Dear ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the conference call of Wacker Chemie AG. At our customer's request, this conference will be recorded. As a reminder, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. If any participant has difficulties during the conference, please press star key followed by the zero on your telephone for an operator assistance. May I now hand you over to Jörg Hoffmann, who will lead you through this conference. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Welcome to Wacker Chemie AG Conference Call on our Q1 2022 results. Dr. Christian Hartel, our CEO, and Dr. Tobias Ohler, our CFO, will take you through our prepared slides in a minute. The presentation is available on our webpage under the caption Investor Relations. Please note that management comments during this call will include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. I encourage you to review the safe harbor statement in today's press release and presentation and/or annual report regarding risk factors. All documents mentioned are available on our webpage. Chris?
Welcome, everyone. Good to be with you again. The war in Eastern Europe is now lasting for more than two months. Our thoughts are with the victims of this aggression. While the war has led to unspeakable suffering, it has also impacted global energy and commodity markets. We are feeling the effects already. Energy prices are up to levels previously unseen. All our raw materials charts spike up. If left unchanged, this development, especially in energy pricing, challenges the very fabric of Germany's industrial base. For the Q1 of 2022, we report sales of EUR 2.1 billion, up 53% year-over-year. Higher prices in chemicals and Polysilicon were the primary drivers for this. In addition, volume growth and mix improvements in chemicals supported our performance as well.
EBITDA more than doubled to EUR 644 million year-over-year and showed strong growth over our record Q4 results. Polysilicon stayed tight and benefited from higher prices, but was held back by higher energy and silicon metal costs compared to the previous quarter. Both Silicones and Polymers saw strong demand and delivered both year-over-year and consecutive growth. Both divisions benefited from higher prices. As we spoke about on the last call, Silicones, as well as Polysilicon, benefited from trailing raw material costs. Although our Q1 results are ahead of plan, risks for the remainder of 2022 are much higher today. On the input side, we now expect material and energy costs to be EUR 100 million higher than our initial estimate. For the full year, we see them at over EUR 1.1 billion higher.
Global supply chains continue to struggle to normalize. All our segments are reporting logistics issues. From freight container availability to congested ports, shipping has become more difficult and logistics costs are going up. On the other hand, we see the availability of silicon metal on the global markets somewhat improving, and prices are beginning to moderate from peaks seen at the end of last year. To counter cost headwinds, we have actively raised prices in our chemical segments. We have announced 30% price increase in Silicones in the Q4 of last year. Beginning April, we raised once again our prices in Polymers. We appreciate that price increases are hard on our customers, but we see them as necessary. Only by sharing this burden with our customers will we be able to invest in much needed new capacities to support their growth.
Demand is at a high level, and our pricing initiatives have been fast and very effective. Today, we raise our full year sales forecast from EUR 7 billion to approximately EUR 7.5 billion. Pricing initiatives in chemicals will allow us to grow faster sales while maintaining margins at the prior year's level. This should allow us to deliver significant absolute EBITDA growth in chemicals year-over-year. We reconfirm our group EBITDA in the range of EUR 1.2 billion-EUR 1.5 billion for the full year, and we see our results trending towards the upper end of that range. Despite the significant headwinds from raw material and energy costs, we confirm our EBITDA range. Also, in light of the largely debated demand uncertainty for the remainder of the year arising from geopolitics, the pandemic, and inflation. The Q1 was exceptional.
While the strong performance reflects the strength of our businesses, it does not show the extent to which raw materials and higher energy costs will hold us back as the year progresses. Nevertheless, we have excellent and resilient businesses, the right strategies and the right products, and we are investing in the means to serve our customers' growth even better. Our teams continue to deliver and are doing a tremendous job. Ladies and gentlemen, at our CMD in March, we introduced new 2030 targets. We enjoyed seeing our covering analysts and the in-depth discussions we held following these events while on our first physical roadshow since the beginning of 2020. Looking to the next pages in the presentation deck, please allow me to recap on the key takeaways before I hand over to Tobias.
Our key message was that we strive to accelerate proven successes while maintaining resilience. We started our presentation with a summary of what we have achieved so far. We completed the leverage phase in which we promised to invest below depreciation, earn attractive margins, and focus on cash generation. We have done our homework. In Chemicals, that is a transformation of our business to a specialty focus, demonstrating strong profitability and leveraging regional presence and focused investments. For Silicones, which I believe is the best and the most versatile product on the planet, success comes from performance and our innovative strength. We have truly transformed ourselves to be the fully integrated specialty player in the market. In Polymers, we advanced the transformation to smart construction. We support our customers in the regions like no other player and offer customized solutions. Essentially, we are deploying a specialty strategy.
In Biosolutions, we set the foundation for a leading microbial and advanced medicines CDMO. In Polysilicon, we focus on high-end applications, achieving a leading market position as a key supplier to the semiconductor industry. We did our homework on costs. The next slide, page four, now speaks about our way forward. We will accelerate growth in Chemicals. The key growth drivers we are addressing here are sustainability, close customer interaction, as well as regional growth. In Biosolutions, we will grow our biotechnology business and leverage innovation. A combination of demand pull, innovation, and some M&A gets us there. In Polysilicon, we seek to solidify and expand our leading position in the semi market, benefiting from strong growth in the market segments where we perform best, our intense cooperation with customers, and the leading sustainability profile. You can see our respective 2030 targets. These targets are ambitious.
We have demonstrated in the past and today that we can perform at this level, and we will continue to do so. Page five breaks down our long-term targets into shorter range targets until 2026. Here you see our key initiatives, our scheduled CapEx to achieve our targets, and capital-based return targets at the top range of our industry. To meet our customers' growing demands, we need to invest more than in the past in Chemicals. We will increase CapEx in Chemicals to more than EUR 400 million per year globally. This will create an even more resilient portfolio. On page six, you see that maintaining resilience is key to us. Our team pursues sourcing and pricing strategies to protect our margins. We keep working on our cost base, both structurally and from an efficiency perspective. Our foundation for resilient growth is our very strong balance sheet.
Page seven covers our capital allocation priorities. Clear number one is growth. Given our strong growth opportunities, we need to invest in organic and inorganic growth. In Chemicals, we will accelerate capacity growth, focusing on downstream, more specialized parts of the value chain with balanced upstream support only for specialty growth. We are talking about a portfolio of many mid-sized projects and no major greenfield investments. M&A in Biosolutions will be most likely what we've done in the past, early-stage investments with a strong view on synergies with our portfolio. In Chemicals, we watch out for value chain extensions, like the acquisition of SICO, which we will close in the Q2 of this year. Number two of our priorities for capital allocation is shareholder returns. We are a shareholder-oriented company and pledge to pay out about half of our net income to our shareholders.
In line with this policy, we propose an EUR 8 per share dividend to the AGM next month. Lastly, we are making progress on pension reform, switching new entrants to a fully funded defined contribution system. Things here are underway, and you will hear more once we have the required regulatory administrative approvals. Coming to page eight, that summarizes it all. We have the means to get to our 2030 targets. We will grow through volume and mix at almost twice our historic rate. We will earn 2 times our pre-tax cost of capital, which we estimate at 10%. We strive for EBITDA margins above 20%, and we will reduce our CO2 equivalent emissions to half by 2030. You see, we have set ourselves both ambitious targets and attractive targets. Going forward, you should expect faster growth, bolder moves, and higher profitability while maintaining resilience.
Wacker is a great company with a great future, and with this, I would like to hand over to Tobias.
Thank you, Chris. Welcome, everybody. I will now walk you through our Q1 performance and will provide an outlook as much as possible into Q2. Let's begin with the P&L. Group sales increased by 53% over Q1 2021. The dominating factor here was pricing with 43%, while volume and mix contributed 6% to sales growth. Gross profit more than doubled to about EUR 670 million, despite raw material and energy headwinds of more than EUR 250 million in Q1 alone. Our share in Siltronic contributed EUR 29 million to EBITDA. Q1 EBITDA was EUR 644 million following price increases, positive mix effects, and trailing raw material costs. Net income for the period was EUR 403 million. Earnings per share amounted to EUR 7.92. Moving on to page 10, the balance sheet.
You see here an even improved balance sheet with a higher equity ratio of now about 46%. Rather big changes in pensions. Our liabilities decreased by over EUR 450 million to EUR 1.4 billion from German discount rates moving from 1.24% to 1.87%. Net of the related deferred tax asset, our pension liabilities amounted to about EUR 1.1 billion at the end of Q1. Now let's look at Silicones on page 11. Silicones achieved an outstanding quarter with very strong demand across all sectors. Sales came in at EUR 921 million, 50% higher than last year. Benefiting from price, volume, and mix, and significant tailwind from raw materials, the EBITDA margin exceeded 30%.
While the strong demand will support our business into the year, we do not expect to maintain margins at this level as escalating raw material and energy costs catch up with us. For the full year, we see sales now higher than before at EUR 3.3 billion, with margins on par with last year. While we see robust demand for our specialties, we account for increasing macroeconomic risks going forward. On page 12, Polymers recorded Q1 sales of EUR 580 million on continued strong demand. Pricing initiatives addressed rises in raw materials, energies, and logistics. EBITDA came in at EUR 93 million, recouping some of the lost margin from last year. Looking into the rest of the year, we now see sales higher than before at EUR 2.1 billion, with margins at last year's level.
Polymers should benefit from higher volumes in all regions and capacity availability in China later in the year. Polymers will seek to compensate further cost increases with higher prices as demonstrated last year. On page 13, Biosolutions recorded sales of EUR 77 million, with especially bio-ingredients contributing. EBITDA was held back by a force majeure in life science chemicals and integration costs of our new site in San Diego. During the quarter, the German government awarded Wacker and CordenPharma a contract to provide up to 100 million doses of mRNA vaccines as part of their federal pandemic preparedness plan. This contract testifies our abilities and helps us to increase our capacities for mRNA medicines. For the full year, our forecast is unchanged. We continue to see a low double-digit percentage increase in sales with an EBITDA margin slightly below last year.
Key drivers here are the effects of the force majeure in life science chemicals and investments in biopharma digitalization. Polysilicon on page 14 achieved sales of EUR 525 million on the back of sequentially higher prices. EBITDA was EUR 225 million. Results were affected by substantially higher energy and silicon metal costs. Given the operating cycle, trailing raw material costs still provided some protection. We increased our sales target for the full year in Polysilicon. We now see sales higher than before at about EUR 1.8 billion with an EBITDA trending towards the upper end of our range between EUR 330 million-EUR 500 million. As said before, we see this year much higher energy and silicon metal costs holding back our performance. Moving on to the net financial position on page 15.
We ended the Q1 with a net financial asset of EUR 521 million. This is at about the level of the end of last year. With strong cash flow generation from operating activities, we were able to fully fund not only investments in our operations with the required higher working capital, but also the SICO acquisition announced last year. We expect to close soon and consolidate the business in the Q2. SICO will be immediately earnings accretive and expand our specialty portfolio and strategic position in the Chinese market. On page 16, we summarize our group guidance for 2022. As Chris pointed out, we now expect sales of approximately EUR 7.5 billion with an EBITDA trending towards the upper end of the range of EUR 1.2 billion-EUR 1.5 billion.
Looking at the start of Q2, we see our businesses continuing steadily. In chemicals, we are seeing some moderation in demand against a very strong Q1, as well as massive logistics issues and some pandemic effects. Headwinds from energy and raw materials keep mounting. Trailing raw material costs, which benefited silicones and polysilicon businesses are waning. As you are all aware, at this time it is difficult to forecast given the massive geopolitical uncertainties, unknown impacts from consumer price inflation, and an unclear path of the world economy looking to recover from COVID, with impacts still ongoing from Chinese lockdowns. The underlying trends in our business remain intact and demand remains at a high level, and we will have to look at our forecast again towards the end of Q2 when visibility is hopefully better than today. Operator, we're now ready to begin the Q&A.
Dear ladies and gentlemen, we will now start the Q&A section. If you have a question for our speakers, please dial zero and one on the telephone keypad now to enter the queue. Once your name has been announced, you can ask a question. If you find your question has answered before it's your turn to speak, you can dial zero and two to cancel your question. If you're using speaker equipment today, please lift the handset before making your selection. One moment please for the first question. We have a first question. It's from Charlie Webb of Morgan Stanley. The line is now open for you.
Afternoon, everyone. Thank you very much for taking the question. Maybe just a couple from me to kick things off. First, just on how we think about, I guess, demand looking through the year. Obviously, you talk about lots of uncertainties in terms of the geopolitical side of things. I guess also we have the China lockdown issues that seem to be escalating a little bit through China. Just trying to understand how do you see the demand today? Are there any pockets where you are seeing some uncertainty on your customer side, or is it all still, as you say, very strong, people still filling up the channels or demand underlying that is still strong? Just some thoughts there.
In particular, I think, yeah, the China lockdowns, given I guess an important market for silicones, is Asia, is China. T hat's question number one, just what you're seeing there and expectations. Then just maybe secondly, just thinking about, you know, the guidance, EBITDA. When we think about obviously Q1 will probably represent something of the peak, given that that lag effect you mentioned in the silicone side, versus the raws. J ust how do we think about it for the full year? I mean, clearly to get to your guidance, even the upper end, we have to assume quite a significant deterioration in profitability. W hat has to happen for that to be the case? I mean, you've cut through these price increases. Raw materials are going up.
Inflation is going up. Yeah, what has to happen to see that real deterioration into the second half? Do you anticipate any of that? Can you see any line of sight on any of that, or is it just, you know, we wanna be cautious, it could happen and therefore, you know, this is where we come out?
Okay. Thank you, Charlie. This is Christian. I would take the first question on what you said about the demand throughout the year. Well, we started with an exceptional Q1, and we also see a very high order entry, you know, for almost all our businesses, you can say. We see that also going into the Q2. If you talk about the second half of this year, and of course we are aware that if you look at customer confidence, for example, these numbers really go down. We see our customers more talking about it to us, but if you look at our order books and what customers order at the moment is still at a very high level.
China lockdown. Sorry, I forgot that one. At the moment, similar answer. We see the China lockdown, we see an effect on the logistics, but so far, we don't see anything on the demand side from the China lockdown. Still strong also in China. For the full year, maybe I'd start with the Q2 first. As Chris said, we see demand continuing strong across our portfolio, but we see some moderation against the exceptionally strong Q1. In addition, we also see sequentially higher raw material and energy costs. Don't forget that we won't see any further trailing effect. In addition, we have higher prices.
We are often talking just about raw material and energy, but there's more inflation in all other cost lines, going from maintenance to logistics. I think we have demonstrating pricing power, and we have demonstrating that our chemicals and our overall setup is resilient. Just take the example of Polymers raising prices at the beginning of April, which will become effective beginning of May. There's a little bit of a lag, but there's continued pricing power. That means that group EBITDA in the Q2 should be lower sequentially. For the full year, as Chris pointed out, I mean, we had a much stronger start to the year than expected, but we also have much higher risks today than expected.
In addition to the inflation on the cost side, we really account for some uncertainty from the consumer sentiment that we cannot really grasp right now from our customers' behavior, but which is talked so much about. We reflect this moderation in the second half, and that's why we come up with a guidance which clearly points to the upper end of the range. We will look into it when we progress to the Q2 and when we see how things develop over time. Hopefully we will have better visibility in the Q2 .
Maybe just kind of really quick following up on your first point, all very helpful. When you have your clients talking about a slowdown in demand, but obviously continuing to order at a decent pace, are there any other periods of time where that's been, you know, like it is today? I think, can you look back to other years, other periods where you've had that situation where your customers have. We live in a world where obviously we're worried that demand might slow down. Obviously, you know, demand has remained fairly firm in the order books. In those situations, what typically happens?
Is there any kind of reference point or kind of historical context you can give us where you're, you know, you're using to model and think about that kind of caution for the H2 ?
Well, I mean, Charlie, maybe to be a little bit more precise on what I meant with, you know, our customers keep talking or start talking about it. They don't see it themselves, right? T hey see also the numbers that, you know, the customer confidence is going down, but they also don't see it yet in their books. That's the reason why also we don't see it in our books. You ask for a historical, you know, context. I think we are in a situation that we've never seen before with a war going on in Europe. I think the comparison with the financial crisis is just.
Well, it's a crisis, but I think the crisis we have now is to a much higher extent. Therefore, I would say it's really difficult to make any comparison with these two.
Mm-hmm. No, understood. Okay. I know, a very difficult question. You know, we're all trying to, you know, feel our way forward. No, that that's helpful. Thank you very much.
Yeah. Sure. You're welcome.
The next question is by Markus Mayer of Baader Helvea. The line is now open for you.
Yeah. Good afternoon, gentlemen. My question is, the first one is, on the supply situation, gas supply situation, which is obviously highly discussed in Europe. Could you walk us through what are your kind of worst case scenarios and what are the kind of plans you have, in the worst, to cope with this kind of worst case situation, if the gas supply would come down? That would be my first question, please.
Okay. Have you a second question? Okay, after you.
Yeah. You can ask the second question as I thought, as to ask question one by one.
Okay. Yeah. On Markus, on the gas supply situation, obviously this is a very important topic for the whole industry in Germany, but also in Europe and for the whole economy. Of course, what we do is we look at different scenarios at our sites in Germany, what a reduction in gas supply would have. You know, I don't want to discuss the details on that, but we are very much working on these different options.
What we also mentioned in some talks is that we have a situation at our largest site in Burghausen with a CHP plant, which means we have some sort of flexibility between using gas, between using electricity, between alternative forms of steam generation, and this flexibility plays into our resilience, again, I would say in the setup we have. If there is a massive shortage of gas, a worst case scenario would surely be that the total Russian supply of gas would be stopped. That would definitely have a huge impact on the total economy within Germany and after that also within Europe. Of course, you know, we would be part of that.
Therefore, we are very you know supportive that the German government has a very clear stance here saying that an embargo on Russian gas from our side would be really something which is a huge risk to the economy. This is what we strongly support that position.
Okay. Thank you. My second question would be, again, on this strong demand also in the Q2 . Of course, it's extremely hard, this question to answer most likely, but can you assess if most of this demand is underlying demand or is it more kind of a restocking that the customers try to have a safety stock in the case of cases, or that they anyway have low inventories due to the last quarters due to supply chain issues, et cetera?
Markus, Tobias here. I would not talk about restocking. As I mentioned before, I think we see some moderation from the very high order entry in the Q1 . We don't see anything like demand destruction, as we mentioned. We see still a pattern of a more volatile demand entry, order entry day by day, but on a high and robust level for our specialty business.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Mm-hmm. Operator, the next question.
The next question is by Andreas Heine of Stifel. The line is now open for you.
A couple of questions, please. The first is on the Q2 again. You said cost increase in the Q1 by EUR 250 million, which is actually in line with what you expect as an increase for the full year. EUR 1.1 billion over the whole year, 250 million in the Q1 . There are some trailing effects as you have lined up, but how much can that be? If I look on the top line where demand is still high, you have additional FX headwind, tailwind. One peer of you said that specialty silicones prices will go up sequentially in the Q2 . The same as what we see in polysilicon if you follow the market prices.
From the top line, I would expect Q2 to be a notch higher. If costs increase, that cannot be hundreds of millions. I would still look for an EBITDA loss of EUR 500 million in the Q2 . That's my first question, to give some highlights on what the cost increases might be sequentially. Secondly, in Silicones, I guess I get that Q1 was exceptionally strong and is not a basis for what we should expect going forward, and the 30% margin clearly also not. What is kind of new normal? You have delivered most of 20% in margins in recent years. You have improved the mix continuously, and now you achieved 30%. That stretched, of course.
That is on very much inflated sales due to the raw materials. The unit margin has increased substantially. What you would expect, the silicones with the specialty portion you have to deliver in, let's say, normal times demand? That were my second question. Thanks.
Yes. Tobias here. I take the first one on the Q2 . Thinking about the Q2 sequentially as you are doing it, I think you should be aware that we are missing the trailing effect, and we are seeing additional cost increases in raw materials. This is VAM, so all the Polymers raw materials, and this is energy. I would come to a number of about EUR 100 million sequentially up. In addition, there is more inflation, as I mentioned before, from maintenance to logistics. There is some headwind. On the sales side, definitely, as we discussed, we have some moderation in demand, but still a strong order book. We are confident on our pricing and on the resilience of our pricing.
I would say we are, as you mentioned, some of the competition, we are ahead of the curve, and we do not see sequential increases in that segment. This is Silicones, I think that's where you had your comment. In Polymers, our approach is, and this is also transparent, we announced price increases starting in May, but we also had some of the headwind ahead of that. There's a bit of a time lag also in the effectiveness. That leads to a Q2 which is strong but sequentially lower than the Q1 .
Mm-hmm.
Okay. Then address Christian here. The second part you said, what are the margins in normal times or normalized margins for Silicones. Well, first of all, as I mentioned before, I think Silicones is the performance material, the best performance material on the planet. We will see many more applications compared to today where silicon will be used. That's the reason why we say there is a lot of opportunities for us.
For growing, this market. I mean, at the Capital Markets Day, we said the margins are definitely above 20% for our businesses. That means, something, you know, beyond 20% is what I would estimate, so to speak, as a minimum normal for Silicones specialties.
Thanks.
The next question is by Jaideep Pandya of On field. The line is now open for you.
Thanks. The first question is on Polysilicon, really, on what Christian you hear on the back of the Easter Package that was announced in Europe with regards to sort of insourcing or building the supply chain for the solar industry. I mean, you know, you guys have obviously decent amount of capacity, which could be directed towards building a solar value chain in Europe. We'll be very curious to hear your thoughts, and especially post the sharp sort of focus on solar in the Easter Package. That's my first question. The second question is on Silicones. Could you just give us some color on, you know, regional profitability difference between North America, Europe, and Asia?
You know, as you increase your share in North America versus your strongest competitor, how should we think about, you know, to Andreas' question, actually, the margin progression, given it feels like structurally North America is the highest margin region. The third question really is, it's a bit of a weird question, but do you think in your sort of, you know, models on a longer term basis that, you know, China starts to have a restrictive policy with regards to silicon metal exports? Thanks a lot.
Okay. Jaideep, this is Chris. I would start with the first question and the Easter Package, you know, on a typical egg hunt, I'm not sure whether I found all the eggs in the basket. At least I read about most of them. To be serious here, I think it's a clear signal, and it's a clear commitment from the German government to move into a new world and a new scale of renewable energy. And part of that package is with the taxation, with the EEG taxation that will be abolished. I think this is a great step forward for new investments into that and also for the existing ones.
There's a clear commitment to a build-up of capacity, both on the wind side, but even more so on the solar side. They talk about more than 200 GW by the year 2030. They talk about having 80% renewable share in 2030, and that would equate to more than 20 GW installation of solar modules within Germany alone, which is, you know, kind of three times the number which we saw in the last years. I think that is extremely positive, which we also appreciate. To your question, do we see that European supply chain for that already?
As we have said, also in our, when we talked in March, we do see some smaller capacities coming up, popping up. They don't talk about gigawatt capacities at the moment, but I can tell you that we get monthly, sometimes even weekly calls from customers and asking for a potential supply of polysilicon produced in the EU, in Germany. You probably also know our answer to that question. Our answer is, we are here already. We have two sites in Germany, in Burghausen and in Nünchritz, where we today produce solar-grade polysilicon. It's not us that needs to do a next step of investment. We are here, and we are supporting definitely all the newcomers or existing players within building up and strengthening the solar supply chain.
It is definitely an opportunity. If you wanna have 22 GW installed per year, you know, beginning now, there need to be still a lot of imports. It is a great opportunity for building up this supply chain. We are here. Once capacities for modules in Europe are in the range of several gigawatts, I think then it is the right time to talk with us about potential expansion of capacities, but definitely not at the moment. Jaideep, to your second and third question, to be honest. On the regional profit split, sorry that we can't give you that transparency. This is below our disclosure level on the segment. You can definitely be assured that there are attractive margins in all regions.
Just take the example of our SICO acquisition in China. That's something value accretive right from the Q1 of consolidating that business.
If you are l ooking towards the Americas and/or the US in particular North America, that will be an area where we are still underrepresented with our market presence. We are about to change that. Investing at the site in the specialty setup for Silicones in Charleston. We are looking into a balanced setup for Silicones as I think profitability is attractive in all regions. On the third question on silicon metal export from China. I mean, this debate is coming back from time to time. I haven't heard anything about that recently, to be frank. Our strategy is also unchanged.
We are a third backward integrated with our plant in Norway, as you know, and the majority of the external supply comes from Europe, number one, and then more from South America and Asia, only limited from China. We could expand our own capacities, and that we would definitely also do in the regions that I just mentioned, so in Norway or somewhere else. It's not that I have heard anything recently about the debate of China not exporting any more silicon metal to the western hemisphere.
Mm-hmm.
Thank you a lot.
Welcome, Jaideep.
The next question is by Thomas Swoboda of Société Générale. The line is now open for you.
Yeah. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for your helpful comments. These are certainly difficult times. I have three questions, please. Firstly, on your visibility, I understand your hesitation to give a more concrete guidance for Q2, but I'm just wondering what is the order book visibility and the visibility on the costs into Q2? I guess it must be already relatively high. The second question is your comment on the energy sequential energy cost increase of EUR 100 million in Q2. That was very helpful. Can I risk asking you if you could give us an indication how that should develop in Q3 and Q4 based on, obviously, current prices? That would be very helpful.
Thirdly, coming back to the demand issue, I'm just wondering what visibility on your customers' inventory levels you have. Coming back to the previous questions, I'm just wondering if you know, if you see a pre-buying. I wouldn't call it, you know, restocking, but it's a pre-buying ahead of potential cost increases. Is it possible that, you know, there is an element of that explaining why demand is still so, you know, so strong as we see it? Thank you.
Thomas, I would start with the second question to be asked here about the sequential increase in raw materials and energy. First, I need to point out that about EUR 100 million sequentially up is not only energy. It's raw materials and energy. If I don't have on hand how that develops into Q3 and Q4, I rather have data on how it compares to prior year. There I can say that the comparison to prior year is highest in the Q2 . I mean, as things are moving, I'm hesitant to say, I mean, Q3 is completely different from the Q2 .
If you compare then to the final quarter, Q4, I mean, definitely there we had already a much higher raw material cost already, but not yet on the energy side. I would not calculate now from Q2 into Q3. The Q2 message is about EUR 100 million cost increase from energy and raw materials and further inflation in all other cost lines. On the third question, demand visibility, as we mentioned, we have still a good order entry. It has become more volatile, but we have overall a strong order book, and book-to-bill ratio was still around one. It is, I think, no restocking. I think everybody is a bit challenged by the logistics issues that you have. There's no big inventory anywhere.
For Silicones, I can say, as we had our price increases already implemented at the start of the year, there is definitely no pre-buying ahead of further cost increases as we are thinking more about rolling the prices into the Q2 .
Yeah. Thomas, only on the first question, on the order book and the visibility. Again, I mean, what we said, of course there is a good visibility. We have
Now into Q2 order book typically differs between the different segments on how customers order material, but we have a good overview of the Q1, of course. As we mentioned, Tobias just repeated that, we had an exceptional Q1. We had an exceptional order entry in Q1, and we see this getting you know more moderating a little bit, but still being on a high level. As you know, as Q2 progresses, we will refine our view for the remainder of the year. Again, order book at a high level at the moment. Book-to-bill around one. That's how we see it.
This is helpful. Thank you so much.
Yep. You're welcome.
The next question is by Chetan Udeshi of JPMorgan. The line is now open for you.
Hi. Thanks for letting me ask a couple of questions. The first one was just follow-up. I think, Tobias, you mentioned EUR 100 million incremental cost from energy and raw materials in Q2 versus Q1. Should we say as a base case, you know Q2 earnings will be EUR 100 million lower than Q1? Because typically there is also a sequential increase in sort of volumes and demand in your chemical businesses. Can you just help us sort of think about how incremental volumes, et cetera, compensate for the incremental earnings? Or should we just take EUR 644 million minus EUR 100 million as the sort of base case Q2 earnings for you guys?
The second question was, can you remind us, I think from my memory, maybe it's 60% or something, but how much of your global production setup is actually based out of Germany in terms of capacity or volumes? I mean, just any sort of high-level number there will be useful.
Chetan, on the sales question, EUR 100 million sequentially up. I mean, I again repeat, there's more inflation in other lines. For the volume component, as we said before, we have strong but a more moderating volume and order entry. I would assume there's a similar volume Q2 to the Q1 from today's perspective. Pricing, I mean, I talked about Polymers seeing some time lags also with the raw material increases and pricing kicking in then later. I think if you do all the numbers, I think you would. I mean, there's a small element also in others always, which is the equity contribution from Siltronic, which was high.
There was a EUR 29 million line item, so we will need to see how that develops in the Q2 . From this you can model the Q2 . Chetan, on your second question on the volumes, global production volumes and the share of Germany. I mean, as you know, we have, especially in Silicones, you know, multi-step production processes, some starting even in Norway with the silicon metal. I t's all, you know, depends a little bit on how you make that calculation and how you come up to the number. I think, you know, just to give you a feeling, I would guess we are in the range of about two-thirds.
I think that would be a good assumption, that two-thirds of these volumes is about Germany.
Understood. Thank you.
You're welcome.
There are no further questions, and so I hand back to you.
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