Good afternoon, all, and welcome to Outokumpu's Q3 2023 results webcast. My name is Linda Häkkilä, and I'm the Head of Investor Relations here at Outokumpu. With me today, as our main speakers, we have our CEO, Heikki Malinen, and our CFO, Pia Aaltonen-Forssell. As per usual, we will first start with our presentations, and after that, we are happy to answer your questions. Before we start with our 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. Hope you're doing well. Welcome to Outokumpu's Q3 presentation. I hope you enjoyed this short video about the partnership that CRONIMET and Outokumpu have agreed upon. It is, again, an important step in our journey to become a more sustainable business and also to take circularity to new heights. The third quarter was quite challenging, as you can see from the numbers. I think we have to recognize that the third quarter basically is happening against the backdrop of a situation where central banks have actually increased or tightened monetary policy, both in terms of time, faster than ever, but also in terms of magnitude. And I think many of our customers and also consumers have probably been a bit ill-prepared for such a dramatic acceleration in costs and interest rates.
So that is sort of the backdrop against that we have been operating this year. But overall, Outokumpu is moving forward on many fronts. We have the strongest balance sheet in the industry. We have a very good market position, both here in Europe and in North America. And then, as I said, we are the sustainable-sustainability leader. Now, let me start the journey through our numbers for the quarter, and then we will be happy to answer your questions. So obviously, EUR 51 million EBITDA for the third quarter, which is usually the weakest quarter of the year, is not a number I can be satisfied about. But there are a number of reasons which actually explain where that comes from.
And if I just very briefly summarize on a very high level what we saw in the third quarter, it's really a story of two different markets. We have North America, the U.S., and Mexico, which are still surprisingly strong, resilient, and where demand was maintained. And that does explain how our North American business continued to develop good profitability. But here on the European side, we have a very different situation. One can say that Germany, for example, which is the largest market for stainless, has probably been already in some type of a recession for four quarters. We have a war in the eastern part of the continent. We've had an electricity, energy crisis, and there are new challenges also brewing in the southeastern part in the Middle East. So it's a volatile situation, creating uncertainty.
As we know, uncertainty easily leads to customers postponing their buying. We know today already that inventory levels among our customers, distributor customers, are at very, very low levels, and still the point of replenishment, which basically on historical databases should have happened already in May or so, has still been postponed. But as you will see from the coming slides, we do feel that the third quarter is in many ways, was the trough of, of this cycle so far. Now, let me point your focus here to the left side of the chart. Now, this is CRU data that we are able to share with you, and you can see from the left-hand price chart that the bottom in European pricing, and now that is the light blue line.
So the bottom in European pricing took place sometime in the middle of the summer, and since that, you can see prices have clearly started to rise in Europe towards the end of the third quarter, and that can be visibly seen from that curve. At the bottom, you have China, which I think everybody is waiting for the China rebound or cycle, cyclical change. So far, we have not seen that. And perhaps there's a bit of a lack of confidence among consumers there, which is again postponing buying. And also, we've been waiting for a larger stimulus package and more fiscal easing to happen in China. The stimulus has still not come. And I think that also explains the two curves at the bottom.
But then if we look at North America, you can see that it is healthy, the price level is healthy, it's stable, and as I said, the economy is doing quite well. On the right-hand side, we have the nickel price. Nickel has been declining somewhat from a very elevated level. At the moment, we are trading somewhere around $18,000 per ton for nickel. Now, when we talk about the stainless market, both in North America, but particularly in Europe, it's important to consider where are we with imports. Because while we have in both continents, we have import tariff duties, other measures. Traditionally, Europe has been the market which has been under the greatest import pressure, particularly from Asia and certain countries in Asia.
What is important to note here that if you look at 2023, the share of imports in Europe is quite low. In fact, compared to many longer time series, it is, it is quite low. And just looking at most recent data we have, for the first days of this quarter, we can see that the volume from Asia is continues to be quite low. Now, it's of course difficult to say what is the exact root cause for that, but our belief is that there are probably at least two reasons why this could be the case. One is that there is ongoing anti-circumvention investigation being conducted by the European Union, and this is targeting especially the high importers into Europe, Taiwan, Turkey, and Vietnam.
If you look at the volumes from Taiwan, Turkey, and Vietnam, they are actually very low compared to what they have been historically. Then we have the CBM... CBAM, Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, which is going to be coming in force in the next few years. The reporting officially starts in 2024, and that in itself will probably also create some reduction in imports, but also it's importantly creating a more level playing field, that those companies which emit high amounts of CO2, they should also then pay a carbon tax. So maybe those are two of the reasons explaining at least partially why the level of imports has been so low, which of course, for us as a supplier here, can be seen as positive. I talked about CBAM, CBAM, for short.
I won't go through the details of this slide. We did want to write down a lot of facts for those of you who are very interested in understanding more of what's going on here. But in essence, what CBAM is trying to do is that if you look at the left-hand side of the chart, you can see that Outokumpu has very low CO2 emissions. And then on the left-hand side, you can see what the emissions are, global average for stainless and then for ferrochrome. And you can see from the figures that we are really in a class of our own. We are also continuing to invest to even more accelerate the decarbonization of the company. So obviously, there needs to be some kind of a mechanism to balance all of this off. Let's then take a look at the figures for the third quarter.
On the left-hand side, you can see our deliveries. What I would like to focus on first is just looking at the third quarter of 2023, where our deliveries were 449 kilotons, compared to Q3 of 2020, which is all the way on the left-hand side, which was 488 kilotons. So obviously, a significant decline vis-à-vis the quarter, which was really the bottom of COVID, if you remember, before the big increase, once the economy then started to grow again. So this has been a tougher quarter, volume-wise, than we saw in the third quarter of 2020. Quite remarkable in many ways. And then if you look at our EBITDA at the bottom, you can see that although our results were weak for the third quarter, they were at least clearly better than they were in the third quarter of 2020.
So at least we are, we are clearly above break even on the group level, EBITDA, but as said, of course, not at all satisfactory. On the right-hand side, you can then see the delta change from the second quarter. Deliveries accounted for about 11%. The big bar here is clearly price. We did see a material decline in pricing across both mainly in Europe, which explains a big part of the delta change. And then we did have some metal, metal effects. We have worked very hard on costs. We've really tried to manage our costs already the whole year, but accelerating even into the third quarter, manage the costs very effectively wherever it is possible.
Obviously, making dramatic cost reductions very quickly is not possible, but wherever we see opportunities to reduce cost and manage cost, we have done so in the third quarter, and so that brought us to 51. However, given the poor, poor performance in Europe and Europe registered or recorded a negative EBITDA, as Pia will in a moment explain to you, we have taken immediately resolute action, and our actions are that we will streamline our operations for Advanced Materials in Germany. This basically implies that we will—we are planning to close the Dahlerbrück facility, and we will transfer, transfer the production from Dahlerbrück to Dillenburg. We will also invest in Dillenburg to make the plant even more competitive for, to manufacture Advanced Materials. So that proposal has now been presented to the employee representatives and the German negotiation process is, will then commence.
We're also announcing our plan to close our coil service center in Hockenheim. It is a master distributor, and those volumes will then be allocated to other locations. There are certain costs associated with the restructuring, and unfortunately, there will be impact on our employees. We will, of course, as a responsible employer, do our best to mitigate the impact to as many employees, employer, employees as we can. So that is a step in Europe to manage the results, among other things. A few words about ESG. I'm extremely proud when I can present these safety figures. 1.6 as a total recordable injury frequency rate is a strong number.
Now, obviously, we are aiming to go to zero, but I can say that looking at many industries and many companies, 1.6 is a solid number, and I'm extremely proud of the systematic work our employees do every day, every hour, across our plants globally, to improve our safety and to bring the number of accidents further down. So it's, it's really good work this year, and I do believe that all the stuff we're doing will make us even better. I know, and I can see we can bring the safety performance even, even to a better level. We're, we're definitely not done yet. We have a lot of ideas on how to improve it further. On sustainability, we have the highest recycling rate, and we're constantly looking for ways how we can increase the use of recycled material even more.
So hopefully, I can share good stuff around that also in the future. Well, you saw the video on CRONIMET. Let me just highlight two things from this. Obviously, we know that scrap is a fundamentally critical and strategic raw material, both in Europe and in North America for Outokumpu. There are two things important out of this, where one is the partnership. So this is a partnership where CRONIMET, led by Jürgen Pilarsky from the Pilarsky family, so their job is to do what they do really well. In other words, manage the scrap supply and scrap delivery and do the sorting. They're extremely good at that, and we're good at making stainless. But by working together as a partnership, we can ensure and increase the reliability that we will get all the scrap we need on time, in the right place in the future.
So this increases supply assurance for Outokumpu, and we have clear roles. The other thing I wanted to mention is that it's also, for us, very efficient from a working capital standpoint, so we will not need to incur any additional working capital load through this partnership. So I'm very excited about it. I think Jürgen is too, and we look forward to working together and developing this partnership. And as Jürgen said in the video, there's a lot of learning we can do to try and extract even more efficiency and savings out of the process. I do want to highlight one more thing here from this slide, and that is that we have during the third quarter, signed a letter of intent to, with Greenland Resources. It is in Greenland, as the name says.
Moly is a very important raw material for us, and we have been looking for places on the planet where we can source critical metals, where we believe the emission, the CO2 level, when it is processed, will be very low. FPX acquisition in Canada was one for nickel. It's a high-quality nickel. The deal in Greenland is another. So important steps on our journey to decarbonize. And then finally, before I let Pia join me here on the podium, let me just say a few words about North America. So in the last presentation in August, we talked about our plans for North America. We continue to work and assess different options. We are making good progress now in terms of the feasibility study for hot rolling and cold rolling. On the hot rolling side, we have now appointed a very experienced project leader.
He has executed many very large industrial investments, so he's now joined the team, and we have a very strong technical team in place. We are expecting and hoping to get the environmental permit, the air permit, very soon, and then we will be able to tick a box on the journey forward. The engineering work and preparations continue, and we are on the way to increase our readiness then to make ultimate decisions when the time comes. So that is the update on North America. I said before, this is the best market on the globe. We believe that North America and the U.S. in particular, long term, is the place to be, and we're very excited that we have such a great two assets, both in Mexinox and in Calvert, in our position.
With those words, let me hand it over to you, Pia, to continue from here.
Thank you so much, Heikki. Good afternoon and good morning, ladies and gentlemen, dear friends. Indeed, I mean, this is a quarter with really, really showing the cyclicality of the business. Thank you indeed, Heikki, for sharing the good news on Americas. I can say I've also just recovered from the jet lag from the previous trip, so, I mean, a high level of activity and a lot of work going on assessing our options right now. That is indeed good news. Let me talk you through some of the financials and also just a brief update on the strategy execution that we are doing right now, that's all underpinning still our results as well and improving our performance long term.
So I think really importantly in this part of the cycle is to take a step back and consider what have we achieved in terms of our balance sheet, in terms of our resilience, in terms of our liquidity. So our balance sheet remains the strongest in the industry. We are still debt-free, and I think with the cash flows into Q4, that I will also speak about, I think we are really maintaining and keeping this up with a lot of discipline, with a strong focus now also on costs, as Heikki has shared in the previous presentation. So one of the things on the funding side that we did during the quarter was to extend our revolving credit facility by one year.
That was in accordance with the earlier contracts, but we thought it's a good opportunity doing that right now. So we moved the maturity into 2027, and clearly, we have a strong cash position. Our liquidity reserve remained at over EUR 1 billion, at EUR 1.2 billion as we speak. And prudent capital discipline continues to be really important, and we will look at some of the figures of the CapExes, of the cash flows, et cetera. But I think what we have shown this year is that during this year, we have paid the dividend, the EUR 0.25 base, plus the EUR 0.10 extra dividend. We have also committed or already completed a share buyback program, and all of that with still remaining with a really strong balance sheet. And I just made the calculation as well.
EUR 0.25 was the base dividend for the previous year. Let's say the next cent up, EUR 0.26 , that would be equal to about EUR 113 million of cash out for us, and I think our balance sheet is in a good place to allow for that. So maybe let me start with a few just really most important KPIs from our KPI deck. And of course, the volume point, Heikki has already shown with also the graphs. But whether I compare with the previous quarter or whether I compare the year-to-date figure, it's clear that we have had a low volume fluctuation down in the magnitude of about 11%, and obviously, that's visible across the Board. It's really in Europe, where the prices have declined so much, that that has had the biggest impact on our results.
We can see our adjusted EBITDA is at EUR 51 million. Our reported EBITDA is still a bit lower because we did have kind of the final stretch of the divestment of Long Products. We had these Swedish units, these Degerfors and Storfors on the Long Products side, where the deal was closed also here during the third quarter. So we had some one-off costs relating to that, that you can see in our adjustments. And then return on capital employed, low at 5.3%. We do calculate this always on a 12-month rolling basis, just as a reminder. And then finally, the earnings per share, down to a negative figure in the quarter, and obviously, our net debt remaining very modest at EUR 29 million, the way we like it.
So before I take you through the BA specifics for the quarter, I still wanted to take, let's say, one look at our strategy execution. And you may say, "Well, you are doing a lot of work, but the results are still weak in the quarter," and that's a fair comment. What we are reporting about here in our strategy execution is how much we are improving our run rate on an annual basis, and we have made really significant steps there. We also had to pivot in our approach. If you recall, when we introduced the Strategy Phase Two, we talked a lot about strengthening the core, but we also talked about the ability to grow based on our current footprint. So for example, in BA Americas, we wanted to enable 80 kilotons more to the market, and we've done really well in enabling that.
So all of our projects are on track, also in Europe with the throughput optimization. But we are not able to benefit from that right now because the market is so weak. So we had to pivot a lot of our actions to really go into the more detailed steering, the more detailed portfolio optimization, and a lot of cost actions that are now into our program here. And you can see that on a run-rate basis, we made good progress, actually a really big step in this quarter. We are now at EUR 152 million already in run rate towards our EUR 200 million target. However, with prices declining so much, it wasn't enough to really boost the profits of this quarter as you have also seen. Very importantly, as part of this Strategy Phase Two, we had targets for sustainability and energy efficiency.
Today, I just wanted to use one more slide to also describe what we have done in energy efficiency. The reason for that is that it is now one year since we launched this initiative, and it's been a very, I would say, good journey for us and also from my perspective, a learning experience for how much ideas there are inside our company. So what we did a year ago was to say energy efficiency was so important in the middle of the energy crisis, but also in order to support our sustainability journey. And we set a really ambitious target. Not a target of let's be 1% better in energy efficiency. We said, "Let's be 8% better until the end of 2024." And we also set aside CapEx money of EUR 40 million in total to enable for this.
Our team has responded tremendously well, and, and at this point in time, we have put in motion so many different initiatives. Many of them are really around doing everyday work better, continuous improvements, yield improvements, et cetera. But there's also a number of quite important CapEx projects that will make step changes in various entities for us. And I would say we are well on track. We are now reaching 126 GWh worth of savings here, after the first year, and that, in euro terms, was about EUR 9 million so far. And we would, of course, like to go over and above the 600 GWh and, and stretch the target further, and I think we will be able to do that.
With the timing of some CapExes might be slightly challenging for us, but we are well on track to overachieve this target, which will support both costs as well as sustainability. But with that perspective on the long-term development, let me then get back to really specifics on the BAs, and then I will round up with the cash flow. So I will start with BA Europe, and there's obviously a lot to say right now. Heikki has covered many of the most important points when it comes to really the development during the quarter. And if you would...
If you would say, "Why has the result dropped quarter-over-quarter from EUR 52 million adjusted EBITDA to minus EUR 29 million," a really significant drop, then I would say there is only one big reason, which is that realized prices reduced so much, and that was paired with also sort of more unfavorable dynamics in metals. So that kind of goes into the same bucket of the sort of price and metal impacts in the quarter. We bounced back a little bit, when it come to costs, so we postponed, you know, things. We really did our best to squeeze the costs here in the quarter, but nonetheless, the performance was clearly weak. And I think with that in mind, it's really important to think about the pricing dynamics.
So just to repeat what Heikki said, we have seen really the trough of realized prices. I mean, order intake, probably at the lowest point, was already June or let's say early July. But if we then look at realized prices, during Q3, it was really the low point, and we have seen a good rebound after that. And that good rebound, of course, is helping us to recover and bounce back somewhat in the fourth quarter. However, to really get back to historical levels, there is still some journey to make, and that's obviously absolutely necessary for us to come back to good profitability levels. So where we are right now in terms of market, I mean, obviously, commodity markets, the real sort of restocking sign from the distribution is still missing, even though we should be from a volume perspective there.
But on Advanced Materials side, I still wanna say that from the really sort of sector-specific differences, that we have the strength in the green transition, and of course, there are still some projects, for example, in oil and gas as well, that are proceeding and moving on. So from the project portfolio perspective, it seems that there are maybe more differentiation between different sectors, but clearly still some activity and no cancellation of projects per se. But the lowest prices in commodity historically really during the third quarter. A few other important things then, our response with the restructuring, the current very low import situation, I mean, that very low figure for October I still think is really worth mentioning, so we see almost no imports as we speak.
Finally, if I try to sum this all up in what could we see in the fourth quarter, I think seasonally there's a bit of rebound for BA Europe. The prices have rebounded from those very lowest levels. It is still a challenging environment, but clearly we should be able to be at a break-even level or above when it comes to the European business in the fourth quarter. So I move over to a more resilient market, BA Americas, and here we can clearly see that we have some of the dynamics as well that relate to no real restocking in terms of distributors. Here, high interest rates for sure play a role, and we can see this sort of cautious attitude, buying a little bit at a time.
But nonetheless, the market has been overall more robust and resilient, as of course, the whole Americas, if we look at just macro-level figures, GDP, et cetera. Heikki has spoken about the feasibility study and the ongoing work right there, and I certainly wouldn't like to end on a negative for the overall sort of positive view on Americas. But still, I want to remind that seasonally, Q4 tends to be the weakest quarter in BA Americas. There's Thanksgiving, there's Christmas, and we also have some maintenance in that quarter. And then finally, we come to ferrochrome, and there's a weak market situation as well in ferrochrome. Obviously, as we have discussed before, there is a bit of a balancing from the fact that there's also been supply constraints and some supply challenges.
But we can indeed say that the market remains really weak at this point in time, and it is in our case also visible here in the results of BA Ferrochrome. We have moved the maintenance break from Q3 to Q4, in the sense that we had a move from September into a start in October. So actually, the break on the biggest furnace, SAF 3, is ongoing as we speak, and that was on the back of just getting a bit more favorable conditions, better availability of resources, et cetera. So just the impact of that will now be in the fourth quarter, and it is, as always, a negative of about EUR 10 million overall from this maintenance break. And we had a good event during the third quarter.
We did have the inauguration of the deep mine, so meaning the mining that we do at the 1,000-meter depth, and at the same time, we also launched the carbon-free Kemi mine actions. So my final page here will be on cash control and on working capital. And first, I want to say that just looking at the overall cash flow perspective, in the third quarter, we were able to release some working capital. You can see it's a positive of 30 million, and that was on the back of especially an inventory reduction. I mean, obviously there's also inventory reduction in value per ton, but there was also about 30 kilotons really reduction in inventory tons.
We tend to have, let's say, Q3 as the lower point for inventory, and in Q4, we already want to prepare a bit for the stronger seasonality in the first quarter. I would still expect us to release cash during the, the fourth quarter as well from working capital. Maybe it can be double the amount as in the third quarter. At least it's there to sort of balance our cash flows. If you see on the right-hand side, our CapEx, we have now put the limit here at about EUR 170 million for this year. With that said, there will be a pretty big outflow still in the fourth quarter.
So we will balance then, having some release from the working capital with the CapEx outflow, so that there shouldn't be any dramatic move in terms of our net debt figure towards the year-end from where we stand right now. Final word on cash flow, in 2023, we have paid cash taxes more than, I would say, ever, and that was on the back of really record results also in 2022. So good cash management per se, we didn't pay too much upfront. We have actually paid it after the fact. However, I would say that was quite, you know, extraordinary result levels on the COVID rebound. So what I would expect going forward is that we will not have these significant cash outlays. When we make results in Americas, we are still benefiting from the big deferred tax assets that we have there.
I would say a more modest sort of 30 million-40 million would be probably sort of a good estimate for a more normal year in terms of cash out for taxes. But with that said, please let me hand back over to Heikki.
Thank you, Pia. Let me finish this part of the presentation by saying a few words about navigating through turbulent conditions. Obviously, in this risk outlook that we like to share with you, we have some positives and uncertainties. I think as we've said already through this presentation, I think the main positive is that we believe the trough is behind us, and especially in Europe, we will gradually start to see a recovery. Now, we don't foresee something like we saw after COVID, where there was a massive explosion in demand. We know the root cause of that was the massive fiscal and monetary stimulus, so that is not at least evidently coming, at least based on what we can see.
But it is clear that consumers, in particular, they need to have some visibility on what is going to happen to interest rates, and especially as many of the durable products are bought on credit. So until people get a bit of a better sense on their own finances, there will be a bit of a cap or a lid on buying. But anyway, we do believe that gradually we are climbing our way out of this, and that is important. On inflation, peak inflation is clearly behind us. We can see that in our own buying, and we are working, of course, with our suppliers to find ways to minimize our own cost burden. The distributor inventory topic we've discussed at length, inventory levels are becoming lower and lower.
When restocking begins, obviously, the starting point will be very low inventories, and when that comes, of course, then the market could change quite rapidly. The demand for Circle Green continues to be good. Every week, we get new inquiries. I can't share the names of the brands, but I can just tell you that a lot of important brands and companies are interested in this. I've said throughout the last presentation that I believe the Circle Green journey is a story of the whole decade. This isn't like we're going to go from zero to 100 in overnight. But we're systematically promoting and marketing Circle Green. There is increased pull, and I think that is a positive, net positive for us, and also further positions us as the circularity leader, sustainability leader in our industry.
On the uncertainty side, of course, we can make a long list here. I think the common denominator for many of these is, of course, inflation and then geopolitics. So far, we've been able to navigate the geopolitical challenges that we have faced quite well. It's been at times a bit of a cumbersome affair, but we have been able to navigate them. So far, so good. So with those words, let me then hand it off. Still need to do the outlook. Sorry about that. So to summarize the outlook here, let me just read it briefly. The outlook for Q4 2023: Group stainless steel deliveries in the fourth quarter are expected to increase by 0%-10% compared to the third quarter as we see some recovery in Europe.
The planned maintenance break in Business Area Ferrochrome is expected to have an approximately EUR 10 million negative impact on the business area's adjusted EBITDA. With current raw material prices, some raw material related inventory and metal derivative losses are expected to be realized in the fourth quarter, and the guidance for Q4 2023 adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter of 2023 is expected to be at a similar or at a higher level compared to the third quarter. So with that outlook now behind us, let me now hand it back to Linda and the team for questions. So thank you very much.
We are ready to take questions from the line.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial star five again on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Anssi Raussi from SEB. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, all, and, thank you for the presentation, Heikki and Pia. A couple of questions, and I start with the guidance, Q4 guidance. So as you mentioned, Pia, that the research may expect EUR 30 million of positive delta from business area Europe. So that leaves us, of course, EUR 30 million of negative delta from Americas and Ferrochrome, if we are going to end up at a flat EBITDA Q -on -Q. So what kind of scenarios do you see that we could actually see flat EBITDA in Q4? Like, is it EUR 10 million negative in Ferrochrome, and the rest is coming from Americas? And again, what should happen in American prices that we could end up at this kind of situation? Thanks.
Anssi, thanks for the question, and I would remind that our guidance is stable or higher. So, you know, we are somewhere in that spectrum on the more positive side. But I would say it's clear that in Europe, there will be a rebound and there will be a volume rebound also seasonally, and we have also seen the prices to improve. So I would expect that to contribute. And I mean, those are really the factors that contribute to the positive development. Ferrochrome, it's clear.
I mean, we have the EUR 10 million negative now quarter-on-quarter from the maintenance, and then I'm trying to sort of imagine if there is something else and, and you know, kind of what are the moving parts, but I think that's really fundamentally the big-ticket item that I would mention. Now, for BA Americas, where are we? So on a group level, we have guided for improvement in volumes, but seasonally, the fourth quarter is a little bit slower in BA Americas. So that's sort of the marginal movement that we might see here. We are, as you know, you know, we are always selling in BA Americas kind of the current quarter.
So I would say we are, you know, we are very much aligned with this guidance on group level of, you know, growth 0%-10% in the volumes. But I would expect really that the contributor there really is the recovery in Europe. So I think on the volume side, we might have, let's say, some movement in the Americas. I don't think in the market that we would have seen, let's say, particular weakness, but we are also not seeing yet that pickup point or that restocking point. And as you have seen, you know, prices have moved a little bit sideways or, let's say, slightly down already over an extended period of time. So then I'm still trying to think that what about the costs?
I would say globally, apart from ferrochrome, we will add maintenance costs about EUR 5 million quarter -on -quarter. A part of that comes from BA Americas as well. There's just a tiny bit more of maintenance in the quarter. And then, as always, the one thing to keep in mind is that, you know, if we produce less, we have maintenance breaks, and, and if we have a seasonally lower performance, the thing is that there's then always some fixed costs that we cannot activate to the inventory, and that could then increase the cost level a bit. That is really sort of due to this nature of, you know, not being able to, to activate it to the inventory.
So, there's really no big drama or no big figures anywhere, but on the margin, we do have a bit of these movements. So I would still remind as well, that we had a fairly sort of positive figure on the group in kind of segment other or in group, if I exclude the impact from which are adjusted for relating to long product sale. So maybe that's also one area where I don't think that we have, let's say, on a permanent basis, like expecting always to have this level in segment other.
Okay. Thank you, and then about your potential investment in the U.S., like $1 billion investment and your current EBITDA run rate is, of course, quite low. So could you remind us what kind of CapEx level you're seeing if we talk about so-called maintenance CapEx? And what is your plan B if you're not able to finance this, of course, potential investment with your operational cash flow? So is it going to be-
... and debt, or what kind of options you're looking at?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Finance.
Yeah, yeah. Thanks. Well, Anssi, first of all, I do think that if we consider, I mean, when we spoke about more details around the hot rolling, you know, contemplated investment, we said, you know, this is kind of ballpark, $1 billion type of investment. So I mean, it's clear that we are talking about a very significant investment that will need a prudent funding plan. And I think prudent for me means that there can also be debt. We have clearly said that we want our, our, you know, leverage to be below one, so that's compared with our normalized EBITDA of EUR 500 million-EUR 600 million.
So, you know, that puts a round figure of a debt burden of, you know, EUR 500 million in the cards, and we have already had initial discussions, and I would say a very supportive environment from our relationship banks. But we continue also to explore other debt type of instruments. It could be something with, you know, export credit support or other, let's say, advantageous types of funding. So with all that in mind, it's clear that by design, to be prudent, we will need to think that there is a part that is debt-funded and there is a part that needs to be funded from the cash flow. And you are right, that capital discipline then will be extremely important.
So should we decide for one so significant CapEx, then we will need to be extremely prudent on any other CapEx. Not to give sort of a, a, you know, too round figure, but still, I like the figure of EUR 100 million for maintenance CapEx. That does include already some IT and other investments. So, you know, if we have a really, really tight spot, I'm sure we could go even somewhat lower than that. But I think just to have a round figure in mind, that's something that we would still needs to do in any case. And now we are looking at a historically low, seasonally low, and from a market perspective, really a tough quarter. So maybe, you know, comparing this to our funding ability is then really making kind of the worst case scenario of them all.
Under more normalized conditions, I would, of course, expect us to fund a part of this also from our cash flows.
If I can just say, I mean, as CEO of the company, I personally believe we have a strong balance sheet. We can execute an investment if that's ultimately the decision of the Board, so I don't see an obstacle. I also don't personally believe that the world ends here in Q3 with a Q3 type of performance. So this is a bit of a boom and bust economy that we're going through at the moment, and we have exceptionally high rates. It's very hard for me to believe that this rate level can be sustained very long. So they have to come down, and that means then we will see more liquidity, and we will see consumers then opening up their pocketbooks.
If we decide to go ahead with the investment, that is a long-term investment, and we really need to look at the, you know, securing our position in North America, and one quarter or one year's results cannot sway us one direction or another. We need to think long-term here.
Okay, thank you. I'll get back into the queue.
Thank you, Anssi.
Thank you, Anssi.
The next question comes from Tristan Gresser from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.
Yes, hi, thank you for taking my questions. The first one is on Europe. I, I think back in Q2, and even more recently, you flagged those green shoots in the region and said that there was some improvement in order book and prices. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like spot prices and lead times have stopped expanding in recent weeks, and it feels the tone is a little bit more prudent. And I think it was already prudent before that, but I just want to check that with you. Is that something you are also seeing in spot market conditions? So has the recovery actually already stalled or just seasonal in nature?
And also I wanted to have your view also on real demand expectations for next year, because it looks like you really need that to come through to get some restocking and some price action for the results in Europe to really recover? That's my first question. Thank you.
So if I comment on that, now, obviously, you are quite right that, after the publication of the Q1 results, in early May, we indeed did believe that there were green shoots, so we were seeing them. And I remember very, very clearly stating that even mathematically, based on our models, you know, the replenishment point that we have seen in the past was about to materialize. Now, we saw then the summer come, and the replenishment wasn't that strong there until we got into the first days of July and things picked up. I really cannot comment on day-to-day action in the market that's going on. I can only say that as we repeat what we have said, we believe the bottom of the market was in the middle of the summer.
I would say the Nordic summer, which was probably more July than August, and that we see things picking up. And that's the message that we wanna share with you. Regarding next year, too early to say how next year will go through. We have historically seen that over a long period, longer periods of time, if you extract some of the anomalies of this stimulus, stainless steel demand is still fairly stable. So there is this variability that comes from distributor destocking and restocking and so forth, but. Of course, in the past, imports, but overall, the demand is reasonably stable. Therefore, looking at the history, trying to get some sense marker from history, 2024 should again be hopefully normalizing.
Depends a bit on what the central banks do now with the interest rates.
Mm.
If they want to really squeeze the lemon, you know, 2024 could be tougher. But I said, I think you are much better at forecasting a macroeconomy than at least I am.
Mm. Tristan, can I still build on your comment about, you know, the real demand in 2024? I would actually rather take just a sort of a step back and consider the history. I mean, we are now 14-16 months in this period where there's already been destocking and, you know, we've seen markets to be very cautious, so we are very early in the cycle for sure. And even, you know, in the absence of restocking, so this is not a statement that I think that will happen, but just the number of tons that have been destocked in the last year-
Sure.
... is very significant. So, you know, just even in the absence of that, just sort of having kind of the normal base load there, it would be a significant improvement to what we have seen in the last 12 months. So, so there are these dynamics from the
Sure.
... destocking, restocking, as, as you said, Heikki, where we have certainly seen these negative impacts in the last 12 months.
Imports are low.
Mm.
All right. That's, that's very helpful and, and clear. My, my second question is more on the raw material strategy, with, the 10% stake in, in a nickel and a scrap supplier. But you, you've been pretty clear that you don't wanna go full vertical, in terms of integration, integration, but, but, but you are integrated to, to ferrochrome, and you see that as an asset. So why for other types of raw material, especially scrap, this is different? I, I would love to have you sort there, and, why, why are you thinking a little bit differently there? Thank you.
Well, well, first of all, if we go back to ferrochrome per se, I mean, this originates again, you know, 60 years, 70 years in the past. So this is a bit where the company was founded. And, you know, we are not big in mining. We just happen to have the Kemi site, and it just happens to be sitting exactly next door to Tornio and next door to the harbor. So it is a unique asset. It's the only ferrochrome asset in... It's only chromium mine in all of Europe. It's low carbon. If we think about CBAM, where ferrous metals will be included in CBAM, Kemi mine and the ferrochrome operations are really a unique asset. So I think that is a bit of a separate situation.
It's so integrated into our own stainless production that it kind of makes a lot of sense. But then when you come to the scrap business, at least as far as we are concerned, when we look at what it takes to be a successful scrap dealer, we don't feel we really have a lot of competence to add to that. There isn't much that we can bring in terms of core competencies that Outokumpu has. So we believe it's better to do this in a partnership. Let those people who really know their stuff, so to speak, take care of that, but then work still in a way that we can extract all the efficiencies from the supply chain, out as well as possible, and also secure the supply.
And then as we already, Pia talked about the working capital aspect, so you know, we feel comfortable. We thought about all different ways how to do this. We gave it a lot of thought. Trust me, we've thought about this many, many different ways, and we came to the conclusion that this is the best solution for Outokumpu.
Okay. That's, that's fair. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Patrick Mann from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Good day, Heikki and Pia. Thank you for the call. Two questions from me. Can you just give us a little bit more detail on the improvement in the EBITDA run rate from your continuous improvement program? I mean, you're saying a EUR 70 million improvement in the third quarter of 2023, which is a lot, right? It's half of your... almost half of the total improvement to date. So maybe just a little bit more color around that. And then I just wanted to ask on the capital expenditure. You've spent half the CapEx budget in the first three quarters of the year. Are you gonna spend the second half of your CapEx budget in the final quarter of the year, or are you perhaps gonna come in under that EUR 170 million? Thank you.
Patrick, thanks. I think the second question is easy to answer, straightforward. That is the current plan. I mean, I know last year we came in a little bit below the plan towards the very end, but at the moment at least, we have things in the pipeline to fill that sort of second half of the CapEx budget only in the fourth quarter. So that answers that question. And I was thinking that what's the best way of illustrate where we have really done run rate improvements? It's really nice to highlight you know some of these very specific cases-
Mm.
... like energy efficiency, and that was a reason, that I also wanted to do it. But if I look BA by BA, I think we have a significant portion of the ramp-up during the third quarter from BA Europe. Of course, every business has contributed, but it's really a lot around, BA Europe, and, and it's really a lot about what we have done in terms of cost pivots, in Stainless Europe.
Sure.
But it's also around Advanced Materials, some developments of the portfolio, some cost pivots also there, some initiatives when it comes to yield and our slab cost. So I think we are really going very deep in the operational perspective. But at the same time, we have also got benefits from the more customer-focused steering. It has enabled us to sort of make further improvements vis-à-vis our portfolio, et cetera. So it's really Europe, I would say, that is in the focus in this improvement.
Thanks. Thanks very much. Maybe if I could cheat and have one last question. I mean, why are you, your guidance is for quite a cautious recovery in Europe. You're saying, you know, you expect the recovery to take some time. But I think, you know, a couple of other questions have come in that this feels like a destocking event, and I think Heikki said, you know, if it turns and that we get a restocking event, we could see quite a significant restocking event. Why do you think it will be a gradual recovery rather than, you know, when it does turn, it could be a more step change?
The reason why I say that is that we have this overhang from the central bank's actions on interest rates. I think there's a lot of market psychology here. I think people are just cautious. They're sort of, you know, the decision to buy is being postponed, pent up. You know, and we just don't know when the interest rates will be cut. I mean, some people say March, others June, some people 2025. So I mean, this is something which is completely out of our control, and all the consumers are waiting to—I mean, a lot of people are waiting to find out, so when is it and how quickly? So I think that just creates this uncertainty. And then, if we look at the previous cycle, we saw a lot of QE, so to speak.
So, I mean, if we get any QE, you know, in the rebound, of course, that would be positive. But these are. You know, we will only find out when we find out.
That makes sense. Thank you very much. Thanks.
The next question comes from Antti Koskivuori from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. Few questions from me, if I may. Starting with the call, potential investment in Calvert. Could you comment about the timeline for the feasibility study? Has your visibility improved on this now that few months have passed by? Not expecting a date, but any color about the process would be appreciated. And related to that, how should we think about the timing of the decision? Should you do it, you know, as soon as the feasibility study is ready, if the outcome is positive, or would it make more sense to wait for external trigger, like termination of the current contract by AM/NS? And then one more, if I may, maybe on the US and pricing.
You talked about it a little bit already, but I think you've earlier mentioned that you see some price pressure in the U.S., and we've seen now that in the statistics, base price coming down for the first time in many months. How should we look at this, or how do you look at this? Is that just a minor adjustment and kind of it stays like that, or could it be a beginning of a longer term trend, as prices obviously in the U.S. have kept quite well over the turbulent times? Those would be my questions. Thanks.
Well, if I start, Antti, thank you very much. Let me try and give you condensed answers because they're very wide-reaching and important questions. So just first of all, in terms of the timing and visibility, so obviously with an investment of this magnitude, we can only do it when we have all the, let's say, T's crossed and the I's dotted, so to speak. We still have a lot of work to do on the engineering side. It is a sizable project. And hot rolling a mill of this is just physically, it's a big, big piece of equipment, and there's a lot of construction, civil construction in particular. So that engineering is underway, and we need to work with a number of suppliers then on piling and so forth.
We've made very good progress with the actual equipment manufacturer, so I think that, that part is, that part is in good shape, but it's more the, the civil side, of, of the part which, is, the key, I think. And then, of course, we have issues like financing, which, which take their own time. So, obviously not a 2023 decision, but, when we get into 2024, I think we will be much, much closer. Then, regarding the pricing, so obviously, we do not give any forward-looking statements about prices-
Yeah.
... neither, neither for any market. I would-
Yeah.
... just like to comment one thing in general, that it is just the fact that, you know, when I was also in the U.S. for three weeks here recently, and I have to say that the economy is incredibly robust, and there's a lot of activity in... You know, if we leave out home appliances and we leave out, you know, well, they had the car strike, but, you know, now that's done. But we know that the home appliances is partially related to credit availability and the cost of credit. So when rates come down, you know, people can buy their refrigerator, you know, at a lower cost. So that will change, obviously.
But I would just say that the dynamic nature of the economy is just unbelievable, and I think for that reason, you know, we feel quite confident. Our U.S. team, Tamara and her team, if they were here telling you what they think, they would be pretty confident about, you know-
Mm.
... the coming years. I wish I could say all of that, you know, for Europe.
Yeah.
On the other hand, I'm also sure that Europe will get its act together here as we go forward.
All right. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Ioannis Masoulas from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir, thank you very much for the presentation. A few questions left from my side. The first one is, again, on the U.S. expansion prospects. I understand that this is a strategic decision for the company, but given the weaker free cash generation at this point in the cycle, would you consider taking a bit more time to build a cash buffer before going ahead? And I'm asking this as you seem to be ending the year with a lower cash buffer in the tune of EUR 150 million-EUR 200 million versus consensus expectations. Thank you.
Ioannis, thanks a lot, and I'm happy to elaborate further. I think this is on the back also of the earlier question on, you know, how would we think about the funding, et cetera? And I think we need to get sort of the conditions and the whole package in balance and right. So it's there would be a debt element. There would also need to be the view of being able to fund from our own cash flows.
Mm.
So obviously, I would not take that decision based on the tough quarter and sort of make my assessment based on the tough quarter. I would need to look at it sort of more over the long term. This gives me still the opportunity to say one more really important thing, which is that we have committed to paying a stable and growing dividend. We have also committed to keeping our balance sheet strong, so we really need to get these pieces together, sort of in the right perspective, and we will need to be extremely disciplined on all other matters than of sort of CapEx and for example, working capital management. So this will be a tight package for us to manage.
I think we need to take the decision when the timing is right for us, and then obviously, market is one of the factors, but I would say there's plenty of others as well, that we just really need to get in the best possible shape for us.
Got it. That's very clear. Thank you for that. Second question on the CRONIMET deal you announced today. Congratulations on the transaction, and you seem to be adopting a slightly different strategy as compared to some of your peers. Can you elaborate, when, what this actually brings to the business today? I would, I would think that you already purchase scrap from them, and you are already at 94% scrap usage ratio. So what are some of the key benefits, either P&L wise or working capital wise, going forward?
Working capital.
Yeah. So from a working capital perspective, obviously this is adding absolutely nothing to our balance sheet. I mean, no, no additions of working capital. And over time, when we expand our partnerships and work on the interface between the companies, I trust that this can bring us some further benefits just in terms of timing, you know, having the right scrap at the right time and just having absolutely the right mix. So this can all, over time, contribute to our cash flows and our working capital performance. So really improving it, not deteriorating it. But I think this is a partnership for a longer perspective, a longer period of time. So I would not kind of put in the models, you know, a big impact directly from closing, but rather than something that we will build up over time.
I think Jürgen talked about learning.
Mm.
This is the start of a journey.
Okay, great. Great, thank you for that.
Mm.
Very last one from my side on. Again, sticking with the raw material strategy, you are net long into ferrochrome, which means you don't necessarily need the entire output from your ferrochrome operations to support your stainless business. We've seen other companies in the broader space looking to align their equity position in their raw material integration with what they need in the downstream operations. Would you consider a similar deal where you could sell a minority stake in the ferrochrome business, which still allows you to keep as much as you need for the stainless operations? Or is that not something would you consider as a way to fund some of the other raw material initiatives?
It is true. It is indeed true that, we are net long. We have a very good asset. We are working to reduce our carbon CO2 load even further, and, I think, I said we've just completed the expansion of the mine to 1,000 meters, so we have chromium until the 2050s. So, so it's, it is a prized asset. But with, with respect to what you were just, alluding to, we have not given any thoughts to that.
Very clear. Thank you.
The next question comes from Bastian Synagowitz from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon, all. I've got two questions, and just, firstly, following up also on the America strategy. From my understanding, neither you nor, nor your partner has canceled the toll rolling agreement so far. Can you please confirm that that is still the current status quo? And then maybe also let us know whether this is something you would flag to the market instantly, as and when that happens. That is my first question.
Bastian, thanks very much. I can indeed confirm that there is no termination of the contract on either side, and I think we have a continued, you know, good relationship on the ground, and sort of a normal dialogue definitely continues. And I would say, you know, just from the nature of our investment and our investment planning and the publicity around that, it would be natural that we would also disclose such information.
Mm-hmm. Okay. Thank you. And then my second question is moving over to the policy front and CBAM in particular. I think you included a couple of very interesting charts here. And I guess you say that the reporting is already impacting trade here potentially. I guess you refer to the transition period, which has started. So can you please explain why that is? And is there already any form of consequence for the non-compliance to the disclosure rules here in the transition period, which started? And yeah, I have probably another one related to that, but I'll stop here.
Yeah, so, Bastian, I think the fact is just that, you know, companies that are importing these specified goods, they need to report.
Mm-hmm.
I think, you know, you need to have the information relating to the CO2 content, et cetera. And it's just clear that, you know, some suppliers were really prepared and others were not. So I think this is like the first step, that this is now getting very tangible, this is getting very real. So I think it just shows that this is not just, let's say, just a philosophy from the European side. It's actually gonna be something tangible in the future. So I think that's... My best understanding at the moment is just that, you know, this is getting tangible, and that makes people now react and think that, "Hey, give it a few years, and there will actually be a payment based on this.
Will all the Asian suppliers really even want to share-
Mm.
... their emission data? We will see.
Mm-hmm. Yep. No, that. I think that's fair. I think, there are definitely some hurdles, but, but is there any financial consequence for non-compliance at this point?
We know.
... or if you basically wrongly disclose?
Not that I would be aware of, but should there be one, we will come back to that in a later call.
Mm-hmm. Okay. Thank you. And then, just also, as you highlight Scope 3, where, where exactly do we stand here? My understanding is that that, that is still in the implementation phase. I think, obviously, the, I guess the commission is very busy with just the transition period, which started, and probably wants to learn from that. But, but where do we stand in terms of Scope 3? Have you seen any update on that front?
I have not seen a detailed update-
I have not seen, no.
... but in the same way as the design documents that were presented earlier, I mean, obviously, we know that the Scope 3 remains important as Scope 1 as well.
Mm-hmm. Okay, great. Thank you.
The next question comes from Maxime Kogge from ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good afternoon. So my first question is on a potential contract with Tesla. The press has been reporting that you might be providing them with stainless steel panels for the exterior of the new Cybertruck car. So could you give us an update on where the discussions stand and whether they will be a key factor in deciding the insourcing of the hot rolling mill?
Yeah, please.
Maxime, thanks a lot. I think I. Sorry, Heikki, I just think I-
It's okay.
I responded to this question so many times, that I just wanna say we have a number of customer relationships where we have mutually agreed with our customers that it's a great opportunity for both to disclose and to describe, and then we have done so. And I think the case that you just alluded to, certainly we noticed that there was some press, but there was nothing really that we would have commented. So there's really not much more I can add to that.
Okay, okay, and the second question is on import pressure. You're saying that it has basically very much reduced in Europe now and that imports are very low. So my question is: Don't you feel that all this material that used to come from Vietnam, Turkey, and Taiwan now gets diverted to the US, where trade barriers are on the whole satisfactory, but there can also be some loopholes?
We have not. Yeah, I mean, obviously, the material will go somewhere, or then they have to take downtime. As far as we can see, it, it's finding a home somewhere, not in Europe, maybe somewhere in Asia. Could also be going into China. We just don't know. But I think in terms of the U.S., we haven't seen any material pickup in imports either. So someone is losing market share in Asia.
Okay, okay. Just the last one, still on trade barriers. The U.S. is possibly considering removing the tariff rate quotas in favor of European Union, and I know that you are exporting some advanced grade products from Europe to the U.S. So would you be impacted if this was the case? And would you be able to transfer production from Europe to the U.S., if necessary?
Our Advanced Materials... Thank you for the question, Maxime. Our Advanced Materials production is heavily sort of built around the Avesta system, Avesta Nyby, and of course, Dillenburg. So, we have not announced or not really considering any changes to that. It works very well. We have a lot of technical know-how in these plants and don't see that happening, any change there. In terms of the exports into the North American market, we do some.
There is growing opportunity, but I don't think if the tariffs were to be changed, I don't see any material, you know, change happening for us. So no, no big-
Okay, thank you.
positive delta per se-
Yeah.
... if that were to happen.
Okay, thank you.
The next question comes from Moses Ola. Please go ahead.
Hi there. Thank you very much for taking my questions. Moses here from JP Morgan. So just wanted to understand a bit more on the result here in Europe. If we compare this to the trough in COVID, deliveries are at a similar level. Obviously, base prices around that time were higher, but if you look at your margin per ton on that base price, you were still able to keep a positive margin versus this quarter. So just wanted to understand, versus that quarter, what's, you know, driving the loss here? Is it mainly just higher energy prices? Because obviously when you look at some of the efforts to streamline the business as well versus then, you would expect to perhaps have a more positive result at this trough of the quarter.
And then in terms of looking at the recovery, if we compare it as well to the COVID period, I mean, this time we're seeing material tightness here in scrap, yet producers like yourselves are still hesitant to start buying scrap pricing to start buying scrap raw material. How would that re-recovery profile in during COVID, and is there any similarities we can draw versus this period in time? That's my first question.
Yeah. Thank you very much, Moses. I think it's a super good question, and there's still a difference in perspective. I mean, when we entered into the COVID, it was something unknown, and we were also preparing for a really weak market in the aftermath of that, so we really squeezed down our working capital. And I think as one example, what we have seen during this quarter is negative impacts from timing, so the raw material-related inventory gains and losses. We have losses in this quarter. I think the magnitude was, like, EUR -30 million , actually, by coincidence for the European business. So these sorts of things, of course, impact as well the dynamics of a specific quarter. So I think to really see if we are sort of, you know, how competitive we are, or...
If you would take that view, it's not really the energy costs in a big way. Yes, we had an energy crisis in Europe. Yes, our energy crisis costs are a little bit higher than they were maybe sort of during the COVID extreme lows because we had a lot of, you know, commodities also going to a low level, then energy going to a very low level then. But that, that difference alone would not explain this. So I think in this quarter, at least, really what comes to my mind, top of mind, is that we did not do this like remarkable squeeze down of working capital. We suffered somewhat from raw material-related, you know, losses in this quarter.
We are still kind of gearing up to just continue the operations in an improving environment towards the end of the year and in Q1.
Okay, thanks. 'Cause I guess my follow-up to that then comes back to your through cycle run rate of EUR 500 million-EUR 600 million, you know. And again, this is based on base prices recovering to EUR 1,000 per ton versus a level where they are now low triple digits. So, you know, as we go into 2024, when could we expect to perhaps get an update here on this through cycle target, especially, you know, looking at different businesses and how they've also evolved since you first gave that guidance?
Yeah, yeah. Thank you, Moses. It's a good question, and should I have, let's say, thought that there is a big reason to update it now, we would already have done it, but it is a fair question. And I think in terms of, you know, some of the strategic reviews that we are continuously doing, it's fair to update that if there should be a reason. But if I just think about it sort of here and now, you know, kind of what are the elements, the very low base price, of course, right now is not what we saw in Q3. That cannot be a normalized level.
Mm.
I mean, that is a market trough, so that will need to rebound for the market to come back to the normalcy. But at the same time, the one element, of course, that we then need to take into account is also the raw material pricing, the scrap pricing, and how that impacts the overall margins here. So fair question. I do not see today a rationale to change that, but we should, of course, continuously monitor.
Okay, thanks. And then final question from me. So, U.S. and Europe have been in discussions on a trade deal for steel and aluminum, for green steel and aluminum, and they've been unable to reach a deal with talks shelved into next year. But on all accounts, people still do not expect there to be a deal, given the different approaches towards green steel and trade tariffs for the two regions. Is there any potential impact to your businesses if the U.S. and Europe aren't able to achieve a deal? And are you prepared to run a business where you have obviously diverging methods towards protecting, you know, green steel or to having a green steel market from your two key regions?
Is that something that you are currently prepared for, you know, having CBAM in one region and not having CBAM in the other and potential impact that could have there as well, on both of your businesses?
If I comment on that, at least what I've sort of heard or my interpretation of the negotiations were that they will still continue in negotiating, and there might be something coming out by the end of the year. But perhaps you have more fresh information than I have. Obviously, the joint problem for both the U.S. and for Europe is the emission difference between Asia and our more sustainable markets. It, of course, would be great if there was an arrangement, but even if there is no arrangement, I think we're gonna be in good shape. We have a good package, a good offering here in Europe. CBAM is a pretty good solution. I mean, we could come up with better solutions, but it's a decent solution.
Then in North America, of course, the Trump tariffs, so to speak, are still in place. What we may see even, you know, tighter tariffs depends on who sits in the White House, you know, in February of 2025. So, we're not concerned either as far as that's concerned.
Okay. Thank you very much.
There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
So thanks once again on my behalf and Pia and Linda's behalf, we want to thank you for your interest. I want to leave you with three main messages. One was, as you've seen, we had a tough quarter, especially in Europe. We have taken fast and prompt actions to streamline our European business with respect to the plant closure of Dahlerbrück and Hockenheim, and then the further development investment into Dillenburg. Secondly, based on what we can see in this fairly cyclical business, the trough is behind us. It was sometime in the July, August months, and we will gradually start to see a recovery. What that trajectory is remains to be seen, but we do feel that the bottom or the trough is behind us. Then finally, you know how important sustainability is for Outokumpu. It's at the heart of our strategy.
We are the sustainability leader. I think we made a very smart decision here with CRONIMET, building this partnership. It will take Outokumpu on a sustainability and circularity journey to the next level. So thank you once again, and I look forward to seeing you and my colleagues in early February. Take care.