's our Q3 fiscal year, is at USD 6.55 per tonne.
So this is 180 percent higher than what was the level that CRU reported in the same quarter last year. For the rest of our fiscal year until end of September, we are completely supplied with input materials and with quantities, qualities and also with a very good price level. So the outlook for this remaining 2 months of the fiscal year are very positive, and this momentum continues also into the beginning quarter of the next fiscal year. All the positive news regarding sulfuric acid. Demand is very strong.
Price level has increased significantly And levels in spot chiller are now at $170 to $175 And although European spot prices increased to levels up to €71 to €78, FOB, So levels which are significant higher than what we have seen in the periods in the year before. ACP, Talking about our Arubis copper premium, which was set for this calendar year at US96 dollars This reflects and is supported by the market given strong demand in products and for the metals we produce, specifically copper in the current market circumstances. And as a last point, numbers you referred also in our last quarterly call. We have a long position for U. S.
Dollars of about €500,000,000 in our fiscal year. We have hedged For this fiscal year, 83 percent at a rate of 1.13%, and we have already secured 54% of our long position at a rate of 1.14% for the next fiscal year. So given this, we are benefiting and we expect positive earnings contribution from our existing U. S. Dollar hedges.
Going to the next slide and talking about Multimetal. Also here, you see and you are well aware, multi metal and the different key metals for us remained very positive due to Q3 of our fiscal year. And if I just pick on gold, demand is strong in Germany and in Europe. There's a strong demand from producers of investment bars, but also from electronic industries. And we are also We don't see any indication that this trend or this demand is going to change going forward.
Also, CRU confirms stable, a bit bearish, but still on a very high level stable outlook going forward. What I stated for gold is also true for silver. We see here for silver a strong demand very much from Industrial Economic from the Industrial Economic Recovery from Electronics, from all kind of application, so the demand for our metals, just picking on the 2, remains very strong. And with this, I would like to hand over to Rainer, who will talk about Specific numbers then.
Thanks a lot, Roland, and good afternoon also from my side. Let's talk a bit or let's have a look at the key performance indicators, the key figures of the Arubus Group. So our balance sheet remains, again, Very solid. We have an equity ratio of around 44%, a bit lower than in the last year. But given the high metal prices and a huge Increase, of course, in inventory.
That's just given here. The very good earnings ratio also contributed In our debt, which means when we purchased Metalo last year, We had a net financial debt of roughly €560,000,000 which was completely replenished within this one year. We are currently on the 30th June standing at €17,000,000 positive here. So this good financial position also provides significant room for the implementation of our strategy, of which you will hear more in the coming month in December during our Capital Markets Day. All in all, the key figures shown here remain very robust.
The equity ratio decreased, already explained, despite the fact that the equity has increased. We have, of course, a buildup in our working capital due to the standstill that we would see in P ad hoc, we started that in on Sunday, and it will last for, I think, 44 days, If I'm not mistaken, ROCE improved to 13.5%, also quite a significant increase. We have a lower capital employed here at €2,700,000,000 only, which fosters a better ROCE. The net cash flow at €332,000,000 is exactly, as already mentioned, doubled from last year and also the free cash flow with €120 EUR 2,000,000 quite significant. Looking to the segments, starting with MRP.
Here a couple of factors such as market drivers and so forth have already been explained. So let me be quite brief here again. On the operating EBT, we are at €304,000,000 and thus 63% above the previous year, mainly influenced, of course, by the significant higher refining charges for the copper scrap and, of course, substantially higher metal gains based on the metal prices that we have seen over the past month and the strong demand in all our products on all product sites. 15% ROCE target clearly exceeded. So we are at 17.3% ROCE in this segment, Very, very positive.
A look at our production figures also shows a very positive development in the 1st 9 months here. So throughput of scrap and other recycling materials increased significantly. Key factor, of course, here is that the recycling feedstock of Berse and Berango is also added now to the total figures. The concentrate throughput was slightly above previous year. Smaller repair shutdowns had an impact on the throughput in Q3.
And of course the additional planned shutdown of the anode furnace here at our site in Hamburg. The cathode production increased significantly compared to previous year. Last year was, of course, influenced still by the crane damage in Olin. This year, we have a lower cattle production in Lunen due to the ongoing refurbishment in the tank house there, which will also last for still coming the coming years. Sulfuric acid production increased in line with the concentrates, so nothing special here to mention.
But important is the product lines. So all copper products showed strong demands compared to prior year, but also In general, we have a rock production that increased by 17% year over year and shapes even by 21% year over year. So very strong demands here. And of course, the contributions already mentioned by Roland from the Performance Improvement Program also contributed to the positive results. The CapEx is more or less in line with previous year.
We are a bit Behind schedule, but there will be quite some expenses, also some investments coming now in the last quarter On our RDE, but also on the Stencil and Peterhof. So I would say nothing special to mention here. We could, However, postpone our maintenance shutdown in Lund that was originally planned for September 2021, now to the Q1 of the next year, which will have a positive impact for our last quarter. So for the current quarter 4, roughly EUR 6,000,000 effect Yes. Looking to FRP.
So here, the operating EBT of €10,000,000 year to date in the segment is Clear improved compared to the last fiscal year. And of course, that also comes from significant increases in the product sales volumes on the one side, but also very good scrap rates and scrap prices on the other. The ROCE is at roughly 5%, 4.9 Percent significantly above the prior year, of course, where we still had the influence the onetime influence on the impairment. So all in all, for the segment FRP, quite a decent number, which we see here. CapEx, nothing special to mention.
Euros 7,000,000 so more or less in line with the figures that you know from the last year, but below that. But in principle, nothing special to mention. We have or Roland has been mentioning the flooding in Stolberg. And on the next Slide I would like to show you some of the pictures in of the current status of the cleanup works that we are doing here on the site. So we had evacuated the site.
We had to evacuate the site, and we are very relieved that no employees, More family members of our employees were harmed at that point in time, so we were quite lucky on that one. And of course, we are doing the utmost to clean up and repair and to try and restart the production As fast as possible, but for sure, it will take several months as we have severe damages in Pretty much all the production lines that we are having here, all the electronics and so forth are destroyed here. A robust tollback is an essential part of the FRP segment, but only of marginal significance For the Arobus Group, the result in the total. So Stolberg contributed roughly with 2% to the consolidated sales figures in the past here. And as we assume that the damages are fully covered by insurance, Including the Business Interruption Insurance, we don't see that there will be any impact on our current financial year results.
Coming to the next page, Where we have a look at the market outlook. So all in all, nothing pretty much nothing to add To what Roland already said, just to reiterate once again, CRU and WoodMac expect the global mine production to further increase, Driven by the high incentive from the metal prices that we are seeing in the markets, that combined with the Mentioned smelter maintenance measures, we expect a further recovery of the concentrate prices in the second half in the coming months of this year. We are and we have been already able to completely supply our plants with the necessary concentrate volumes. So therefore, we do not participate here in the spot markets, and we are fully supplied By the end definitely by the end of until the end of this fiscal year and even a bit above or beyond that. Scrap RCs, our core markets here in Europe and the U.
S. Remain well supplied with material, but we foresee a normalization of the Oversupply, which means the RCs are, let's say, plateauing at a higher level, and Copper Scrap and Recycling Materials will remain available, but again, at not further increasing prices, The prices will stay at that level or go slightly below that. Production plants are also here, Well supplied, so we don't have scarcity for this fiscal year for sure and also beyond that currently we see good supply. So folic acid, the global spot market shows ongoing strong demand with very limited spot availability, which leads To further price increases, so here we see some positive effects for the next quarter. And the Markets remain, of course, as you know, that's a general disclaimer as they are pretty much spot driven, very difficult to forecast.
The copper premium currently at 96. We will continue with that, and it reflects simply the Very good product demand that we see for pretty much all our products. We have been talking about Rotten Shapes here. We have a continuous strong demand on pretty much all products. As said, Rotten Shapes And the FRP business, all of them are pretty much fully booked, which of course causes another issue with regards to our Stolberg the topic probably we will hear more about it in the Q and A session.
Now going to the next page. So we confirm our forecast here between €270,000,000 and €330,000,000 As already mentioned, Clearly, at the upper end of the guidance, also with regards to the ROCE that already has been mentioned, Please bear in mind that we have our big standstill now in our Piedag plant. So the consensus is at €324,000,000 we feel quite confident with this consensus. Let me have a look. Anything else to mention here?
I would say no. We just mentioned the standstill in Peardot. And for sure, we still continue to have impacts of higher electricity and energy prices. We have smaller scale maintenance work to be done here and there, but in total an impact of €30,000,000 to our, let's say, normalized quarterly results to be expected for the Q4. So ladies and gentlemen, with that, I would like to hand over back to Ola.
Okay. Thanks, Rainer. Coming to the next page, talking about sustainability and our commitment to the science based targets. You see in this graph that we have set ourselves ambitious targets in line with the Paris Climate Agreement. You know this initiative, it's really it intends to map company's contribution to the goal of limiting global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius in the future.
We have discussed it with the initiative, And our targets, as we have laid them out here, have now been approved and confirmed by this initiative. So we are really committed and we will reduce our absolute scope 1 and scope 2 greenhouse emissions by 50% until 2030 compared to the starting or the base year 2018. And on top, and we are in intense dialogue with all our business partners, we also committed to reduce our Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions by 24% per tonne of copper until the year 2030, again, base year 2018. Clearly, this is not an easy journey, but we are very committed and we will achieve this goal. And we will take extraordinary and very clear project steps in order to achieve this target.
And one project I just want to highlight as we have just announced this a couple of weeks ago is the construction of a PV plant in PIRDP in Bulgaria. You see some pictures on the next slide. So it's the largest in house PV plant and represents a major milestone in Bulgaria, but also for us as a company to reduce our CO2 footprint going forward. This is a plant with a peak performance or peak power of 10 megawatts, And it will contribute about 11,000 megawatts hours annually to our electricity consumption. And if we look at the Bulgarian energy and Bulgarian energy mix, which is very much, I would say, 50% based on coal fired power plant.
This PV asset will reduce the CO2 emissions by around 15,000 tonnes of CO2 per year just in this size of a PV plant. So we are very, Very proud, and we see this as a starting point in Bulgaria, and we have the ambition to further increase the amount of renewable energy, on in house produced renewable energy in our Perdop site, which has the space, which has the location to really benefit on solar produced electricity. If I go to the next slide, I think also here significant And impressive specifically compared to the worldwide CO2 emissions per tonne of copper, Arubis was already one of the leading, if not the leading company in 2013, which is the reference year we took, with only 2.3 tonnes of CO2 emitted per tonne of copper. And we have With all the activities to decarbonize, electrify and optimize our production, we have further reduced our CO2 footprint now to 1.69 tons per ton of copper. So significant Step towards reducing CO2 emissions.
And in our last quarterly calls, we talked about The different measures, it's industrial heat, it's gas cleaning systems, it's the PV, it's many, many small and larger projects, which we have implemented already in the past. And we have a very, very active agenda to further reduce this footprint towards climate neutrality in the future for our products. Coming to a different subject, also in the context of ESG, we are proud And happy to announce that Union Investments Corporate Governance Study ranked Arubus as the number one in the MDox with next to Commerzbank in the area of corporate governance. Also important to mention, and you can read this also in detail in the text, is that we moved up 4 spots compared to the last study, which was conducted by Union Investment. And it shows that we are improving, Although two words in comparison to our peers, to our marks to the other market participants.
So I think it shows that Besides strong performance financially, focusing very strong on improving our environmental footprint even further, We're also very active, and these studies confirm that we're here on the right track also to significantly move towards the governance moving the governance structure even further. And with this, I think regarding sustainability and Moving the company forward, I would like to hand over to Heiko Arnold, who will talk about an investment project in Baase. Yes.
Thanks, Forlan. Here with this project, we will present to you the first example of a growth synergy of the Metallo acquisition. Metal recycling is the core of our business here in Aruba. And with this project, we will contribute significantly to the Circular Economy. Last week, we announced, as part, the construction of the state of the art recycling facility at our BSR site in Belgium.
ASSA stands for Advanced Sludge Processing by Auroobis and is the next step towards the goal of becoming the most efficient and sustainable integrated smelter network worldwide. With Aspar, the newly developed hydrometallurgical process, our production in BASA will extract more valuable metals such as gold, silver and tin from the anode sludge and that in a more efficient and faster way. The new facility is a prime example of the synergies created by the acquisition of metallum and how the whole company now benefits in developing new innovative solutions together. Asper uses the in house recycling know how of the Werther plant and grafted into the process of other Arubic plant. Coming to the financials of this investment, we aim at spending a total CapEx of roughly €27,000,000 which is solidly financed by operating cash flow.
The expected EBITDA contribution is a high single digit €1,000,000 amount once we are in full operation. The production is scheduled to start in the financial year 2024, 2025. In total, the capacity is around 2,500 Tons of anode sludge produced from complex multi metal recycling materials at the Werze and Luellen site. Asda is taking metal recycling to the next level. We combine efficiency and speed to get even more out of it.
It's a complex process. However, recycling as many components as possible and harnessing the potential of urban mining For scrap metal, it is crucial to closing the waste loop and catering to the increased demand for metals in a resource efficient way. As far as Aurove's contribution to the circular economy. Now let me talk about the shutdown in Bulgaria. We would like to remind you that in the financial year 2021, we now are in a shutdown of our Purov in Bulgaria for boiler repairs as well as the replacement of absorption towers and heat exchangers in the sulfuric acid plant.
The shutdown that started last Sunday will take place in August, September and will last a total of 44 days. The shutdown will be used to carry out all necessary regulatory inspections, but at the same time, we are preparing for forward looking investments that will further enhance our capability for highly profitable feedstock. We are investing a total of €45,000,000 in the shutdown, which as mentioned earlier, is scheduled to last 44 days. With this 44 day shutdown, the throughput effect will be 166,000 tons of concentrate corresponding to an EBT effect in the area of €23,000,000
With
that, I would like to hand over back to our CEO, Ola Tarik.
Yes. Thanks, Heiko. And I think also important with the project that Heiko presented. I think it clearly, again, underlines how well the integration of Berzin Berango into our smelter network has progressed and that we are already today Announcing a significant or we announced this already and explaining today the significant investment and improving further the flow sheet of our company. Talking about which is leading to the discussion of our strategy And let's have a look into this group strategy process.
We have informed you that we are working on a holistic update of our strategy fact base and also conclusions. And we have progressed extremely well on that. And with this, we will give you a clear answer. We give our all stakeholders a Clear answer, how we will shape the future and how we will develop ourselves, Arubus, going forward. One thing is clear, what has been confirmed, the world needs more of the metals that we produced.
And our determination and just as far as one additional step is to become the most efficient and sustainable multi metal producer worldwide. The sufficient smelter network is the strong core of our business, and we see strong growth drivers in the circular economy and in the recycling in the future. Although given the financials of our company and the Performance, we act from a position of strength. And looking at the balance sheet, looking at our financial position, we can really make bold moves. We have decided that we will host our Capital Market Day in December, on the 6th 7th December.
And some of you might ask why only in December because we were Contemplating in our last calls that this might be in the summer time frame. But Lily, what we are actually reviewing It's the segmentation of our company because feedback from many market participants and analysts was that we should review how we report, how transparent we inform you about our company. And hence, we will Announce our strategy, details of our strategy combined with and adopted segmentation potentially And then also with the results of our full fiscal year 2021. And I we believe that this is the best foundation in order to really put in all detail our strategy and our way forward into the discussion. And we also hope And in a moment, we are optimistic that vaccination and pandemic will not limit any meetings in person.
So we are really looking forward to welcome you and meet you in person In Baase. In Baase, also the opportunity to see the site of in Belgium in December 6 or 7. More details will certainly come from our IR team in due course. And with this, I would like to thank for your attention and looking forward to your questions.
Roland and Michael and Heine. We will now open the Q and A session. And if you would like to
All right. So we have a first question here, and the question comes from Ioannis Masvoulas. Please go ahead.
Hello, good afternoon and thanks for the presentation. I've got 3 questions, I'll take them one at a time. So the first one is on MRP and looking at the EBITD bridge for Q3 relative to Q2. So EBIT was down around EUR 50,000,000 quarter over quarter despite the strength that you noted in recycling, asset prices and copper products. And surely, there has been some impact from rising energy costs and maintenance, but I still cannot explain around EUR 30,000,000 of sequential earnings decline.
Could you perhaps elaborate on the reasons for any underlying costs or other one off elements that we should take into account for MRP? Thank you.
So this is Rainer. Johannes, thanks for your question. Sure. We have changed here quarter over quarter, and the main impact comes really from the energy. You don't have fully linearized costs month on month.
It's not always the same. So we see an increase there, and we also see some Nonlinear cost development here, especially in the last quarter. But also on the other side, the input materials have been increasing. So therefore, the gross profit is in Q3 a little bit below the gross profit of the quarter before.
Thanks for that. Sorry, could you Perhaps elaborate because if I look at Energy, you show about a €5,000,000 sequential headwind at the group level? And also on input materials, could you elaborate what are the main elements there?
Well, again, it is the energy. That's for sure. It's mainly the electricity. I can't go into further details here. It is as said, we do have nonlinearized effects here That is not seen in the Q2.
That is seen now in Q3. And it is also, hopefully, Not too much an effect that we will see going forward. So that's the only answer that I can give to that.
Okay. Thank you. And a related question on the full year guidance. Again, if I look at MRP guidance for the year, Even the top end suggests lower earnings in fiscal Q4 relative to Q3. And again, the underlying dynamics around the scrap proceeds, Asset prices would suggest that earnings should be at least stable even with Energy costs that you indicated.
Again, is there an incremental headwind in fiscal Q4 beyond energy and the maintenance?
Again, I mean, we as you all know us, we are on a very conservative level here. We already said that we are at the upper end. So that's all that we can say here. And one thing is for sure, we do have the standstill in Pierdock, which will have a significant impact to our Q4 results. And yes, that's the story here for the moment.
Okay, okay. And then one last question for me on the Stolberg plant and the recent impact on the floods. It is a small asset in the Arubus portfolio, but it is a major and profitable asset for the FRP business that you're looking to divest as a package. So what do you see as a potential impact to the time line? Do you need to get this plant up and running before you're able to sell?
Or are you confident of completing the divestment while the plant gets rebuilt?
Jannis, yes, sure. So clearly, the plant is an important asset in the FRP portfolio, And it's also very important for certain customers. So we are going to rebuild. At this point in time, we are not at Position to make any statements regarding restart timing because the cleanup has been more or less Finished or is in well progressed, and the experts are now assessing what really happened to the equipment and the machinery. So it would be not correct to make any anticipation what's going to happen, when it's going to restart.
But clearly, the plant will be rebuilt and restarted. That's the clear commitment that we have made.
Understood. And there is no change to the divestment strategy
Regarding the FRP sales process, we Are, as we just stated in the last calls, we are well advanced, and we will finally announce The situation and how we are going forward with FRP in the coming weeks. So we are now at the final decision point. And due to confidentiality with the business partners we are finalizing, I cannot disclose today anything, but it will take place very soon. That's what I can promise. And then everybody has clarity what's going to happen with FRP.
Our intention with FRP doesn't change. Also with the impact on Stolberg, it's not core business of our rubies, And that's the statement we made in the past, and it's just to reconfirm.
Okay. Thanks again for the clarification. Thank you.
And the next question comes from Jatinder
A couple of questions from
my side. Just on buyback, you've got about 5 to 6 weeks remaining for the initially approved timeline. Are you thinking because you haven't been in the market share price, obviously, they're a lot higher from where you announced it. How are you thinking about the buyback from here? And would you keep the shares that you bought back into treasury?
How do you plan to use those?
No, Jatin, thanks. A valid question. As we said in the for this We are reviewing how we best invest. And as we are finalizing our strategy and going to announce, We see significant investment potential. Hence, we have not yet decided.
We are reviewing this regularly. We have not decided to restart our share buyback program. So we are reviewing this regularly, but no decision at this point in time to be announced. And regarding the sorry, the Shares in stock. The shares in stock, the shares are in stock.
We are, That's a happy shareholder of our shares.
Okay. So just to be clear, the time line for buyback is, I think, 17th September. You will announce your strategy probably at Capital Markets Day not before. So does it mean the buyback itself just gets canceled?
It's just as we have the authorization by the General Assembly, which is valid until the end of this fiscal year, Then it will just expire. It will just expire. If we again, we are reviewing this regularly. If we take a decision on this in the remaining period, The decision has not been taken, but if we are going to announce this, obviously.
Understood. Second question on treatment and refining charges. Contract negotiations for 2022, I mean, we saw some early settlements from Antofagasta, which were lower than current year's benchmark. Obviously, Benchmark has gone down for 6 years in a row. Your commentary continues to suggest that we probably have found a bottom.
But what gives you confidence that next year will be a higher settlement level versus this year's benchmark when an early settlement has been done Lower year on year.
Yes. Again, the fundamentals, as I pointed some of the key factors out, Availability of concentrate is very good. Mine production is increasing by 4%. A lot of new projects are in the pipeline going forward. And we see a slowdown or certainly no increase in concentrate demand from the largest market in China.
So all these fundamentals are there. And I don't want to speculate or comment what was done with Antofagaster And the Chinese smelter. But I think it's also quite interesting that they locked in a deal at this point in time because Antofagasta We're typically the mine company who was the last to sign something. So therefore, I think it underpins that the fundamentals are going in the right direction, and we should expect That this trend and it has bottomed out and the strength of based on the facts will show higher TCRs in the future.
Understood. And just to expand it a little bit further, I know you won't give any guidance for FY 2022 until December. But if TCRCs don't improve year on year, can the business still hold its current EBT level that we might see in FY 2021, which could be at top end or higher than top current year's guidance. Can FY 2022 maintain that level without getting help from TCRCs?
Yes. I think it's also this year, it shows that Aruba has many strong earning pillars And TCRC is one of them. We have products, we have sulfuric assets, we have metals, we have recycling. So As we saw this year, even with low TCRCs, you saw the performance, you see the performance. So you have to put it in perspective.
Okay. Thank you so much.
And the next question comes from Sebastian Zenergowicz. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good afternoon, and thanks for taking my questions as well here. I've got a first quick one and follow-up on Stolberg. You mentioned that the plant is quite important also for a couple of your customers group. Could you please just share with us maybe What is the market share broadly in the market which the plant is operating in?
Does the plant have a rather high market share. Is there any color you could provide us on that front?
Yes, sure. Happy to do so, Sebastien. So typically in automotive, they have multi supplier strategies. So there are only very few customers, and it's Tier 2, Tier 3. So we are not supplying directly to any direct automotive producer.
So typically, these customers have various sources of supply. However, for some, The Scholberg plant is quite important. What we see today is a very high solidarity In the, let's say, FRP community with all producers, and we have been able already to discuss with other market participants Some reloading, some joint production efforts and so on. So we do as an industry, not just as Arubus, We do the utmost to keep all customers up. At this point, it's too early if we are successful to achieve this.
Because again, as I mentioned, we have today we are not in the position to state the restart of assets or even the old plant as the analysis is still ongoing. But again, discussion with customers, with all market participants, with direct competitors are very constructive, and we try to solve this jointly in order to keep the industry going.
Thanks for the information. And sorry if I follow-up once again. The On the market share side, obviously, we've seen, obviously, in the past that market share, obviously, was a constraint also in some of the in your M and A talks. So I guess at least there is a chance for me the market share is at least slightly elevated. What is roughly a number?
And I appreciate it's a very small business overall company. But I mean, do we have to think about this as a 30% market share of total operation? Or is it less than that? Is there any color you could give us on that side as well?
Yes. This is quite a difficult question because however you segment the market. And FRP and or let's say, all downstream products go to so different markets, we are supplying all kind of industries. And sometimes and this was one of the challenges in the M and A or on the NG Trust discussion, it's sometimes even difficult to trace products where they are finally going to. So I beg your pardon that I'm not here giving any general statements about market shares because They would be wrong given different views on segmentation.
Okay. No problem. That's absolutely fair enough. And then moving on to your decarbonization project in Pilop. Could you give us the CapEx number for the PV project.
What is the rough magnitude we should expect for that?
Yes. We are not disclosing detailed project CapEx here for these Internal projects. So let's say, this project has been done within the budget level of the plant. But it's I would put it like this. We Decided and sourced the project at the right point in time.
So we bought all the modules. They were already on stock At the bottom of the market when demand was very low. So it's a without disclosing the number, It's not double digit. That's what I can tell you. It's, let's say, nicely below a double digit euro number, and it was a very good Purchase price that we achieved for this whole installation.
Okay, perfect. Well done then. Then I've got one last question for maybe for Mr. Hoeghus, Nossi. The cash flow has been very strong so far, and I guess it's been pretty much hitting the low end of your guidance of €350,000,000 to €400,000,000 net cash flow already.
So I'm wondering, are you still hanging on to this guidance despite the fact that the IFRS results are pretty strong? And then also maybe do you still expect to spend the full €250,000,000 CapEx budget? I guess similar to your earnings target, the bar to hit your cash flow guidance here seems to sit pretty low at this point, but maybe you can give us a quick update here as well. Thank you.
Yes, thanks. Yes, very simple. So we will for sure have some positive effects on The winding down of our net working capital, so we will now during the stance to use all our annual stocks pretty much And drive this down to the normal stock levels of our rubus at year end. So this will provide considerable cash. On the other side, we will also see quite considerable cash outs on the CapEx side.
So we will stick the EUR 200,000,000, EUR 240,000,000 EUR 250,000,000 for the full year. As already said, we have the standstill. We have some Cash outs on the RDE project and on other smaller projects. So we'll stick to that. So I wouldn't say it's a wash.
So we would see a bit more positive cash flow here towards the end of the year. In total, the net financial debt position should be around 0 or a bit better than that. It
The next question comes from Christian Oebst. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. Maybe I have this question I have is a little bit more special, something like that. So when I compare this year and your guidance, the high end is €330,000,000 on an EBT level. So winding back, it turns the clock 3 years. You already achieved that kind of EBT level during that time.
But in between, there was a tremendous effort to reduce costs and at least your Performance Improvement Program Added another €70,000,000 this year. Then you acquired Metallo. We have much higher average metal prices. And despite this fact, The EBIT will not come out higher than we had in 2017, 2018. So of course, TCRs has declined Maybe €100,000,000 or a little bit more and energy increased.
Is there something I forgot here in this very rough Comparison to the best year or to one of the best years in the past? Or is there something special on the higher cost side or less income side compared to this year?
Yes. Mr. Oates, thanks for the question. Quite a good one. So the equation, I think there is one point missing, which is Standstill or not standstill, that's the question.
I think and I'm pretty sure that in 2017, 2018, there was one year where we didn't have a standstill in the primary smelter, which, of course, contributes easily by €25,000,000 roughly or even more depending on where the stencil is. So I think that is one thing that you need to put into the equation. On the other side, the energy, the energy, the energy is Driving our costs currently in the fiscal year, we do see that quite strongly. You have seen the slide that was presented by Volant Harrings early on. So that for sure has an impact.
And all prices pretty much are going on. If we talk about wood, if we talk about Steel, whatever, you take it, all the consumables and so forth. So we do see here price increases. And of course, we are Trying to fight them with our performance improvement program, and we are doing so. And I would say we are quite successful there.
Also, if you look to the administrative stuff and the TE numbers of our company. But I think what you're missing in your equation is, in principle, the standstill that was that didn't happen in 2017, 2018.
That's right. Okay. Yes. Thank you very much for this. And another one on the cost side there.
You have this line others, of course, Is there is then including also this part of Stencil? Will all of this costs then allocated to new segments, which we will present in December? Or will this remain some kind of the others line? And is there any chance to reduce that, which is approximately, yes, between €70,000,000 €80,000,000 I would say, if we include for some kind of a normalized sense still, will you keep it at that level?
Yes. We already have removed some of the energy costs now from the others into the MRP segment. So that has happened already Because it belongs pretty much there for Ursachungs Gerecht, I would say, on the other side. So The segmentation, we will always have a corporate other segment. That's for sure.
And we will try to keep it as small as possible. But on the other segments, you Can expect a more equal and more balanced approach and definitely more transparency on that end. That's what I could answer to that question.
And then I have a last one. Thank you. And then I have a last one. It's Going towards intermediate products, so to say. So there was an idea with the integration of metallo to selling less Low Margin Intermediate Products and to improve that to higher margin products.
Do you need these investments you are currently announcing to go towards that step? Or do you have already something in place where you are selling higher margin products than before?
Yes, Christian, thanks for the question. Heiko here. Of course, one of the first Projects, where we leverage the synergies and where we extract more values from our intermediates.
The Aspart.
The Aspart project.
Perhaps just to add to what Heiko said, but other things have been already with the synergies that which we announced that we have achieved ahead of our schedule already this fiscal year. They are also partly coming from reintegrating Intermediate products, which were sold either by Arubris or by Metallo in the past, which we are now able to keep within the group, The AirNotes. For example, AirNotes. Okay. Yes,
thank you. Maybe in the future, you can give some of these examples what you've What has happened there with the integration then? Okay. Thank you.
And the next question comes from Ioannis Masfoulas. Please go ahead.
Yes, hello. Just a quick follow-up question from me. You announced The very ambitious decarbonization targets by 2,030, is there any preliminary view on associated CapEx? And within that, do you expect any government support to implement all of those initiatives? Or is it too early to give us any flavor on that?
Thank you.
Yes. The Carbonization agenda or road map is laid out until 2030 and also with ideas beyond there And clearly different to other industry and here perhaps specifically mentioning the steel industry. For us, we have already made significant steps to electrify our production, if you look at the split of energy consumption that we have. So what we have on our agenda in scope 1, which is where we have to invest, is relatively, let's call it in the total context of Arubus, is modest. That's something that we can invest and will invest in the framework of our CapEx guidance going forward.
The big challenge, but I'm very confident that we will find solutions there with the energy providers, is on scope number 2 that we can switch from Fossil based or coal based or partly coal based energy supply to renewable energies. But There is a lot of movement in these markets in renewable energies, and PPAs are now more and more available at reasonable conditions. So therefore, High level of confidence that we are going to achieve this Scope 2 reduction in the time frame, and this will not require any investments from our side. Understood. Thanks from our side.
Understood. Thank you.
We have a follow-up question from Rochus Braunecha. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thanks for taking the question. My first question is referring to electricity cost again. Can you give us a bit of a sense How the progressive cost inflation was for your electricity cost spill between The second half and the first half of the fiscal? And what do you think about next year in terms of magnitude of cost increase?
Hello?
So, yes, we are just elaborating on it. We don't have the things that
happened here. We have our fingertips, yes.
What we have is, Of course, the slide that has been presented year over year by Roland, and for sure, it will be in the next year, there will be another, That's a 2 digit €1,000,000 increase again in Prices for electricity and energy, no?
Yes. But there's one thing you have also to take into consideration that we have been Successful in maintaining the eligibility of the copper sector for CO2 compensation, but this Compensation comes always with a 2 years delay. So that means today, in this fiscal year, we received The compensation for 2 years ago where CO2 certificate prices had been significantly lower. So that means there's a bit of a, let's say, rolling forward effect. We The timing effect.
So we see now in this fiscal year higher numbers for electricity, but they will be partly, let's say, compensated at a later point in time.
Okay. Understood. Let me come back to an earlier question on profitability. I think I still maybe didn't Got the point yet on the sequential changes that were dropping profitability. When you look at your gross profit, which was down about EUR 40,000,000, quote on quarter, despite higher realized RCs and higher sulfuric acid prices, so there is to in some way kind of a €50,000,000 drop off quarter on quarter, which I'm not sure whether this can be explained by electricity cost increases.
Is it possible To help us to what extent metal gains dropped off in the quarter or what are other meaningful contributors? But I think I still couldn't really allocate where I should see those profitability slump.
Mr. Braun Heizer, Reiner Schoeben here once again. I just can reiterate on the answer that I have given earlier. So you have not necessarily linear approach with regards to energy prices between Q2 and Q3. That is something I said.
That also means or Implicitly means that it's not necessarily going forward to be considered in the same extent. There is an effect from Energy, and there is an effect from the input materials that we were having In Q3, that led to that reduced gross profit situation in Q3 compared to would decrease the overall revenue. Unfortunately, we are, as you know, not disclosing anything With regards to our metal results, that's something that we would be would keep confident, yes.
Okay. Yes, it's just the kind of big swings which are possible by this kind of fact, which is quite difficult to Built that into a model. The other question is on the postponed maintenance shutdown in Lundin. I think So you decided to postpone that by a quarter. What was the driver for that?
Because usually my experience was that you usually stick to your original maintenance schedules.
Yes. Maybe I take that question. To elaborate on a shutdown schedule based on experience, but you can measure your refractory consumption And we have done so and we found out that we feel very comfortable extending this shutdown period beyond The originally scheduled date, and that is a normal development in operational excellence.
In fact, if I may add, it shows that we are now much precise on our condition based maintenance so that we are able to analyze The assets and we saw that it would be too early to take this asset into maintenance and that it's well suited To continue another quarter with the expected performance before we take this into maintenance. So that's probably something with the sophistication in our Maintenance work that we will see not the very big shutdowns, but on smaller shutdown, we certainly will Use more flexibility when we are starting these revamps.
Okay. Right. Finally, on the comments you made on the outlook for less tight less ample copper scrap supply, The kind of signals you send, is that more triggered by the last Slight move down in the European Copper RC? Or is this more kind of high level based on what you expect In terms of Chinese scrapping ports or other things?
Important here is to mention that Number 2 was the officially, let's say, discussed category is only one category in our overall portfolio. And also with the integration of Berde and Berango, We even strengthened our portfolio of less metal containing, more complicated, more RC carrying materials, for which we have also mostly longer term supply contracts in place. So therefore, Sure. Scrap number 2 and DRCs is not unimportant, but it's only one part in our portfolio
going forward.
So Availability, also given the metal prices and also the strong trend everywhere to recycling to circular economy, we see A continued very good supply of all kind of scrap qualities. And within our smelter network, we have the ability to Optimize the input mix depending also on pricing and availability of different qualities.
Okay. That's it. Thank you very much.
Okay. So at the moment, there seem to be no further questions. Let's just wait a couple more seconds. Okay. So we have no further questions.
So let me hand back over to your host some closing remarks.
Yes. Thank you. It remains to say that our analyst call and our fiscal year results will take place on December 3. Until then, enjoy the last days of summer, and please stay healthy, and thanks for your