Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to Outokumpu's third quarter 2025 result webcast. My name is Ulla Paajanen and I'm currently in charge of Outokumpu investor relations. Our speakers today are CEO Kati ter Horst and CFO Marc-Simon Schaar. Kati will explain to us about the highlights of the quarter, progress of our EVOLVE strategy, as well as the fourth quarter outlook. Marc-Simon will concentrate on business areas and financials. B efore handing it over to Kati, l et me remind you about our disclaimer since we might make forward-looking statements during the presentation. Kati, please go ahead.
Thank you Ulla and warmly welcome also from my side to our Q3 result call. Today we'll be talking about the Q3 result and the outlook for Q4 as usual, but I'll also be making some comments on how we are moving forward with our EVOLVE strategy with an important step.
Let's start then with the Q3 result. Our adjusted EBITDA amounted to EUR 34.4 million during the quarter and this was very much reflecting the weakness in the European market. If we look at the highlights of the quarter, I could also say that we are really very much now focusing on cost competitiveness on one side and then a transformation on the other side. If we start with the stainless steel deliveries, they decreased by 11% and mainly due to the very continued subdued demand in Europe. If we look at Europe alone, deliveries decreased by 12% and then the decrease in Americas in stainless steel market for our deliveries was 6%, so half of Europe. If we look at our short-term cost saving measures, we are very well on track.
Year- to- date Q3 end we have now reached EUR 42 million of savings and will reach the promised EUR 60 million by end of the year. We are also proceeding with our planned restructuring plan for EUR 100 million before the end of 2027. We have started now collective negotiations in all our key production countries in Europe and are proceeding with those, hopefully everything being clear then by the end of the year. The exciting news of today is we are investing about EUR 45 million in a new pilot plant in the U.S. to scale up our proprietary technology for low carbon metals. I will come back to that a bit later.
If you look at the market conditions now in Europe and Americas, especially through the lens of imports, you can see here that in quarter three in Europe the imports increased to 29% and this is very much what we've been commenting in past quarters as well, that the tariffs in the U.S. will put more pressure on the European market and we will see more Asian imports coming in. This is exactly what you see on the left side of the chart. Regarding the Americas imports, we currently don't have the Q3 figures because of the government shutdown. The only figure from Q3 we have is July, which shows here now an increase to 33%. I would think that the imports probably are at the similar level in Americas in Q3 as Q2 o nce we get the numbers.
Commenting on a group level, the overall picture, you can see that our deliveries were at the low level in Q3. This comes really from the weak market conditions in Europe. We have not lost market share. It is really the weakness in the market. If you look at what is the bridge from our Q2 result to Q3, you can see that it's very much about deliveries getting some help from raw material costs. In Ferrochrome side we had a bit higher deliveries. When you translate the U.S. dollar Euro rate, that was now hitting us on the pricing side. We had also maintenance stops in the quarter, which impacted the result. We comment every quarter now on the EBITDA run rate improvement. This is an initiative that started in 2023 and we will end the program by the end of 2025.
Currently we are at EUR 336 million of cumulative savings and improvements and will reach the EUR 350 million as targeted. Many of these improvements are something that you only will see really coming through in our books when the market conditions improve. To highlight a bit, what did we for instance, what kind of improvements we had in Q3, it's very much about Circle Green. Bigger volumes for Circle Green where we have a clear premium and also some good impacts from District Heating S olutions. In Americas we had further savings through process optimization in Calvert. To the more exciting news. You know that in Capital Markets Day in June, we talked about our new technology and we said that we are looking at the next phase and investment for that.
Now we have made that decision and we'll be investing in a new pilot plant in New Hampshire in the U.S. to scale up the technology from this daily 1 kg production level to 1 ton. Here we are concentrating in the first instance on Chromium. We would be producing enriched Ferrochrome and also Chromium metal. These new production pathways we're looking at for high purity metals are very much applicable to high value markets like aerospace, defense, and energy sectors. In the future we can also look at other metals like we said before, for instance nickel, but now we concentrate with a scale up on Chromium. If we look at a bit what we communicated before, what is the phase we're talking about here?
The lab scale we spent about four years to really arrive at the technology and now we will want to show that we scale it up for industrial feasibility and also so that we have a competitive production cost with this process. Once we have received this, the idea is that this plant would be operational during first half of 2027. We are in the next step looking at industrialization, probably with a commercial plant with a capacity about 10,000 tons in the first instance and then really taking advantage of the technology in the next step for bigger scale up. This is the phase where we are and now it's time to show that this technology can be scaled up and it's feasible in industrial production with a cost competitiveness. That's our focus right now in the next phase. Very excited about that.
A couple comments on sustainability and starting with safety. The news that I'm not so happy about is our safety performance during Q3. We were fully on track with our safety targets until the end of August, but we had a disappointing month of September with six incidents that involved nine people, both our own people and contractors. Now very much our target is to get back on track. Our target level on total recordable incident frequency rate is 1.5%. Now year- to- date we are at 1.9% after the disappointing September and we have all hands on deck to get back to the performance we are used to. On the positive side, we continue to have a very high recycled material content, now three quarters in a row at the record high level of 97%.
This talks to a very high scrap use and also some other raw materials, which is also good for our sustainability result. We are also continuously progressing towards our SBTi climate target. The last item here is we're developing our portfolio for Circle Green. We're getting more customers for that and very happy to announce that we now have a collaboration with Parcisa, and Parcisa is a leader in design and manufacture of tankers for liquid transport. Very nice to have new customers for Circle Green. I will then hand over to Marc-Simon to go more in detail in our business area results and the finance in overall. Marc-Simon, floor is yours.
Thank you. Kati. Good afternoon, good morning everyone and thank you for joining us today. It is clear that given the current market environment, maintaining strong capital discipline remains one of our key financial priorities. Let's start by taking a closer look at our financial position at the end of the third quarter. During the third quarter our net debt increased to EUR 230 million and despite the increase, we maintained our strong liquidity of EUR 1.1 billion supported by a new three-year term loan. This clearly demonstrates the continued strong support from our lending partners and in light of the weak market conditions, we are continuing to emphasize capital discipline, particularly through tight working capital management. With that, let's move on and look at the performance of our business areas during the third quarter, starting with BA Europe.
In Europe, the demand from end users remained soft across key sectors, especially in construction and domestic appliances, with no real signs yet of any immediate recovery. The European manufacturing PMI showed some improvements in August but soon fell back to below 50, indicating contraction. The construction PMI dropped even further to around 46. Distributor inventories declined somewhat, particularly in Germany, but still remain at medium to high levels given the weak demand. Added to that and despite being positive, ongoing uncertainty around the CBAM mechanism as well as timing and final definition of the new safeguard measures has created additional caution among buyers. As a result, and combined with a typical seasonal slowdown, volumes in Business Area Europe fell by 12% quarter-on-quarter. The higher share of Asian imports, now around 29%, also continued to put pressure on sales prices.
According to CRU Standard 304, prices in Europe fell sharply by more than EUR 150 per ton compared to the previous quarter. The negative volume and price impact was partly offset by lower raw material costs and ongoing cost saving measures as well as higher fixed cost absorption due to increased production ahead of the annual maintenance shutdown and the ERP rollout. However, as guided earlier, the planned maintenance activities in Business Area Europe had a negative impact on our profitability. Let's now move across the Atlantic and take a look at Business Area Americas. Also in the U.S. and in Mexico, the manufacturing sector remained in contraction during the third quarter, with only a slight improvement visible in Mexico. The increase in U.S. tariffs on Steel and Aluminum imports from 25% to 50% in early June this year continued to support domestic producers.
However, underlying demand across North America remained subdued. Only the Oil and Gas sector is holding up somewhat due to the higher energy demand from the increase in data centers, and activities from reshoring manufacturing into the U.S. are not yet visible. With the weak demand, distributor inventory days increased further and above year-to-date averages. Overall deliveries in Business Area Americas declined by around 6% quarter-on-quarter, while average prices improved, supported by the tariff changes. As mentioned earlier, the benefit from higher prices was partly offset by increased raw material costs and lower fixed cost absorption due to reduced production, a deliberate move to balance working capital in a weak market. Next, let's look at the performance of our Business Area Ferrochrome. Globally, Ferrochrome producers in Southern Africa continue to face capacity shutdowns driven by high electricity costs.
This led to higher chrome ore export, especially to Asia where margins are more favorable. In the U.S., new tariffs on the Brazilian imports strengthened the demand for our Ferrochrome products, which are not subject to U.S. tariffs. In Europe, we have also seen an increasing interest as steel mills are looking for European low emission alternatives for raw materials, which are subject to CBAM regulation. The demand for our low emission Ferrochrome remained solid throughout the quarter, with deliveries up by 3% despite the usual seasonal slowdown. On the other hand, sales prices declined largely due to a weaker U.S. dollar. Our profitability was also affected by timing differences between foreign exchange derivatives and the realization of the weaker U.S. dollar in sales, as well as higher energy costs and lower fixed cost absorption linked to the seasonal lower production.
With that, let's turn to the group's overall financial position and working capital development. As mentioned earlier, net debt increased to EUR 230 million during the quarter, mainly reflecting lower profitability in a weak market, a few one-off items, and our annual insurance premium payments. Now the one-off items include costs related to the U.S. wage class action settlement as well as foreign exchange impacts from the weaker U.S. dollar, those stemming from internal currency swaps we used to optimize our cash across the group. Normally, in a soft market we would expect a reduction in working capital. However, this quarter reductions were limited as we prepared for annual maintenance shutdown as well as the ERP system and supply chain solution rollout in Business Area Europe. Nevertheless, we continue to focus on tight working capital management and preserving our strong liquidity position going forward.
With that, I will now hand it back to you, Kati.
Thank you, Marc-Simon. Let's then move to look at our outlook and guidance for Q4. On the outlook, we said that the group stainless steel deliveries in the fourth quarter are expected to decrease by 5%- 15% compared to the third quarter, mainly due to the market weakness in Business Area Europe and a seasonal slowdown in Business Area Americas that happens in the fourth quarter. Asian imports to Europe still remain high compared to the low demand in the stainless steel market. We have maintenance breaks in Business Area Europe and Americas, as well as the rollout of the new ERP system and supply chain solution in Business Area Europe, and those impacts are expected to have about. I expect to have an impact of about -EUR 20 million on our adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter.
With the current raw material prices, no major raw material related inventory or metal derivative gains or losses are forecasted to be realized in the fourth quarter. Therefore, our guidance for Q4 2025 is that the adjusted EBITDA in fourth quarter of 2025 is expected to be lower compared to the third quarter. Moving forward to discuss and summarize a little bit, what I really want to emphasize is that despite the current challenging market conditions we are now having in Europe and that heavily impact our performance, I'm very confident about our future direction. With the EVOLVE strategy, we take clear steps towards higher resilience and better performance through cost restructuring and investments in profitable growth that support diversifying both our offering and geographical footprint. As you know, today we announced that we are now investing for growth through the pilot plant for innovative property technology in the U.S.
That's the transformative part. On improving our competitiveness, we are trying to implement as quickly as we can this EUR 100 million restructuring program to get these structural savings in and to help our competitiveness, especially in Europe. In Americas, we see Americas as an interesting growth market, but rather beyond stainless steel. The change I have made in Americas management is that we have Johann Steiner, who has been also leading our strategy work at Outokumpu, now appointed as President in BA Americas. He will be an excellent support to the team there to work further on the Americas strategy. Our recruitment for Johan's successor is ongoing in final stages. There are also some positive news from the market. I would say a bit of light at the end of the tunnel.
When you look at the European market, we are very happy and very supportive of the strong proposal that the European Commission has made for more effective safeguards. I think the important items there are that the quotas are halved by nearly a half, that the tariffs then on top of the quotas will be proposed to be in the rates of 50%. The principle of melted at the port is planned to be introduced and we would get these new safeguards latest by the mid- 2026. I think the package as such is very strong. Of course, we are very much hoping and supporting decisions on this still this year, so we get clarity on is it going to be mid next year or is it going to be hopefully also a little bit earlier that we get these safeguards in.
The other item that is important for Outokumpu, because we are clearly the sustainability leader in the industry, both in Ferrochrome and Stainless Steel, is that we do get a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism in place in Europe to ensure that the green transition in Europe can continue. The investments that are needed for that and those who have invested in that finally start getting some benefit out of that and we can keep this industry in Europe. I think own actions, very important, cost competitiveness, investments in growth and next to that, some of the positive things that we see next year with the safeguards and with the CBAM being implemented. I will end the presentation there and I think it's time for us to move to the questions and answers.
If you wish to ask a question p lease dial pound key five on y our telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Tristan Gresser from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.
Yes, hi. Thank you for taking my questions. First, maybe on the quotas, can you share a little bit more your view on the implementation of those new quotas as they are, and also are you optimistic about the new quota that could be implemented before July next year and on their own? Are those quotas enough? I mean it seems to me that the issue is more about the prices than volumes. In the past we've seen imports falling and plunging a lot, but not really helping the market. Would love to have your view there.
Maybe I start, and if Marc-Simon, you have something to add, then you can do that. I think the total package, not only that the quarter levels will be halved, but then also the tariffs above the quarters, the melt it and board principle, that the measures don't have a definite deadline but will be reviewed. I think the whole package as such, and you cannot move quarterly quarter from one quarter to another. There are many elements in this proposal that I think altogether support and give an impression of clearly stronger safeguards. Therefore, I'm quite positive about the proposal. If you look at that, the Asian import level is now almost 30% in Europe, these quarters would halve that import level to about 15%.
I think that is what we need in Europe to create a level playing field for European producers so we can utilize the capacity enough. Otherwise, it's going to be closed. If we want to keep a steel industry in Europe, it's important that these measures are now taken.
You asked about the timing of the quota here as well. As Kati was mentioning earlier, the latest being mid-2026 just before then, the current safeguards expire. Now, it's very difficult to speculate and we don't want to speculate really on the timing of it. I think we have seen a very good proposal by the Commission and now we are awaiting the discussions also within the member states of Europe and also within the Parliament, and then seeing whether we have also the support from the member states basically.
Okay, no, that's clear and helpful. My second question is on CBAM. What would you need to see in the text of CBAM, whether provisional or final, to really make a difference for your European business next year? Given that most of the carbon intensity differential is on scope three with Asia, how optimistic are you that it's going to be implemented? Also, just following up on CBAM, you said that uncertainty around CBAM is, you know, putting order activity a bit behind. What we've seen for carbon steel makers is that CBAM uncertainty is actually pushing more buyers towards domestic producers because of that uncertainty. I'm just trying to square that out and why this in terms of uncertainty that is placed on importers should not benefit you near term?
Yeah, I would say first of all, I think it's quite clear, at least from the discussions that we have recently had with the Commission, that CBAM will be implemented as of January. What we are of course hoping is clarification before the end of the year. What are the reference values and how will it exactly work, what scopes are included? There are of course question marks still. I think it's also not good, this uncertainty for our customers, both on Ferrochrome and Stainless Steel, that there's not more clarity right now. CBAM will come and whatever form it comes, I think it will be supportive. Of course from our perspective, having all the scopes in it would be helpful for us and even better. I think even a form that is not perfect is better than nothing. That's how I would see it.
If we look at our customer industries, we've of course discussed a lot with our customers as well. There is a discussion with the Commission also that how would you compensate then for export business? If I look at our customer side, I would also say that we have many customer sectors that also support CBAM and actually would want to be included under CBAM as steel intensive users so that for instance in appliances you don't then get a situation that products are brought to Europe with a much higher carbon footprint and then they have to face that. There's definitely still work to be done to make CBAM an effective system, but I think starting it with now is the first step that has to happen in January.
All right, thank you.
The next question comes from Adahna Ekoku from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you both for the presentation. I've got two questions from my side. First, just on business area Ferrochrome, could you help us a little bit here with the outlook into Q4? We saw higher volumes quarter- over- quarter, but this was partly offset by the dollar and higher electricity costs. How are you expecting these factors to trend looking into the next quarter?
You know that we don't guide the business area. I will not be very specific, but I think in general I would say that we see our Ferrochrome business being in a good place and continuing to deliver good result. Quite confident of Q4 on Ferrochrome.
Maybe if I can just add two further points to it. Certainly, we see a weak market environment and demand situation from the Stainless Steel sector, but as we pointed out earlier as well, the demand for our Ferrochrome is solid. While you see some negative impacts on the one hand side in terms of volume, there is offsetting on the other side here as well. Going forward, as I mentioned earlier and that is valid for the group, we are having strong focus on tight working capital management that will also impact our production in the fourth quarter and something to be taken into consideration as well.
Okay, thank you, that's clear. Maybe looking to 2026 and on CapEx and whether you could provide any kind of early stir here at the CMD outlined the higher maintenance needs. I was wondering is there any flexibility here and any indication as to how much growth CapEx will be allocated to next year given the kind of continued weak backdrop?
Yes, good question. I think in the Capital Markets Day I mentioned indeed that our maintenance CapEx going forward at a level of EUR 100 million with some backlog recovery for next year bringing it to EUR 200 million. At the same time, I also clearly stated that we are observing the market environment, the market situation as well, and we are clearly observing the situation and making the plan for next year right now as we certainly will adjust our CapEx, what we have communicated to the Capital Markets Day, taking the weak market situation into account. We'll come back with further guidance then in our next report.
Perfect, that's really helpful, thank you.
The next question comes from Anssi Raussi from SEB. Please go ahead.
Yes, hi, Olen there. Thank you for the presentation. I have a couple of questions left and I start with your guidance. You mentioned that you expect some negative impact on your EBITDA for Q4 quarter- over- quarter due to maintenance break. I think you guided EUR 10 million negative impacts also for Q2 and Q3. What's the net impact now and have you ramped up your maintenance activity all the time during this year or how should we think about this?
Anssi, good afternoon. We do have had maintenance work in the second quarter, yes, and in line with our guidance. This maintenance work was towards the end of the quarter. It will also or has continued into the fourth quarter as well. Number one, we also see maintenance break in the Americas with our annual maintenance shutdown on our mill shop and other assets in the U.S., which is having an impact. I think in our guidance we were also talking about our rollout of our ERP system and supply chain solution here as well, which will have an impact on volume on the one hand side, which is already covered on the volume side, but certainly also on our production and the cost level. These both together is then what makes then the EUR 20 million impact quarter-on-quarter.
To clarify, we are talking about net impact.
Yes, this is a bridge impact, quarter-on-quarter.
Okay. Maybe my second question on these tariffs in the U.S., if you look at your deliveries in the business area Americas, I guess it's clear that your average selling price has increased less than the so-called list price if you look at the price data from CRU. What's the mechanism here? Does it take longer to see the full impact, or how does it work?
Yeah, maybe if I comment on that. I think the full impact will be seen more in Q4, I would say. We need to also take into account that the Americas market as demand as such is not very strong. There's also new capacity coming to the market, and there's also mix impact always in when you look at the pricing. Prices have increased in Q3, and I think the full impact will be visible in Q4.
Indeed, the full impact is in Q4, but quarter-on-quarter I would not take any significant improvements into account here, just to be more cautious and realistic. Maybe just to add, when it comes to CIU data, I think also here we need to see where is the timing difference between order intake and then also the realization of prices as well.
Okay, got it. Thank you. That's all from me.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Dominic O'Kane from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Thank you. I have two questions. My first question actually follows on from your last comment. I note your practice is not to comment on specific business areas, but given the Q4 guidance, the shipments, and given the pricing outlook, I think it's reasonable to assume we'll see another negative EBITDA quarter for Europe. I'm just wondering if you could help us contextualize maybe what you're seeing in terms of pricing currently for Europe. You've talked to the Q3 CRU comment, which is obviously backward looking, but have you seen any discernible change in your customer behavior or order book following on from the European Commission safeguarding proposal earlier this month? Has there been any indication that customers are looking to acquire metals sooner than that framework comes into existence? That's my first question.
Maybe if I can start and then you can add if needed. While we're not in a position to guide on prices here, particularly going forward, I think in our outlook for the fourth quarter we're talking about a volume decrease quarter-on-quarter in the range of 5%- 5%. I think the split between Europe and Americas is almost 50/50 here to say. We also talked about the maintenance costs and an impact from our ERP rollout here as well. We also mentioned that Asian imports are still on a high level. They actually have increased towards the end of the third quarter and of course that is also impacting then our business.
This is probably as much as we can say here on the current situation and outlook, and in line with what we mentioned also earlier is that yet we do see a wait and see attitude still in the market with customers or the industry being cautious around the definition and the mechanism on CBAM and the safeguards here as well in terms of timing. That needs to be taken into consideration as well. As such, no clear signs yet of any improvements as I mentioned in my part of the presentation.
Thank you. Thank you. That's clear. My second question, just on net debt stepping into Q4 and the working capital bridge, given the maintenance, is it reasonable to assume that we would expect to see a higher net debt at the end of Q4 versus Q3? Thank you.
While we're not giving specific guidance on our net debt going forward, there are a couple of elements we need to take into consideration. On the one hand side, we have paid our second tranche of the dividend in October. I think it was the 22nd of October with a cash out of EUR 61 million. In my part I also clearly stated that we continue to focus on tight working capital management, and this is what we have in focus in the fourth quarter. I also mentioned the impact on our profitability as a result thereof. Having said that, with current assumptions we don't expect a major increase in net debt in the fourth quarter.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Joni Sandvall from Nordea . Please go ahead.
Thanks. Maybe a bit of follow up on the quotas that we have been speaking already. I know it's a bit early looking into 2026, but do you see any risks of, you know, import surging ahead of potential implementation of these quotas?
Maybe if I answer that there can be some. Let's remember as well that the delivery times are still quite long, also from Asia. I think the most important thing now is that the decision comes this year and the timing is communicated and the decision comes. I think that will then already be helpful earlier than when actually the quotas come in place, because you need to take into account then what's the moment that your deliveries would actually be on the European border. There can be some surge in Q1 or something. I would think the most important thing is now we get the decision and clarity, and then that will start impacting markets.
I think most important is really lead times on the one hand side, and we do have a quota system still in place. It's not sufficient. I know, I understand. That's what we were reporting for many quarters and years right now, but the window of opportunity is rather short.
Okay, thanks. That's clear then. Question related to the pilot that you announced today. You are speaking already towards end of this century that 10 kt industrial size production. Could you give any indication of what kind of CapEx we could be looking for this kind of industrial facility?
It is very, very premature. Also depends where the investment would be. No, I cannot give a pick. I can say that it's more than EUR 45 million, that I can say for the next phase. I'm sorry I can't give a better number right now. We will need to really look at that in more detail because we also learn now in this process about what would that kind of investment look like when it comes to the machinery and setup and where we would invest. Would it become kind of being part of our Ferrochrome plant or somewhere else has also influenced. It's too premature unfortunately to comment on that.
Yeah, that's clear. Lastly for me, the ERP rollout that you have mentioned many times and the supply side solutions, could you give any indication, have you completed this or have you faced any interruptions on that front?
It's quite a sizable project, I must say. We started basically a couple of years back in Germany and also in Sweden, and now we have our largest site in Tornio, Finland. With that rollout, we're closing the loop, so to say, and have all of our assets, or the majority of our assets, on the same platform, which provides certain opportunities and advantages for us. Having said that, we have started the rollout at the beginning of the quarter, and it has been going, in the size and magnitude of these kind of projects, relatively well, and we're still in the process of rolling it out.
Okay. Lastly, maybe quick question on the Ferrochrome and the FX impact on the profitability. Here in Q3 you were speaking about timing impacts there, but could you give any indication how much that was?
Yes, I think the impact is around EUR 8 million quarter-on-quarter. You have a positive impact in Q2, EUR 4 million from the derivative and then the realization in the sales price, then the negative EUR 4 million impact in Q3. The delta is around EUR 8 million.
Okay, thanks. That's all.
Welcome.
The next question comes from Maxime Kogge from ODDO BHF . Please go ahead.
Good afternoon all. My first question is on Ferrochrome. We have seen actually quite significant cutbacks in South Africa. I think Merafe talked about a 50% decrease in the own production year- on- year in 2025. I guess that opens some volume opportunities for you. Do you expect to benefit from that? Perhaps not in Q4 but further ahead. Do you see room to get back to nameplate capacity in Ferrochrome because you're currently running at below 80% there.
Yes, we do see that we do benefit from that situation, and I think the way it shows currently is that we are getting new customers, we have more trial orders, and even though there have been some rumors on the market, one of the producers probably coming on stream in February, at least for a short time, I think the customers maybe are not trusting that fully. I think going forward we see strong demand for our Ferrochrome. As you know, there is still capacity to be utilized. We are somewhat flexible in that and we'll follow how the market develops. In Q4, our focus is to make sure that we prioritize gas. We will also make sure that our inventories come down also in Ferrochrome. We have opportunities to increase the production when the market needs that.
Okay, a second question is on your chrome investment. I was curious to understand why you had chosen the U.S. for this investment. Actually, because the raw material will come from Europe, isn't there the risk of tariff impact associated with this decision?
We are still in the pilot phase. What we are talking about now for the coming two years, we are still talking about scaling up the technology and our scientists that have been working on the technology for four years in our lab close to Boston, that's where they are. In this phase it doesn't really matter to be close to the metal where that comes from. In the next phase that would be different depending on what metal you use. In this phase I think it's more important that we can use the capabilities and the knowledge to build the phase 2 plant. It's handy for us to have it close to the lab in the U.S., so that's the main reason it's i n the U.S.
Okay, makes sense. Just the last one is on your U.S. strategy. You seem to be considering rather the high- end segment of the market and try to get away from the mass market. I found that curious given that one of your competitors is precisely investing in that segment. Plus, given the lower import pressure, that also opens some opportunities there for some low- end products. Yes, any light on that would be helpful.
No, I think we've been just kind of clarifying it that we are not necessarily looking at increasing our capacity in standard Stainless Steel in the U.S. but looking at how we can develop our portfolio, for instance in Calvert to the higher end products or do investments or acquisitions that support our strategy to more to advanced materials. Our feasibility study on high nickel alloys in Avesta is still ongoing and progressing well. If you in general look at that kind of products, they travel quite well in the world. Of course, there are tariffs now in the U.S. Will they be there forever? It's a global market for that kind of product. I think we definitely have interest for that kind of markets also in the U.S. and then developing our technology there are probably different paths that could be for Europe, could be for us.
We definitely continue exploring the U.S. market and continue with our strategy work. I think one thing we have defined, if we just add capacity in the standard Stainless Steel, we are not transforming this company. That's, I think, a clear sign that we are looking at different kind of products.
Okay, thank you very much.
The next question comes from Meet Mehta from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hey. Hi. Thank you for taking my question. I have one question. In the presentation on slide number 23, for BA Europe, you are saying that there was a positive raw material impact. If I look at your press release, it is saying that there was raw material related inventory losses of EUR 4 million. What am I missing here?
The raw material impact is our raw material costs. The EUR 4 million or EUR 5 million impact I guess you're referring to is the net of timing and hedging effect of buying alloys, basically. The difference between when you buy and when you sell, this is the timing impact, and then netted by your hedging activities.
You are considering under this line item, right? The net timing of the hedging r ight.
Under the net of timing and hedging. Yes.
Yeah. Second question is on net debt. I mean, as you explained, right, this was a sudden increase, and even if you try for the tight raw material, is there a chance that we might see a decrease on the net debt side, or should we consider that it will remain in line with EUR 230 million?
I think the latter one, as I was mentioning earlier before.
Yeah.
Remaining around the current level.
Okay, thank you so much. I'll get back in the queue.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Bastian Synagowitz f rom Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon all and thanks for taking my questions. My first one is actually also a quick follow-up on the situation around the, I guess, the ERP and the maintenance costs. Do you expect that to possibly drag into the first quarter? Is there any other maintenance break coming up? I guess you had a very high intensity of maintenance costs this year and clearly it makes a lot of sense to do those when the market is weak, to be ready whenever the market does come back. I guess just for our purpose, wherever you got the visibility, if you could, I think it would be very helpful for you to flag these things a little bit earlier. I guess the ERP side at least wouldn't generally have caught you by surprise.
First of all, maybe is there anything which comes and drags on into the first quarter? If you could share that with us, that'll be great.
Sure. Right now, as far as we can see, it does not drag into the fourth quarter, to answer your question. Maybe on the ERP rollout, this is also something which I mentioned in the last interim or webcast here, as well as part of our working capital development, but now going forward with maintenance and then also being in the U.S. and Europe and the ERP rollout all in one quarter, clearly know the impact in Q1. These are really one-off items, so to say, if you compare quarters with each other.
Okay, excellent. Very clear, thank you. The second one is on CapEx. In the release, you stated that the EUR 200 million investment into the annealing line is under review. Now, from my understanding, a very large part of the targeted EUR 100 million cost savings was actually tagged to that. What does this mean for the cost savings? Do you think that you can fully compensate for that somehow and find different areas of savings even if that investment does not happen? Could you maybe just talk about that? Also, maybe if you have any visibility already on how much cost savings contribution we can pencil in for 2026.
Yes. Bastian, the EUR 100 million does not include, is not depending on the AP1 investment. The annealing and pickling line investment in Tornio is not included. The EUR 100 million are coming from other measures such as streamlining, delayering, layoffs, reduction in positions, other quality and efficiency improvements.
Got you. Okay, it stands totally separate. The EUR 100 million target basically is still fully intact.
Absolutely, absolutely.
P erfect. Just also coming back to, I guess, the most cryptic part here, which is around CBAM, and of course it does seem like the situation is still vague with regards to the benchmarks, etc. I guess we're just a couple of weeks away really from when it starts. You must already be discussing the current order book. I'm wondering how do real life discussions on that front really look like at the moment? Do you start to reflect this in Q1 already with customers? As Tristan said earlier, in carbon steel, we can see that happening, and if whatever impact comes, and even we don't know how much it is, there will be something. There must be some increment also on the pricing side. Even without going into any details, could you just say that you're basically looking a little bit more confidently here into Q1 pricing?
I guess you've been always a bit more confident on Ferrochrome than stainless, actually. Maybe you can start with Ferrochrome first.
So, maybe I can come back on your question on CBAM and maybe repeat a little bit what I said. I think there's a lot of confusion, uncertainty among our customers, whether it's Ferrochrome or Stainless Steel, what it actually means and what we are missing. We are missing the clear message on the reference values. That's why we are really hoping that we would get more information now before the end of the year. Based on our latest discussions with the commissioner, for instance, we are expecting that there would be more information before the end of the year. I think that would clarify more the situation to our customers. Of course, we try to educate our customers. How does this kind of situation work? We don't have the reference values from the commission yet. That is the uncertainty on the market.
I think there's no uncertainty that CBAM wouldn't come, it's just what does it exactly mean in different products and what scopes are included? That is still the uncertainty, but we have not seen, and I think because of this uncertainty, we have not really seen it yet, influence buying behavior, for instance, now in the end of the year. Maybe that's also reflected with a weak market, our customers also doing their cash management. Of course it should support pricing going forward.
Yes, pricing and lead times are very short right now with a weak market environment.
Okay, so it's not yet in that sense reflected. How will you treat this from your end at the moment, given the uncertainty? For example, would you just put in a flexible component there in your pricing discussions, whatever the outcome is in the course of the fourth q uarter ?
I don't think we are. We want to discuss our pricing strategy at this moment. Sorry, I can't answer that.
Okay, fair enough. Okay, thanks so much for taking my questions.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Tristan Gresser from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.
Yes, thanks for taking the follow-up. Just on the downstream project in Tornio that's been put on hold. Just wanted to confirm with you the status of the two lines in Krefeld. They're shut or not. Also, in Q2 already you shared some estimates on the negative impact on the mining tax in Finland and the removal of the state aid on energy. Can you now confirm those negative headwinds for next year?
No, we cannot confirm them yet. The discussion is ongoing. That's a proposal based on which we have commented and we are of course discussing with different instances in Finland. The proposal is now in the Parliament and it's a big issue for the whole mining industry in Finland, not only for Outokumpu. Why the AP1 investment is on hold is that if this tax impact and electrification removal comes, all that together, of course, impacts also our Ferrochrome cost and therefore also the Stainless Steel cost. Our calculations for the AP1 investment, comparing it also with Greifeld and the cost position, will need to be looked at again. We don't have clarity yet whether this proposal will hold or not. That's why the investment decision is on hold.
AP1.
[audio distortion]?
Yes, of course we have. It's linked to the investment decision. We will wait with the investment decisions to see what happens.
I think it's very important to clarify that the impact or the improvements from such investments are not included in the EUR 100 million restructuring measures which we have. They still hold, and we are very confident to get those also as communicated earlier.
Okay, the government can still change course and it's still in Parliament. For the statehood, on energy, how much of a benefit was it last year or even this year? Usually do you receive in Q4, Q1? What was the number and is it in Europe? EBITDA, Ferrochrome, EBITDA. H ow does it work?
In Finland, i t's about EUR 20 million, which is divided between Ferrochrome and Stainless Steel. On Finland level, on group level, it's about EUR 20 million annual.
Yes, from a cash impact and half of that with a P&L impact. The other one then requires investments into decarbonization.
Yes.
Okay, that's very clear. Maybe last question. The Avesta mill shop, is a decision to be made still before year end or can it be pushed to early 2026?
We have progressed really well with a feasibility study. That starts to be ready. I think we still are looking at different options. Let's see what it looks like. I would think more probably next year's topic also, given the current market environment.
Tristan, I need to qualify, I think, not 100% sure in which way I said it, but the P&L impact is EUR 20 million, the cash EUR 10 million. You need to invest into decarbonization just to make that clear that we're on the same page.
Yeah, no, that's clear. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it.
Thank you.
There are no more questions at this time. I hand the conference back t o the speakers for any closing comments.
Thank you very much for joining our Q3 call, and thank you for being so active with very, very good questions. Market conditions in Europe continue to be challenging. That's something we have to deal with. That's why we are driving our cost restructuring plan to improve our competitiveness. At the same time, we are also taking steps with our EVOLVE strategy and investing in the pilot plant in the U.S. to develop our technology in enriched Ferrochrome and Chromium metal. Thank you very much for joining and then talk to you again when we have the Q4 result ready. Thank you very much.
Thank you.