Good afternoon all, and welcome to Outokumpu's Q1 2023 results webcast. My name is Linda Häkkilä. I'm the Head of Investor Relations here at Outokumpu. With me today we have our CEO, Heikki Malinen, and our CFO, Pia Aaltonen-Forsell. As per usual, we will first start with our presentations, and after that we are happy to take your questions. Year 2023 definitely started well for us. Our adjusted EBITDA reached over EUR 200 million, and this very solid result proves our improved capabilities to create value. Before we start with the presentation, I would like to remind you about the disclaimer as we might be making forward-looking statements. Now, without any further comments, I would like to hand over to our CEO.
Thank you, Linda. Good afternoon, good morning, everybody. Welcome also on my behalf to Outokumpu's Q1 2023 webcast. As you can see, Linda, not me smiling here, and I think when you see Pia she will also be smiling. We came to 2023 obviously, with some maybe some uncertainty in the markets. Looking now at how we performed, I personally have to say I'm very pleased with the results of Outokumpu for Q1. Now let me go and talk first of all about how we saw the year start. As you remember, coming into December of last year, we had actually an exceptional destocking happening, first of all in Europe and then in the U.S., our customers almost stopped buying as we headed towards Christmas.
We had this fairly complex macro backdrop, obviously starting with the Ukraine War, therefore we then were looking at a possible energy crisis in Europe. We saw very high electricity and gas prices. We had a situation where there were labor negotiations, a risk of strikes. We have the geopolitical situation, central banks raising interest rates, inflation shocks, and so forth. A lot of, I would say a lot of moving parts here just in the environment around our core business. In spite of all of that, I have to say Outokumpu executed very well. Reaching EUR 204 million for the first quarter is, as I said, a good result. Looking at previous years, and we'll look at some historical data, you can see we have performed well as a company.
We then take a look a bit further and dive into the business. Let me start with this slide that talks about the pricing situation. As we've seen from the past always, that if the margin or the price difference between Europe and Asia starts to expand too much, then we will start to see a clear sort of stocking up happening. That was the case, now we have seen the price difference between Asia and Europe start to shrink. Of course now short lead times being somewhat shorter, there really isn't any business case to import product in big quantities from Europe. We're able to from Asia, we're able to supply our customers very well and continue to do so. In that respect, situation has actually normalized, which is good.
On the upper right-hand side, we have the nickel price. We've been hovering over $20,000 per ton for quite a while now. Obviously the electrical vehicle demand probably is putting a bit of a bid on nickel, of course also then the geopolitical situation, Russia, Ukraine, China of course may be impacting price as well. China and Russia do account probably for about 70% of global nickel supply. They are obviously playing an important role here in that respect. On the lower right-hand side, we see ferrochrome pricing. Ferrochrome prices were declining as we started the year, have since bottomed and now we're seeing again upward movement. The Chinese market in the first quarter for ferrochrome continued to be fairly weak. China, as you know, opened up post COVID.
I think most of the demand in China has been more visible in consumer goods markets, hotels, airline travel, restaurants. The activity on the industrial side in Q1 was not really that robust. Now as we look at, you know, the coming months, at least we are getting indications that also demand in Asia and China seems to be picking up and of course that probably is giving a bit of a bid here on the ferrochrome price as well. Looking at the results, and let me start off with the volumes, the deliveries on the upper left-hand side, 505,000 tons. If you look historically, it's not a huge volume. It's a good pickup from the previous quarter, 12% increase in deliveries.
As said, compared to the, let's say the boom years of 2021 and 2022, we're still low. As for those who don't follow us that much, Q1 is always a seasonally stronger quarter vis-à-vis Q4. The pickup movement is partially also seasonally. On the lower left-hand side, you can see our group adjusted EBITDA on a quarterly basis, EUR 244 million compared to earlier years. We don't have here 2019, which was the quarters before COVID. Compared to, for example, Q1 2019, our results now this year is almost double. In that respect, I really feel that this was a good quarter. Our performance as a company was almost all of our businesses did quite well. In ferrochrome, as you know, we've had some challenges.
Pia will talk about them. Overall, the machine was really humming very well. On the right-hand side, you can see the bridge, EUR 110 million in Q4, EUR 204 million in the first quarter. Deliveries picked up. Also, on the realized pricing side, we had a fairly, I would say, neutral outcome. Of course, in terms of net and timing and hedging, we had a plus there. That's basically really just looking at the bridge item vis-à-vis the previous quarter. Good numbers there. Sustainability has, of course, become a major topic in our industry. Europe and most of the, let's say, Western countries here are trying to decarbonize their economies.
Finland as a country has made a decision to be carbon neutral by 2035. Obviously, as we originate here, it's an important part of our journey. From the standpoint of ESG topics, if I just first, before I say a few words about sustainability on the CO2 side, let me just say that on the safety front, it was another great quarter for Outokumpu. Our total recordable injury frequency rate, TRIFR, was 1.8. It's a strong number. Based on the data we have, we have the best safety record in our industry and also compared to many other industries, we're doing very well on safety. Our target long term is to reduce it even further.
Going back to the question of CO2, one important element of that is how we operate and how we take advantage of the circularity of our business. We have a very high recycled material content. At 94%, we have the highest level of recycled materials used in our industry. Again, this was a strong quarter compared to the previous years. We've been able to raise our recycled content gradually YoY, and the work towards that continues. Then, as said earlier, in terms of taxonomy, we have a good rating, a good situation there, and we're the only company, as far as I know, in the stainless and in the steel industry, which has committed to SBTi 1.5 degrees target.
We're also the only one that fully discloses all the data on Scope one, two, and three. We take sustainability very seriously at Outokumpu. A few words about energy, because, of course, as of following the Ukraine War and then the spike in energy last summer, this of course has become an important topic. Our industry, especially Outokumpu, as a large producer of ferrochrome, we are the largest buyer of electricity in Finland, and of course, we're a large user of electricity and energy in general. On the left-hand side, you can see the graph, how energy prices have spiked up and down. For us, basically, as we look at the coming years, there are three sort of things that are on our minds.
Well, first of all, we need to have access to renewable energy, basically carbon-free energy. The benefit of the Nordics is that we have historically always, we've had good underlying energy supply, especially non-carbon energy. The challenge, though, for the coming years is that while Finland and the Nordics is going to be adding a huge amount of wind power, onshore wind power, it's been estimated that we will be getting in Finland about 1,000 megawatts per year of wind. That in itself is going to be excellent from the standpoint of availability. We also need to have base power, because as you know, you know, we have windy days, and then we have not so windy days.
For that reason, we have announced together with Fortum, which is a Finnish or Nordic large utility, a project where we are looking together at the potential to build a small modular reactor, an SMR nuclear power plant near, primarily near our facility in Tornio up in the north. There's new technology coming along. You know, in Finland, we have the Olkiluoto 3, which is a huge plant, but we're looking more at modular, scalable reactor solutions. There is new technology coming on stream, and we're gonna see whether some of that would fit us. We of course hope that we can find a solution which would give us competitively priced base power. A few words about CBAM. Now, this is a bit of a abbreviation monster here. CBAM stands for Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism.
The idea basically here is to have a carbon tariff that equalizes, let's say, the emissions of European producers vis-à-vis non-European producers who supply various types of steel grades and precursor materials, such as ferroalloys, into the European Union. On the left-hand side, you can see Outokumpu's situation today, our CO2 emissions vis-à-vis industry on average and also then some data on ferrochrome. I mean, we can see from this data in green that Outokumpu is extremely well-positioned. We are the lowest CO2 producer. The starting point is good. The reality though is that competition is tough and customers, of course, do not always have the best information available vis-à-vis the different options and their CO2 amounts. We believe the Carbon Border Adjustment is a fair and efficient mechanism to equalize.
What is important for us is that Outokumpu, as a ferrochrome supplier, is located in Europe. We have the Kemi mine in Europe, and we will be inside the CBAM region. As ferroalloys are now also going to be included, it is actually an advantage to Outokumpu that our ferrochrome supply is domestic and it's actually located near the actual point of use, and that is Tornio in northern Finland. A few short words about the strategy. I was extremely happy last summer when I could report to you that we were six months ahead of schedule in terms of implementing phase I, and we reached all the targets we had set. We even over-delivered in many areas. Now we're in phase II.
It's almost one year since we launched phase II, and I can tell you, and Pia will show you some numbers in a moment, that we are on track. The things I'm most proud about, and I think which is really most important here, is how successful are we in steering our business. You may recall that in terms of BA Europe, we split it into two business lines, our Stainless Europe, which is more focusing on the commodity grades, and then what we call Advanced Materials, which is the technical high-tech project business. In doing that split, of course, objective here was to become much more customer-focused. I can tell you that based on what we've done and what I've seen here, our teams are able to execute much better and in a much more focused and systematic manner in the new structure.
Our margin management has also improved. What do I mean with margin management? It is finding the right optimal balance between procuring raw materials at the right time and at the right place, at the right cost, the optimal production, and the sales and marketing. By having the right optimum there, it also helps us balance our capital employed, our working capital. That's been a big step forward. I can really see concrete evidence inside Outokumpu that we have become better. We're also continuing to invest in our digital platforms. We still have a bit of work to do here. Over the next few years, we will further implement some new systems that will give us some new benefits, especially on the supply chain side. That work is ongoing.
We announced at the previous quarter our intention to improve our energy efficiency by 8% in two years. That is a very tough target. I knew when I set the target that we're gonna be stretching the organization. We have promised them that they will get the capital they need. It's all about ideas, we've been able to get already a good amount of ideas that we're now implementing. At the moment, I can say that we're making now good progress also on that front. Finally, I need to mention that the project around commercializing Circle Green, which is the lowest CO2 content stainless steel in the world, that work is going very well. We're constantly getting more and more positive feedback from customers that they wanna try out the product and buy.
That's also good news. Now, with those words, let me hand this over to the smiling Pia to report on the numbers. Please, Pia, take it away.
Well, thank you, Heikki, please do let me start with just a few comments on our balance sheet, our industry-leading balance sheet. I think that is such a, you know. It's just a sign of strength. It does give us financial flexibility. Of course, this also now helps us operationally, being in this strong position. Maybe just a few sort of key figures to back that up first. After all, I'm the CFO here. The numbers, our net debt is now further reduced. It's a negative of EUR 166 million. I'll come back to a few factors impacting that for sure. Our liquidity reserves are strong. They are up to EUR 1.5 billion at this point. Maybe a few words on shareholder returns.
I'm sure you recall that for last year, we have now actually just in April paid out the dividend, and the dividend where we sort of set out was EUR 0.25 of a base dividend, EUR 0.10 of an additional dividend because last year was a very good year for us. Now we are in our first quarter of 2023 delivering earnings per share of EUR 0.22. I think that sort of sets a good base for our financial policy with the growing dividends. That's a good starting point. We have also just completed our first ever share buyback program. I'm very satisfied with the way how we executed on that program. I think that was a good success. Now we have added this tool also to our toolbox.
I think as management, we found that to be a really good tool, so let's keep it in the toolbox and consider using that as a future reference, of course. Some more key figures. If I'll just first comment on a few that I further wanna highlight from here, I think looking at the return on capital employed first of all, we are here now at almost 20% at this point. That's a very good performance for sort of a heavy capital intense industry like ours. Looking at the cash flow for the quarter, the operating cash flow was at EUR 74 million. I think that's also just sort of a good start of the year along with the good performance than when it comes to our result.
There was one thing that I thought of when I was really looking at this slide and sort of my memory took me back down to last summer when we had our capital markets day and we talked about the fact that of course market sentiment was at that point already changing. I mean, we went from the very hot market that we still had in early 2022 into something that was sort of visibly going to start to slow down. Then we introduced our view of what a normalized EBITDA could be. What would our performance be under more normal market conditions? I still remember the many questions I got about that, how did you calculate it, et cetera.
I think most importantly, I mean, what I said then was that we were sort of looking back at more like historical levels of, for example, sales prices, volumes, et cetera. When I look at the situation now, obviously, you know, as we speak and as Heikki has already described, I mean, sales prices have been under some pressure. If I just look at the CRU data, as I'm sure you are looking too, we do see sort of, you know, below average levels even in sales prices. I am still, you know, happy and I still feel good about that discussion that we had about, you know, what could such a normalized performance be. I think the first quarter is a good proof point of that.
I think sort of the main learning is that in this market situation where we have had the pressure, especially on the spot prices, we have also seen how the raw material market has reacted. Certainly, I think we also have a bit of a sort of, you know, these two go somehow now hand in hand. I think that gives me confidence that our earlier statements about the normalized are still, you know, those are still valid. Let me take you further still with a brief view really on the sort of details on the strategy execution.
I think that's also an important key to our performance and Heikki already spoke about many of the things that we have been addressing in the strategy execution. Just looking now at what we really be able to achieve in the quarter. In the quarter, our run rate EBITDA improvement based on our strategy execution is EUR 24 million. I would say, you know, we have a number of projects there, and many of them are important. In this quarter especially the expansion of the ore concentrating plant in Kemi, I mean, that was one of the contributors. If I look, you know, over time, what are some things we really need to keep an eye on? Heikki mentioned the energy efficiency. That's really important.
I mean, this 8% energy efficiency improvement, it's such a significant step change compared with kind of normal continuous improvement, maybe like, you know, half % per year, something like that. That's important. If you recall, we also spoke quite a lot about sort of enabling more volume, so growth from productivity of our current system. We talked about 80 kilotons out of our America system and 100 kilotons out of our European system. I would say in the background, we are really well on track for enabling that. Obviously that will give us opportunity once we reach the point where the market is really rebounding. Keep an eye on that. I still wanna also go back to the sustainability targets. We did set ambitious CO2 reduction targets, 14% just for this Phase II .
When I look into that, I think there's a few important projects on top of the energy efficiency yield improvements and many other sort of operational improvements. We are investigating the biocoke as we have described before, and that is one of the things that we will then. You know, we continue working with this in the background, and that is an important enabler for the CO2 reduction as well. Maybe finally then, when we really looked into the more sort of specialized grade, what are now being developed in the Advanced Materials portfolio, I think just being able to sell, being able to expand here in that portfolio is also one of the drivers for the journey here during phase II of the strategy.
Maybe then as a matter of completion and just sort of completeness, maybe the divestment of Long Products, we closed that big deal early in Q1. Our net debt was reduced by EUR 100 million as a result of that. We also signed to divest the remaining Long Products units that were in Sweden. That deal is still kind of expected to be completed during the third quarter of this year. My final three slides on the BAs and then a little bit on working capital. What I want to cover here, first of all, when I look at the European business I think a EBITDA of EUR 122 million in the quarter is a good performance. It's testimony to good steering. We also did have a stable performance in the quarter.
I mean, yes, there were some strikes, but these were still managed well and somehow kind of we had overall a good capacity utilization above 80% and that enabled us to have a good run, to have a good supply chain planning, to have, you know, efficiency, variable cost efficiency, also, you know, fixed cost efficiency. That combined with efficient raw material management really allowed for this good result in the quarter. On to my topic of what sort of was still important, what made the result better QoQ. I would still there highlight as a plus energy costs that were actually lower than in the fourth quarter and also actually some other consumables were a little bit cheaper.
What this means is that that sort of peak inflation, of course, very much driven by energy is at least for now, kind of behind us. Then finally, I think, looking at sort of the market situation, Heikki has commented already many really important points there. I would say as we are now seeing the end of the destocking phase, especially in Germany, but also more broadly if we look at the stats, we are commenting that quite a lot in our report actually. I mean, we do see now the inventory levels, to be normalizing. That is for sure sort of making a bit easier to breathe in the next quarters. You also see that of course in our guidance for the stable volumes going forward.
When you look at the bridge of our price impacts that we have enclosed, as you know, I don't show it here, but it's in the detail of our webcast material. What you will of course as well see is that yes, indeed, if you look at CRU data, you see that there's pressure on the spot prices. Please remember that we do have, you know, a good stable base of contracts in our portfolio. You know, we always used to say it's more than a third, but less than half. I mean, let's land the figure somewhere around 40%, and it sort of gives you sort of a magnitude of what that means. That's of course a much more sort of stable part of the business.
Some of the raw material benefits also kicked in there so that the overall, what we look at as price impacts were not, you know. When you look at it, in big picture, they were not that negative at all. I come into BA Americas, and then this gives me a chance to talk a little bit about timing and hedging because Heikki already spoke about the market situation, how extremely difficult it was in Q4 when the distributors really stopped ordering, how we've had a little bit of a gradual rebound here during the Q1. We clearly can see now the destocking come to an end. When will the real sort of replenishment start? We will still have to watch and see for that. Clearly we are now in a more stable phase.
What impacted BA Americas’ result really negatively in the fourth quarter was also the hit that we had on timing and hedging. That is now very clearly rebounding. On a bridge, we really get a positive impact there. Let me still remind you that we have of course, I mean, raw material and scrap as such an important driver in our result. There are many ways how it impacts. I’ll start with the most important one also linked to sustainability, which is that when our recycling ratio is high, that really also improves, you know, our financial performance. That is something we have really nailed down. On top of that, we have some other impacts.
What we always report per BA and what you can see here as well as timing and hedging impacts, that's really, you know, sort of the timing difference that we have between when we have bought and when we have sold. Price in, price out, you know, there's a delta in between because we do have an inventory turnover still. I think we are sort of closer to three months. You know, it takes some time for material to flow through the system. With that being said, there's always a difference between price in and price out that we are then risk management to some extent with hedging. Those, I think you can clearly see here now that that's a very positive impact for BA Americas in this quarter comparing that with Q4.
We also have other raw material impacts that we are showing as a part of the pricing component, and that could have to do more with sort of one-time opportunities in the market or particular purchasing conditions. With that being said, I hope it clarifies a bit. I'm sort of super proud about what our Americas team have done and really rebounded in the result here in the quarter as well. I think that's sort of a good sign of what we are now able to do with the operative performance and stability that we have reached. Not to mention, by the way, do you still remember when we were talking about the ferritic investment all the time and how good that is?
I think in a year like this with a slower market, it has proven really good to have a broader product portfolio. BA Ferrochrome is the BA that was really impacted by the European energy crisis, and Q1 is still unfortunately sort of a testimony of that. The result of the high energy prices were that we had to stop production, and then we also suffered some operational difficulties. All in all, we actually were down to just a notch above 50% capacity utilization in the quarter, and that's of course then visible in the result. Together with the good, you know, work of the team, the energy optimization, we still managed to deliver what I would call an acceptable result under the circumstances, even a good result, of EUR 16 million of adjusted EBITDA in the quarter.
For the second quarter, we do see this kind of rebounding and stabilizing again. We will be back to normal capacity utilization, and we will take the longer maintenance break in the third quarter. That is when it's being planned at the moment. Okay, onto my final slide then. Here I get a little bit of a chance to talk about the cash flow and the CapEx. I'll start really briefly with the CapEx because I don't have so much to say. The CapEx figure in the quarter was low. The Deep Mine is really coming to an end, and that impacted it, there wasn't sort of that push from the Deep Mine strategic investment at all.
You see here that we are still foreseeing a EUR 200 million CapEx overall for the year. Maybe more interestingly, if you look at the left-hand side of this graph, you see a bit of our cash flow components here. Obviously starting with the reported EBITDA and then looking at the working capital performance of the quarter. My description of it is, it was really smooth. I mean, Q1 is typically a quarter where we are investing somewhat into working capital. I think this was now a fairly minimal investment. I think we managed our, you know, payables, receivables well, just given, you know, some little bit uptick in inventory and that's really what you see here.
I really see the sort of same smooth situation going into Q2 because we have a fairly stable view of the volume development. In this other bucket here of, let's say, other cash outflows, please note that we made, we used all of our deferred tax assets in Finland last year, so we actually already had some cash payments of taxes in Finland for last year, and we paid all of that out now during the first quarter. You see here some more sort of tax payments than normal. I think we will also pay some cash out during the second quarter from Germany, maybe that was EUR 15 million, EUR 20 million, something like that. There is a little bit of an uptick now in the cash out compared with previous years.
Operating cash flow of EUR 74, and then as the CapEx was low and we got the EUR 100 million uptick from the Long Products sale, then that is then really what you see here in the end as a positive in the net cash from investing activities. With that said, Heikki, may I please hand back over to you.
Thank you, Pia. Thanks for the good summary. To wrap up this section, I would kind of summarize, you know, Pia's presentation with the words Outokumpu has good momentum. I said we are many of our customers have already completed their destocking, the dynamic of the market is again changing to a more positive tune. Now, of course, there are always risks, we have this one page that tries to give a bit of a more holistic picture about the risks. Our view here is that the risk outlook is now neutral. Yes, we have pluses and minuses, but I think overall we're in a neutral situation here.
On the positives, of course, assuming now that the Chinese reopening moves to the Phase II , that means that in the second half of the year, industrial activity does improve and pick up in China. Of course, that would then have a positive impact in terms of demand for stainless and ferrochrome in the Asian markets, and of course, creating its own positive supply-demand dynamic into Europe and the U.S. as well. The other positive, which is more of a longer-term thing, is of course significant amount of capital is now being allocated in various forms for green transition investments. Of course, we especially in our Advanced Materials, but also when we look at our standard grades, classic grades, hydrogen is one example.
I mean, there's a lot of demand going to be coming in the, in the next years. That's really a positive. On the uncertainties, of course, as we all know, I mean, are we gonna have a soft or hard landing here? I think it's still a bit of a coin toss. What are the central banks going to do? Are we gonna have too much tightening or are we gonna sail through this? Cannot really say. The war in Ukraine, what's the next phase gonna bring about? Finally, of course, energy as we head into next winter.
I have to say, though, with the experience we had from this winter, how we learned and became even smarter with energy optimization, you know, things like that, I'm more comfortable about winter of 2023, even if we were to have, you know, a big of a challenge like we had this year. I'm just feeling more confident in our ability to manage also through that type of a situation if, hopefully not, but if it were to materialize. Hopefully you get a good sense that this is sort of a neutral, overall neutral viewpoint about risk. The outlook for the second quarter. Group stainless steel deliveries in the second quarter are expected to remain stable compared to the first quarter. Our ferrochrome production will increase and return to normal levels in the second quarter.
However, the business area is preparing for a maintenance break, as Pia said, in the third quarter. With current raw material prices, no significant raw material inventory or metal derivative impacts are expected to be realized in the second quarter. Finally, the guidance for Q2 2023, adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter of 2023 is expected to be at a similar or higher level compared to the first quarter. That's the outlook. Now Pia and I are happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.
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The next question comes from Anssi Raussi from SEB. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you. It's Anssi Raussi from SEB. I have a few questions, go one by one. First of all, back to this Pia's favorite topic of normalized EBITDA. Do you still think that we are in the middle of a, like, somehow exceptional market conditions as you reminded about this one? Of course, you generated over EUR 200 million of EBITDA in the first quarter. That's the first one.
Right. Thanks, Anssi. I think the reason I wanted to mention it was really looking at the price development and the CRU statistics in particular. Just sort of seeing that the prices have been at a lower level, that, of course, prompted also an analysis that, you know, what is our stance at this? The intention, of course, with talking about the normalized profit last year when we were at a much higher level in very favorable market conditions was to somehow, you know, just make this more tangible that what could the performance be. I just, you know, I just wanted to reiterate it because I felt that, hey, you know, this is a really strong start of the year. Obviously, there are even factors that are, you know, quite positive.
Our strategy execution, for example, is really going well. The business steering is really going well. I think we have added, you know, a lot of positive factors here. I wanted to take a step back and look at those market dynamics, and I think, you know, when I look at it holistically, yes, I see that the market prices are a bit lower than the historical averages that we built into the model, but there are also more favorable perspective from the raw material side compared with that. On balance, I'm still happy with this five to six hundred as sort of a, you know, a broad, somehow description of what is possible in a normalized market environment.
Okay, understand. About ferrochrome division. In Q2 should we expect a so-called normal quarter in terms of external sales volumes and costs? Have you been running this business normally since the beginning of April?
Yeah
have you been gradually ramping up the business?
I think the demand at the moment for us, in terms of our own usage for ferrochrome and what we can sell to the outside world is quite normal. I said we had some production issues as we headed into the end of the year, and then in the beginning plus, of course, the whole standstill because of energy cost impacts. I would say overall ferrochrome should be running, you know, normal. At least that's kind of what I'm expecting, you know. I want good performance from the plants and they promised to deliver.
Indeed. Heikki, they have been running... I mean, we were ramping up one of the furnaces already from end of February.
Mm-hmm.
Also the operational issues that we have been solved. Indeed, I mean, as per April 1st , production is running normally. The reason that we reminded about the maintenance break was just to say that in term of external deliveries, I think they will need to build a bit of inventory at the end of Q2 to prepare for that maintenance break in Q3.
Okay. Understand. About just a quick one on lead times. What kind of lead times do you have in Europe and Americas?
I think lead times are still, I mean, compared to the last years, the lead times of course are short. We're talking weeks, less than a month. Depends a bit on the product. The good thing is that our supply chain is very efficient, so we have been able to also increase the speed, the throughput time from raw material procurement to delivery of the product. That also gives us the ability to deliver, you know, faster than in the past I hope. As said, lead times are not very long. We can supply at the moment well.
yeah. This depends, of course, on the grade. Heikki, if I look on average, I mean, Americas is the same as before. We typically sell the one quarter and let's say that's kind of the norm. We are in that normal rhythm of that, so we are still sort of within the second quarter here. When it comes to BA Europe, I don't think we are over two months at this point as a total. Of course, the more advanced grades in Advanced Materials have somewhat longer lead times, but on average, I don't think we are above two two months.
Okay, thank you. That's all from me for now.
The next question comes from Tom Zhang from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking our questions. Two from me, which I'll take one by one. The first one just on the volume guidance. It sounds like you're a bit more conservative than some of your peers, especially given the seasonality normally getting a bit better into Q2. Heikki, you mentioned many of your customers are coming to the end of destocking. Just any high-level thoughts here on why we wouldn't expect volumes to be better. Is it sort of value over volume or is it really just apparent demand not really improving?
Well, I think it's more from the standpoint that the customers are starting to replenish, but the order size is smaller. I think there's still some, you know, how should I say, I mean, uncertainty about where the world is going. They are ordering, which is good, but the quantities are smaller. I think, you know, probably customers wanna see a bit more visibility at the second half of the year in 2024 before they lean forward even more. That's how I would read the market at the moment. Anything you would wanna add to that?
I think the stability is more how I would describe it, and I think your description fits that really well. It's difficult to see that sort of jump upwards. Rather, it's a more stable situation as we speak.
Understood. Thank you. The second question just on capital allocation, please. You know, if you're in a healthy net cash position, you've had positive free cash this quarter, and it sounds like probably more to come. What's the sort of thought process between CapEx, M&A and further shareholder returns, especially bearing in mind, you know, you've had the new AGM authorization that would allow you to do more buybacks if you chose to? Thanks.
Well, we have guided in terms of CapEx that phase II is going to be the EUR 600 million, and we're focusing very much on our existing operations and trying to make them more efficient and more cost competitive. You know, if we're able to continue along this momentum, it of course gives us some flexibility, financial flexibility. At this moment in time, you know, we have a plan for phase II and we're sticking with that.
Then I think, as for our financial policy, obviously the dividends are there-.
Very much so.
... you know, really at the heart and center. I think our first priority is to ensure that we can stay on that path of the growing dividends. Obviously with the EPS EUR 0.22 in the first quarter, this is already on extremely good track.
Mm-hmm.
We still remain with the tool of the share buybacks in our portfolio. I mean, it was a good tool. Let's then check sort of a bit later on how we think about that.
Got you. Thank you very much. I'll turn it back.
The next question comes from Patrick Mann from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Good day, Heikki and Pia. Thank you for the opportunity. Could you talk a little bit more about your contracts and the pricing under the contract? You said we should think about roughly 40% of the volumes. You know, how often are those prices set and on what basis? Thanks very much.
It's good that we have a good contract share. It gives us stability, I mean, both upside and downside. As we saw during COVID, it was also a bit of a buffer when the market got really bad in 2020 time period. As said, you know, most of the contracts were agreed to end of last year. Depends on the customer, you know, how they are structured, but, you know, half year to a year is not uncommon. And on the pricing side, I think what I've said before is that the volatility up and down it's much less... I mean, the CRU curves that some people follow, they do not give at all the right indication on how the contract pricing moves. Those are spot...
Those are point estimates. I don't know from what sample where the data is collected from, but it gives only a point estimate and doesn't sort of represent, in my view, at all, you know, how contract pricing behaves.
Patrick, my comment was specifically on Europe, and I think, Heikki, your answer as well was, you know, really focusing on the dynamics in Europe. Obviously in Americas, you know, a very big share of our sales is through distribution, there's also usually a very big share of contracted basis. I would maybe characterize the contract sort of type in Americas a bit more like frame contracts.
Indeed.
Whereas in Europe, it's really typical that you really commit and lock in pricing, et cetera, for whatever period it then is half year, a year, et cetera. Those are usually longer stretches.
It is.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Bastian Synagowitz from DB. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good afternoon, all. I had a question on pricing as well. I'm wondering whether you feel that you've already been seeing pretty much the trough in realized profitability from the current spot market conditions. I guess most people have been I think talking obviously about a lot of price pressure. I guess you were referring to that as well, even though I guess it's not perfectly clear basically how far this has already fed through your system or not. Could you basically help us to understand how far you've been already seeing pretty much the trough in realized profitability? That is my first question.
Well, when you say realized profitability, of course there's always a revenue line, and then there's a cost line. So your question was more about the revenue line and specifically not the volume, but the price. You know, I never make forward-looking statements about price, I'm only gonna comment on kind of what we have seen. So as I just commented to Patrick's question on price, that the contract pricing, they live a whole different world than what this price, spot price is indicating. Even there, you know, I don't know from what market and from what customers those numbers are. Of course, it's clear that there are situations from time to time when prices may be adjusted on a case-by-case basis.
Assuming that the market now is now normalizing, you know, usually there is a supply and demand effect. If the balance is now starting to head into a situation where the market is getting tighter, of course that at least should by definition then start to create some kind of a floor. Of course, every market and every customer and every country is maybe a bit different, so I don't wanna generalize too much.
Heikki, if I could still add, I mean, obviously the dynamics, as also shown in the charts by Heikki earlier today have been a bit different also in Europe, in Americas. In Americas we have somehow seen a more robust environment broadly when it comes to pricing. The only thing I can then add is obviously if you look at our EBITDA guidance, we are now QoQ guiding stable or higher. Maybe that's also at least that's our view of how profitability will develop.
Indeed.
Okay. Thanks for those comments. Just secondly then on the cost part, I guess we've got energy costs, we've got raw material costs. Should we still expect within stainless a more material relief and realized energy costs? You've been pointing out that component of more favorable raw material costs as well.
Mm-hmm
... which I guess it was something which we've seen also in the 3rd quarter of last year. Here, could you just, maybe help us a little bit on whether you think that this could be a more lasting phenomenon?
First on the energy, I think, at the moment we have hedged about two-thirds, or actually it is closer to 70%, especially of the electricity cost for this year, at least through all of our bigger markets or uses. I think that still gives us a bit of opportunity to breathe with the market. Of course, at the moment, I mean, there's volatility every day, but the direction clearly has been lower. With that said, I think, you know, depending on how the market develops, if the prices go down, we have some room still to sort of see that also realized then in our P&L.
I would, you know, I would be maybe rather be a little bit cautious here in just saying that, you know, we still don't know about the winter of 2023, 2024. I probably will recommend that we will even hike up our hedging levels a little bit when we come more sort of towards the end of the year. If there's a lower price now during the summer, very likely we can then have some benefits from that into the P&L. Your question about the raw materials. I think particularly in Q3, we knew those were sort of really specific conditions, especially that was in the U.S., but that was also more broadly. We were talking about the sort of one-time or one-off impact.
Now obviously, you know, we got that again in the quarter. I think it's a fair question that has something really changed structurally. I can just sort of reiterate a few factors that I see directly impacting us, but has something really changed in the market? I think that's a bit early to say just on this, that Q3 was in a certain way and now Q1 was in that way. Again, that would be kind of a too fast conclusion. I say there's not enough evidence on that. I think what we have seen is, first of all, internally recycling rate is really good. You know, our teams are really putting pressure to this to use more and more scrap, have higher and higher scrap ratio.
I think we have made, you know, some sort of, you know, within the production, some good step changes and, you know, that is one topic that is supporting us. The other thing is we now have more cash. If we see something good in the market, we can act. We don't need to think, okay, cash position, working capital estimate, all. We can focus broadly on whether this is optimal deal for us or not, which is also good. Those are really like internal things that have changed our situation, which could, you know, which I believe are long lasting.
In the market itself, I mean, this has still been a condition of, you know, macro uncertainty and I think it's stainless steel prices have been calming down in CRU reports and you know, there have been kind of varying statements about weakness in the market. This has somehow also impacted the overall situation then on the raw material.
If I may just add two points. One is of course now in Finland we have Olkiluoto 3 up and running, which of course then compensates fully for the electricity we lost when we stopped buying from Russia, and then there's even a net gain. That's a positive surplus as we head into next year. As I mentioned, 1,000 megawatts of onshore wind coming now every year. That does improve the energy picture for us up here in the north. Of course, in Europe, as you know, on the natural gas price side, we are still much lower than we were. Compared to history, natural gas prices are still somewhere double plus compared to where they were in the past.
That is of course impacting then Germany and some of the German prices do a little bit, you know, sort of impact the price level in southern Sweden, and then they a little bit also sort of flow into the Finnish market. That is sort of that slight pressure coming from Germany. On the raw materials, what I just wanna say in scrap, I mean, at the moment the exports of scrap out of Europe to Asia and India in particular are quite limited. We have had, you know, we basically get all the scrap we need from Europe. We have had no issues in supply, so that is a really good situation.
Okay, perfect. Thanks for the color.
The next question comes from Maxime Kogge from ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good afternoon. First a general question about your guidance for Q2. It seems to me quite shy because you're guiding for similar or better EBITDA, but what is sure is that in ferrochrome you will have a much better EBITDA given that you will benefit from higher prices and higher volumes. Regarding stainless steel activity, I think that there are also a number of tailwinds like lower raw material adjustments, similar shipments, perhaps, further raw material costs, savings. I mean, yeah, can you specify a little bit what you expect for stainless steel, if we look at it isolated from ferrochrome? Could it be lower or will it be also at stable versus Q1? That's my first question.
Thank you, Maxime. If I may start maybe a technical comment, but on the net of timing and hedging where we are saying we don't expect a big impact in the second quarter. There also on an absolute terms wasn't a big impact in the first quarter, but of course, just as a bridge it was very positive compared with the fourth quarter. Maybe that is kind of actually fairly neutral quarter on quarter within the, within the given guidance. You are of course right on ferrochrome that we came from a very low production environment in Q1 into a normal production environment. Deliveries will not hike up really to the normal level because we need to build some inventory.
Although of course this will contribute, I think there's sort of a strong positive contribution in that one. Maybe I'll leave it at that in case, Heikki, you wanna add anything.
No, please.
Then I think the volume part for me is pretty clear. I mean, we are guiding for a stable volume, so that won't sort of give a kind of a positive or negative impact per se. I think the important feature is then here the development of some particular costs, whether it's then energy or whether it's raw material together with the development of the spot prices. Obviously those are some topics where we have made our assumptions, but as Heikki said, I mean, usually we don't really wanna comment on forward-looking pricing. Those are then, you know, something where we took the decision to give this little bit broader guidance that is stable or higher.
Okay. Thank you for that. Perhaps you give more color on regional trends for volumes. I know you do give some color usually given that the stocking wave is not yet over in U.S. Should we expect volume in the U.S. perhaps to go down a little bit while those in Europe might go up a little bit versus Q1, sorry, in Q2?
I think we also see the end of the destocking now in the U.S. It came a little bit later, than in Europe, at least from our perspective and from what we see. We are also now at the end of the destocking. Heikki made a really, good specific comment earlier today, which was to say when customer starts to replenish, those are smaller orders. It's a very gradual uptick right now. I don't see any reason to sort of go lower in volumes in Americas either. This sort of stable situation I think is pretty much across the board of our businesses.
I think one thing which is sometimes hard to follow is that the ultimate end user demand is actually not that volatile.
Mm.
It's the inventory and the distributor part which is fluctuating. If you look at, you know, how customers buy, in many areas it's surprisingly stable. You have a long-term trend growth, which is positive, and then you have some fluctuations. It's the distributors which basically create here the big ups and downs. That's why we have this direct business and contract business to kinda hedge or manage.
Mm.
the volatility as best as possible.
Okay, thank you. Perhaps a last one. You announced in March your intention to launch a metal powder business. Could you give us a very broad term sense of startup and startup costs and CapEx and what could be the potential contribution from this activity going forward in terms of sales and EBITDA?
Yeah. Thanks. Now I really feel bad that I didn't bring the spoon because I had it on my desk today. I mean, I got this sample of a product that we have already produced out of this powder. How should I characterize this? I mean, the CapEx is more sort of magnitude single digit million EUR. I think this is for us, I mean, this is an important step because it's showing the magnificent things we can do out of scrap. I mean, this will be a really high quality powder. We are, I would say, starting out, you know, with pretty low volumes, obviously looking at a product with some interesting margins, but only kind of gradually ramping up our capability here.
This is also a new area for us. I think it's a good addition to our more sort of specialized capabilities. Hopefully this can serve our customers well. I would not sort of want to bring any sort of plus, big plus in terms of margins to this year's performance. Maybe this is something we can come back next year when we have been ramping this up a little bit more.
I think the first applications will be really high-end super premium kitchenware and then medical devices. You know, surgery and other things where customers are looking to you know, really develop, you know, really cutting edge tools, for example, for operations, those type of things. That's probably where we start first.
Okay. Thank you very much. That's all for me.
The next question comes from Rochus Brauneiser from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, it's Rochus from Kepler Cheuvreux. I have a question on the second quarter outlook. I'm not sure whether I missed that. Is the guidance you're given for stable to higher earnings, including any particular further positive effect from those raw material effects which were supporting the Q1 numbers? Shall we expect at a later point in time that these positive effects are going to revert? Or is it just a one-off which is happening now and is not reoccurring?
First of all, we have these, I would call them different buckets of raw material impacts. If we really consider where we really even give guidance, which is the timing and hedging, I mean, this is the difference between... The timing is the difference between the price in and the price out, and, well, the hedging is the hedging. There's nothing significant. Also there wasn't on absolute terms any significant items in the first quarter. Not really much there. I guess that you are also asking about the other positive raw material impacts. That's obviously-
Right
That's obviously something where I wouldn't yet talk about kind of a trend or, you know. I see some positives from our own actions that I think will be part of us in the future and of course are also kind of part of our estimates leading to this guidance. When I look at this more holistically, when I consider what we reported as part of the pricing impacts, where we said, well, you know, they really weren't that negative because the somewhat lower spot prices were compensated by some positive one-off impacts in raw material, I would still say, we still have at this point to consider those pretty one-off.
Mm.
Maybe some spill over to Q2, but that's not really the main thing here behind the guidance.
On some items, like certain chemicals, so we're starting to see sort of a, you know, that inflation spike starting to taper off. I think the first signs that inflation has tipped over and is now starting to soften or weaken or decline, I think that's starting to be evident in some chemicals.
Mm-hmm.
As an example.
Right. All right. Sorry that I'm coming back to the point again. I think the wording on this positive raw material effect was a bit different one compared to what you used in the third quarter last year. Does that tell us that the nature of that?
Yes
... raw material effects were in a way different or had different origins compared to what we are seeing now in the Q1? Is it anywhere the same kind of magnitude compared to the third quarter last year? I guess it was kind of a magnitude of EUR 50 million.
Yeah. Yeah. I think you have been reading the report extremely carefully.
I always, yeah.
Thank you for that. I think really if we look at those raw material impacts that we sort of try to characterize as one-off, yes, indeed. I think the characteristics were somewhat different now in Q1 than what they were particularly in Q3. The geography was also a little bit more different. They were a bit more focused on the third quarter on Americas. I think we saw this kind of in both of our key regions in this quarter. Yes, they were a little bit different than maybe the order of magnitude is somewhat similar. That's not an exact figure now, but from the top of my head, I would say yeah, similar.
Right. I think we all still struggling a little bit about getting a better sense about what's helping you? I think in the end, I've not, I think we have not heard kind of similar effects from other players. Is this, as you said, you know, it's too early to talk about a trend, but is this something which you can harvest over longer? Is there a risk that maybe others are jumping on this opportunistically and then this effect is not repeating itself in a way as you are observing it now?
I think it's interesting sort of, you know, and obviously this is also kind of commercial, you know, how we want to act in the market and even strategic, you know, how we act. I'll just sort of leave it at a very brief comment that, you know, if I compare with our peers, they may have somewhat different strategies when it comes to, you know, sort of, integration and, you know, what sort of... where you actually wanna play yourself and where you wanna be a buyer, et cetera. I just think we don't seem to be acting exactly in the same way. That's kind of an observation of the current status.
Okay. Very good. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Xian Wang from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Congratulations on the strong results. Almost all my questions have been answered. If I can follow up on net working capital, can you talk about Q2 and full year 2023 outlook?
Sure.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, and thanks for your kind comments. On networking capital, I also see Q2 as a, you know. Seasonally, I would have expected a little bit of an uptick in inventory. I specifically said that ferrochrome will be building some inventory. I know we are also planning some other maintenance breaks in the third quarter. I mean, just typically like we always do at the bigger sites. That's why seasonally usually we have a little bit of an uptick in inventory, you know, at the end of the second quarter. When I look at sort of our current view, I see a fairly smooth ride again.
I'm not sure whether it will be minus EUR 48 like it was in this quarter, but I would expect a small investment into working capital in the second quarter. When we go into the third quarter, I don't really see anything that would disrupt the sort of normal seasonal pattern where especially in Europe inventories then really go down during the third quarter. Usually we reach sort of the lowest point in inventory at the end of Q3, and then we still get a lot of cash in in Q4, and reach sort of an overall low point in working capital at the end of the year.
Of course, I mean, there are still some things about the market later in this year that, you know, we will only observe and see as we have spoken about our customer behavior today. They are not yet sort of leaning a lot forward, but I don't see any reason to sort of doubt this normal seasonal pattern at this point.
Mm-hmm.
Okay, cool. That's very clear. Thank you. Thank you.
The next question comes from Ioannis Masvoulas from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Oh, yes. Hi, Heikki and Pia, thanks for taking my questions. A few left from my side. The first starting with Americas. You talked about lower realized prices in Q1. The EBITDA bridge on the slide deck shows a positive contribution from pricing and mix. Has there been a significant mix shift during the quarter, or is there anything else to highlight here? Thank you.
I would say I'd come back to some positives from the raw material purchase impacts that are boosting that bucket in our bridge. It's back to the thematic that we have discussed about some of these like, you know, raw material related topics that have impacted that overall because we have price and mix and some raw material effects there.
Understood. Thank you. Second question, going back to the broader discussion around China, where we've seen fairly strong production rates, rising inventories and exports. We've also seen NPI being fairly cheap relative to stainless scrub in the Western world. How do you see that playing out as we go into the second half of the year? Is there a risk of significant, competitively priced volumes hitting Europe or the U.S.? Which region do you think is the most exposed there from today's point of view?
As I mentioned earlier in my presentation, we just don't see at the moment a real good business case for customers to be importing big volumes because we are able to deliver, you know, if customers need fast delivery, we can do that. Our supply chains are now faster. You know, the big price delta, especially in Europe has diminished. Just don't see a big business case for big imports. At least, as I said, at least what we are hearing from our customers in Asia is that things should be picking up in the second half. If that is true, then of course, the demand will also absorb some of that capacity that you're referring to.
At least at the moment where I cannot confirm or I don't see the concern you're raising. Of course, I have to rely on the information I'm getting from our sales force.
Understood. Thank you very much. Third question around the capital allocation, going back to that topic, clearly a very strong balance sheet in Q1, I'm beginning to hear your latest thoughts on the cash buffer needed for the business before considering distributing excess cash to shareholders. Thank you.
I mean, we have a good cash buffer right now, you know, putting an exact EUR amount on it, I think is maybe just being a little bit too bold because also, you know, the market situation keeps changing. I would say in terms of a buffer, I feel already confident. You know, we have a good buffer to have operational agility. The question is, you know, how do we wanna prepare for, let's say, future CapEx, et cetera? I think there are these, you know, considerations that we need to take holistically, and I think also kind of early in the year is probably not the best time for that contemplation.
I think once we get into sort of, you know, seeing kind of the full year cash flow, et cetera, it's. There's gonna be sort of more ammunition to discuss this topic and more clarity.
If I can just say that, yes, of course, there's a cash buffer. If you remember our strategy, we have said that when we get to phase III, it is a time when we can make a bit more bigger moves. I personally don't feel that it's at all a bad idea to also be starting to sort of also financially, get ready for whatever investments we then finally decide to make. Having, you know, a bit of a growing buffer, it puts us in a better position when we then move already to say that now we're moving to phase III.
That's very clear. Thank you so much.
The next question comes from Krishan Agarwal from Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks a lot for taking my question. I've got one remaining clarification from Pia on the energy cost, basically following up on Bastian's questions earlier. Is it fair to assume that, given that you have 12 months or, you know, 18 months longer hedging policy, the benefit from the current decline into the energy cost in the last three months probably would be seen in the 2024 for the 70% of the hedging portion? Is that a fair way to think?
It is actually a little bit more tricky than that because for a long time already we have had this, you know, sort of. We have a policy, and we have a way of working. I mean, our playbook says that we need to build our hedging position gradually. There was a bit of disruption last summer when there simply wasn't any liquidity in the market to make hedges, and the liquidity is still a bit thinner than it was prior to all of this crisis. I think we have been able to execute on the deals that we want. It means that we are constantly buying, with a really long-term view, you know, electricity and building up this portfolio really, like, step by step by step by step by step.
With that being said, I think we are now, you know, just even just before the quarter starts, we are still locking in some deals for the quarter, whereas some deals for the quarter were locked in maybe, you know, 24 or 30 months ago. That is kind of how we gradually build that up, and that is why I think that I cannot draw that conclusion, you know. On the other hand, just to make this a little bit simpler, I mean, when we are buying and making contracts further in the future, if you make it on a short term, you have a lot of contracts available. You can do, you know, shorter time periods, longer time periods, et cetera. When you look longer in the future, typically there's less variability.
There's typically, for example, annual contracts, et cetera. Usually the pricing there is based on forward pricing that anyone can observe on the screens, for the market. I think right now we are already enjoying some of the benefits of the lower electricity cost now. Then, you know, if we wanna prepare for sort of next year, then we will start locking in probably more annual deals, for next year at some point.
My assumption right now is that electricity costs will come further down in the second quarter. Then depending on how the market develops, we will still be, you know, we will still be having some more expensive deals that we were probably locking in last year at higher prices. Then we will benefit somewhat from the lower price level right now. We get an averaging, and we get kind of a smoother curve over the periods, which is the same as we got also really in the heat of the crisis. We still enjoyed this sort of what I would call kind of baseline, that we had some hedges that kept us running. Where we didn't have the hedges, obviously then Ferrochrome needed to take really downtime.
Understand. Just to make our life a little more simpler and easier, is there any way you can guide us in how much is the percentage decline in the overall energy cost, based on your expectation for 2023?
Yeah. Let me think about that. If I find a good and sort of clear way of doing that, then we will add that in the future. I think it's a fairly complex question actually that you are asking. Because of the dynamic that when the spot prices. We always, you know, leave some room for spot deals because production can also vary. When the spot prices are too high, we actually ended up in a situation where we needed to stop production completely. I mean, it's, that's why it gets a little bit complex. If I find a good way, we will add it. If not, I'll just continue, you know, giving very long explanations, which I'm sorry, probably isn't too helpful.
No, no. Very clear. Very clear. Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Maxime Kogge from ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Yes. Sorry, just a follow-up, on your Q2 guidance. When you're writing that the business area Ferrochrome is preparing for a maintenance break in the third quarter, I mean, can you confirm that we will just have a working capital impact, in Q2 and no cost whatsoever related to maintenance in Q2? I think you already answered that question, but, yeah, can you confirm that there will be no major impact from maintenance in other divisions, in Q3 either?
Yeah. Yeah. Maxime, it's a good clarification. I think what this means is that production will be up to normal capacity utilization. Deliveries will be a little bit lower to external market because we need to build working capital. There will be no significant maintenance extra cost or anything like that. You know, there's always gonna be a little bit of the basic maintenance, but nothing kind of related to this big maintenance break will occur in Q2, and there will be a working capital impact. We will build inventory. That was BA Ferrochrome, and then when I look at the other BAs, then all of the schedules that I've seen for the annual maintenance are focused on Q3 at the moment. What should I say normally?
I mean, these are not, like, huge costs for the steel mills, you know, we are usually talking about, I don't know, EUR 6 million, EUR 7 million, EUR 8 million, something like that then in the quarter. The sort of spike is not huge, even though we take these maintenance breaks. If there's something unusual about those, then I'm sure we will write about that in our guidance statement then in Q2.
All right. That's clear. Thank you for that.
There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Let me just make three quick observations. As we've said with Pia, the destocking of our customers is starting to come to the end, and some customers are already restocking. There's now starting to be sort of stability and a floor on the market. Secondly, we've had a strong start to the year, EUR 204 million of EBITDA. Combining that with the guidance for the 2nd quarter, it really puts us in a good position after the 1st half of the year, and it's also a good springboard then when we move into the 2nd half of 2023. The company really is having good momentum.
Furthermore, at the moment, if you look at the implementation of the strategy, phase II, Pia showed you some of the numbers, execution is going according to plan, and people are very focused on delivering on the results, the EUR 200 million EBITDA target we have for the phase II, on the sustainability targets and, of course, on energy efficiency. Overall, I'm actually very pleased about where we are and very much look forward to meeting you again then in August when we release the results of the second quarter. Take care. Thank you for your interest.