Good morning and welcome to this Presentation of the SSAB Report for the First Quarter of 2025. My name is Per Hillström. I'm Head of Investor Relations at SSAB, and presenting today, we have our President and CEO, Johnny Sjöström, and also our CFO, Leena Craelius. If we go to the agenda, could we just ask the operator to please, if we can have the slides? Yes, thank you. The agenda for today, Johnny will start with the first quarter in brief. Leena then presents more details on the financials, and Johnny comes back at the end with the outlook and the summary. After that, we will open up for questions. Please, Johnny, the floor is yours.
Thank you very much, Per, and good morning to all of you. I will start by going into the highlights of Q1. Within SSAB, safety is a priority, hence the reason why we always start with safety. Looking at our safety performance, it is on a good level, touch wood, and it continues to be a high-focus area for all our employees. That is a very strong highlight for the quarter. Now, looking at the financial performance, looking at the operating result, we ended up on an expected level of SEK 1.3 billion, roughly. I think one of those highlights is actually special steels performance. They bounced back when it comes to volumes, but at the same time, they were able to maintain prices all the way through Q4 last year, but also Q1 this year.
We've also seen sort of a recovery on the American market, and I will get back to that later on in the presentation. The topic on everyone's lips right now is the tariffs. I think it's important for us to try to explain our production footprint. We have roughly 2.4 million metric tons of production capacity in the United States, and we are a market leader when it comes to plate deliveries, which means that we're not importing as much into the United States or exporting from the Nordics. That gives us flexibility, and I think that's important to highlight. However, of course, tariffs is not something that we would like to see. We are very dependent on exports. We're dependent on free trade and fair trade. For us, it is a worrying sign, of course. Long term, we don't know what the consequences will be.
Short term, we have the flexibility to do production locally in the United States. I started off talking about one of the highlights for the quarter was special steel's performance. We increased our sales in Q1 to roughly 336,000 tons. It is a fairly good performance, also in line with our expectations. The financial performance was roughly SEK 1.4 billion. In line with our expectations, it shows the unique customer value that special steels are able to supply into the market and that the market is willing to pay a premium for these kinds of products. One of the things that I also want to highlight is that a decision was made by the board to continue the transformation of the Mobile production facility into a more special steel production facility.
An investment of a tempering furnace was approved, which is very important for us in order to produce the most advanced grades we have within special steel. One of those grades is Hardox 500 Tuf that we see a very high demand for. Looking at SSAB Europe, I think that the volume output for Q1 was fairly good, also an increase compared to Q4. We have seen that the market is stabilizing somewhat in Europe, coming from a lower position. It is sort of in line with our expectations. The operating result ended up at SEK 33 million, which is maybe a little bit in line with what we expected. One of the things I want to point out is that there was a strike in Finland that ended up at the cost of roughly SEK 120 million.
The financial performance could have been better if it wasn't for that strike. If you look at SSAB Americas, we had a positive delivery month. I think one of the most important things is that we had a very good order intake in the month, in the quarter Q1. We could also see prices improve on the market. The way it works for us is that we have quarterly, we have half-year contracts, and we have some spot market sales. The price increase will come gradually for SSAB Americas going forward. That can also be reflected in the Q1 operating result for Americas that we haven't seen much of the price increase yet, but we're expecting that to come in Q2 and Q3 going forward. For the two subsidiaries, our two subsidiaries are seasonally low. It's always been like that.
They don't sell as much during the winter season, but we're expecting that to improve. Even so, I think that they came up on a fairly good level. The operating result for Tibnor was roughly SEK 35 million. That is good. Now looking at Ruukki Construction, it had a better Q1 2025 compared to Q1 2024. They have done a lot of activities to improve their cost structure. I am optimistic for the future in that regard. Also, a short transformation update. We are finalizing the agreement on the Colby complex together with SMS. The Colby complex includes a continuous galvanizing line, a pickling line, and also a continuous annealing line. This is extremely important for SSAB, especially to provide the market with unique grades that primarily will go into the automotive industry. There is a big demand for these kinds of products.
Hence, this will be extremely important for us going forward to reposition SSAB Europe to be more of a premium supplier into the market. We also have some new partners when it comes to fossil-free Toyota Material Handling, Fastly, and Putzmeister. I'm very happy to see that there is still a big demand for these kinds of products and a big interest from the market and our progression when it comes to this transformation project. Finally, at the end, we also secured a financing package of EUR 2.3 billion. A job well done by the team. With that, I leave it over to you, Leena.
Thank you, Johnny. Let's start by looking at the steel shipment volumes. Q1 shipments were 1,676, which was then increased compared to the previous quarter of 16%. As already Johnny mentioned, this is typical seasonal impact as well. To bear in mind that in Q4, we do have the annual maintenance outages that took place in Oxelösund and Raahe last year. If we compare to the previous year, quarter one performance, the increase in shipments was 6%. Referring to the guidance we gave during Q4, we were indicating significantly higher volumes in special steels and Europe division, and we were actually spot on. As you already saw, special steels deliveries were 28% or 29% higher and Europe 18% higher. We were guiding somewhat higher volumes in Americas, and the outcome was the 4%. That was also well in line with the outlook we gave.
If we then continue to revenue performance, Q1 revenue was SEK 25.5 billion. Compared to the previous quarter, the increase is 8%. While the shipments went up 16% and revenue only 8%, it is indicating that the prices were lower in Q1 compared to Q4. Compared to the previous year, Q1, the drop in revenue was actually 6%. While the shipments went up the 6%, this is also telling the same story about the price development, that the prices are clearly lower during this year compared to the previous year. EBITDA performance, Q1 SEK 2.4 billion, which is an increase versus Q4 SEK 1.6 billion, but a drop compared to the previous year, quarter one performance of SEK 4.1 billion. Let us dive into more detailed analysis. Firstly, we are comparing the operating result of Q1 2025 with Q4. The operating result in Q1 was this rounded up to SEK 1.4 billion perhaps.
Compared to Q4, the performance was SEK 487 million. Difference is up and down, but as the graph is illustrating, the volumes were compensating for the price reduction. All the steel divisions were contributing with the negative impact on EBIT with prices. Perhaps to point out that we also have an FX impact in the prices, giving a bit more negative twist there. Volumes, as already said, increasing compared to Q4. All the divisions contributing, mostly now special steels and Europe division. Variable cost had a negative impact, and this is coming through special steels and Europe division. On the other hand, fixed costs were lower. As I already mentioned, during Q4, we do have the maintenance outages, that we did not have any maintenance outages during Q1.
Thus, the fixed cost is also on a lower level, and this is coming through mainly with Special Steels and Europe division. As is the capacity utilization also higher with no maintenance outages during Q1. Most of this is related to Special Steels and Europe division. A minor FX impact with revaluation of balance sheet items. If we compare the operating result Q1 with the previous year, last year Q1 performance was SEK 3.2 billion. As the graph is illustrating, clearly the biggest impact is coming through with lower prices. The biggest portion here is coming through Americas division, where the prices were 25% lower. Thus, SEK 1.5 billion of this is coming through Americas. Special Steels division prices were 5% lower, so much more resilient. Europe division was 7% lower. Volumes higher than last year.
Here, all the steel divisions have a positive impact, but as also Johnny mentioned, Ruukki Construction volumes were higher than last year. Variable cost, here we have a positive impact with lower raw material cost that I will cover shortly. Fixed cost higher than last year, and this is related to somewhat higher FTEs and personnel related cost. We have the salary index increase impact here. The capacity utilization compared to last year slightly better. I would say that one issue here to take into account is the political strike we had last year in Finland. We had strike also, unfortunately, this year, but the strike was shorter in time, thus having a less impact in the production volumes. A minor positive impact with the FX.
If we then walk through the cash flow generation performance during Q1, as we can see, the net cash flow difference compared to last year is SEK 1.2 billion lower. Clearly, the biggest deviation compared to last year is with the earnings level being SEK 1.8 billion lower. Change in working capital, as we were guiding or indicating during the previous webcast, that the change in working capital will behave negatively as it did. Inventories actually came slightly down. Accounts receivable in line with the sales went up. The biggest drop actually took place in accounts payable, as we were mentioning the large raw material invoices being paid out during Q1. The deviation compared to previous year is exactly in the accounts payable. Some lower maintenance CapEx during this year compared to previous year. On the other hand, the strategic investments were slightly higher than last year.
The acquisition of operations, this is now related to the acquisition done in the U.S. at the Plastic Operations. The divestment of operation is related to Wirsbo entity sale. Both of these transactions took place in Special Steels division. A brief reminder of last year's share buyback program that was still ongoing during Q1. This year we have not had the share buyback program ongoing. This is leading to net cash position end of Q1, SEK 14.4 billion. A drop compared to end of last year, level of SEK 17.8 billion. SEK 2 billion difference is coming through the cash flow performance as illustrated in the previous graph. On top of this, we need to mention this SEK 1.4 billion revaluation of balance sheet items and the stronger Swedish crown impact on the mainly U.S. dollar cash items.
This is leading to net cash ratio 21%, which is exceeding slightly our financial targets, plus minus 20%. As already mentioned, we were extremely pleased that we were finalizing the financing package for the Luleå Mini Mill project. I must mention that the package is extremely flexible of nature, thus allowing us to optimize our own cash utilization, but also securing the smooth project implementation. Perhaps a special thank you for the Credit Agricole and KASIP team working with us. They have been truly supportive in this process. Thank you for that. Capex outlook unchanged. This is exactly the same that we presented last time. We are still planning to spend SEK 10 billion during this year, SEK 3 billion for the maintenance and SEK 7 billion for the strategic capex. If we split these SEK 7 billion to projects, slightly above SEK 2 billion is related to Oxelösund, just below SEK 4 billion planned for the Luleå investment.
As Johnny already mentioned, we have other smaller strategic investments, so SEK 1 billion from this is reserved for that. The estimated peak in capex outlook is expected still to take place in 2026 and 2027. Briefly looking at the raw materials, iron ore and coking coal both have developed downwards compared to the previous year, as the graph is illustrating. If we compare quarter on quarter during Q4 and Q1, on average level, iron ore has been rather stable, coking coal coming slightly down. If we estimate the raw material consumption cost for our Nordic mills, those are expected to be relatively stable. As you can see, the graph illustrating this scrap price in the U.S., the price went up during Q1 compared to Q4 level. That was squeezing the margins in the U.S. Mills.
The expectation is hopefully it will remain more stable going forward, and we saw already some downward trend in April. Maintenance cost table, this we have only slightly adjusted since last time we illustrated. Nor will we have during Q2. We will have some in Q3, but the majority of the maintenance is happening during Q4. With that, I let Johnny continue with the outlook.
Thank you, Leena. The outlook looks pretty much the same as it did last time I showed you this. We still have a pretty good demand in heavy transport globally. Of course, it varies depending on what kind of market we're talking about. All in all, I would say that we have a fairly good demand in heavy transport. Automotive, however, we've seen a reduction in demand, not only in Europe but also in America. The construction machinery, same thing there. We've seen some weak demand in Europe and in North America. China is, however, stabilizing a little bit, but we'll see. Still some question marks. Material handling, which is mainly mining, has been on a higher level, and this is a very important segment for special steel. We continue to see a high demand. It's not increasing, but it's on a high level.
Energy segment has been very, very strong in the United States. A lot of orders that we've seen is actually related to the energy segment. It seems to be very strong and stable. It's picking up. Construction has been quite weak, especially in Europe. We're still waiting for that to come back. Service tenders, they're already stocking, but the restocking is taking time, and they have not been fully restocked yet. For the outlook, the guidance that we have given is that special steels, somewhat higher shipments, stable pricing for SSAB Europe, somewhat higher when it comes to shipments, and then somewhat higher when it comes to prices. Last, SSAB Americas with somewhat higher shipments, but significantly higher prices. That's sort of the outlook that we have going forward.
If we summarize this, first of all, I just want to point out sort of the safety. Safety is still very strong, and we keep high focus on safety, trying to maintain safety on a good level for SSAB. The reason why I'm mentioning this is because it is a priority within SSAB to keep our workers safe. We believe that Q1 was according to expectations, where special steel maintained a good position with good pricing, good profitability, and shows very good resilience and unique market value. We also could see a very strong recovery on the U.S. plate market with increased prices and a very strong order intake. Our transformation projects continue according to plan. I think the last point here is more to sort of educate the market that we have a very strong production position in the United States.
That gives us a very high flexibility when you have turbulence on the market related to tariffs, etc. That was pretty much it from me. Over to you, Per.
Yes, thank you, Johnny, and thank you, Leena. We are ready now to go into the Q&A. As always, I'll just take the opportunity to remind, it's perfectly fine to ask more than one question, but please take them one at a time to make the process a bit smoother. By that, I will ask the operator now to please present the instructions for the telephone conference.
Thank you so much. Dear participants, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone keypad and wait for a name to be announced. To withdraw a question, please press star 11 again. Please stand by, we will compile the Q&A roster. This will take a few moments. Now we are going to take up our first question. It comes from the line of Kaleb Solomon from SEB. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Hi, just three questions from my side. Special steel shipments were up almost 30% sequentially, which is quite a lot, even considering seasonal effects. Is that more driven by shipments to the U.S. than Europe? Did you see any kind of inventory buildup related to tariffs for special steels, specifically given the lack of local capacity?
I think if you look at the volumes, you compare to Q4, and Q4 was slightly lower than maybe we expected. I think that the Q1 shipments was pretty much in line with what it was last year and also in line with our expectations. Of course, we've had some increase due to the tariffs, but I wouldn't say that we've had our inventory buildup due to this. We have a sort of a global general demand, and special steel sales are going a lot into the mining segment, a segment which is very, very strong. So we're optimistic that it's going to continue like this.
We can also add that the European seasonality was quite pronounced.
True, yeah.
Okay, that's clear. You also announced that you're investing a relatively small amount into your Mobile facility in the U.S. to expand Special Steels capacity. Can you give any sort of color on how much that would add exactly in terms of capacity?
We have the objective to produce the most advanced grades in Mobile for special steel grades that are being produced in Oxelösund today. With these extremely advanced grades, we need to do an additional tempering. As it has been, we have used our existing austenitizing furnaces for this kind of tempering, which is not efficient, is not good for the productivity. We are adding more capacity in order to do this kind of tempering. How much additional capacity that will lead to depends on the mix and the thickness, what kind of grades, etc. It is really hard to say. I mean, it is a smaller investment, but it is a very important strategic step for us going forward.
Okay, and just one last one. You also commented on the kind of higher seasonal buildup of working capital compared to last year. You said the deviation was all due to a change in receivables. Just to clarify, you have not built any sort of extra inventory of special steel products in the U.S.?
No.
No, not really. I think prior to sort of the tariffs, we built up a little bit of an inventory just in case for some unique grades, but it's an insignificant amount, so it doesn't have any impact at all.
Okay, that's all from me. Thank you for taking my questions.
Thank you.
Thank you. Now we are going to take our next question. The question comes from Alain Gabriel from Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Yes, good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. My question is on the loan, the green loan you have received at EUR 2.3 billion in three parts. Firstly, how do the financing terms of these green loans compare with the general market terms? Did you get favorable interest on that loan? If you can just give us some general comment. That is the first part of my question. Thanks.
Yes, a very general comment. Of course, we want to believe that the green financing has better terms. I can say that the interest was really high. It is also supporting this impression. Yes, we do not disclose the details of the terms and conditions. Yes, it is a good package.
Okay, perfect. The second part of that question is, now that you've secured this liquidity that you need for the investments, does this mean that you can flex your balance sheet a bit more aggressively to boost capital returns to shareholders, given that you're above the 20% threshold?
If you are referring to some dividend plan, that remains for the board to be decided upon. The most important thing is that we have secured the financing to support the smooth implementation of the project, as you know, the volatility in the industry. That has been the main goal.
Thank you. The third and last part of my question is on the sequencing of the project at Luleå, that also you've secured financing, you've also awarded the contract for the new cold rolling complex. How should we think about the sequencing of the spending at Luleå in 2025, 2026, 2027?
As we have indicated, the peak in the capex will take place 2026, 2027. Of course, 2028 will also have a portion of capex. Now that we have finalized the negotiations and secured the financing, perhaps now we can start to plan on a more detailed level how the capex will turn out for coming years.
Thanks. Any rough estimates or ranges that we should be thinking about in terms of billions of EUR or SEK on the sequencing?
We haven't prepared such an estimate at this point, unfortunately.
Okay, thank you very much. That's all from my end. Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you. Now we are going to take our next question. The question comes from Adrian Gilani from ABG Sundal Collier. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Yes, good morning. I'd like to start off with a few questions on the Q2 guidance. Can you provide some more nuance on the significantly higher prices in Americas in Q2? Because market prices are up quite a lot more than just 10%. I guess, can you quantify the increase you expect there?
I think, first of all, the contracts that we have in the United States are either quarterly, half-year, and we have some business, which is actually spot business. When it comes to increasing prices, it comes gradually. As you probably are aware of, the average price increase on the market has been roughly 22.5%. On longer term, we probably should reach that kind of level. It is really difficult to quantify for a quarter, depending on the mix of the contract length that we have. We are expecting sort of prices to increase between 10%-20%, somewhere in that ballpark.
Okay, understood. Can you just explain how you arrive at raw material costs in Europe being stable into Q2? Because it looks like coal is down quite a bit in Q1 and iron is fairly flattish. It looks like raw material costs should be sequentially down. Am I missing something?
Yeah, there is, of course, to remind that there is the lag in the impact. With iron ore prices, there's this quarterly lag what comes to the purchases and consumption cost. The lag in coal prices is even longer. It's quarter and a half. To remind also that we had the winter stocking with coal that took place during the second half of last year. It is then a mix. The good thing is that it is expected to slowly, for sure, come downwards. At this stage, we see that it's more stable level.
Okay. A final one from me on the capex in Q2. In Q1, you took roughly SEK 1 billion, which is only a tenth of the full year guidance, which, I mean, implies that the run rate has to increase quite a lot. When do you expect that the major strategic investments in Luleå will sort of start to be taken?
It is during the coming quarters. We have to see. There will be bigger lots then depending on what the capex is related to. Now we start to spend with the OEM contracts, of course. We have to see how the environmental permit is ending up, because that is also then impacting the capex slightly.
Leena, as usual, maybe second half, we typically spend more.
Yeah, that we could say.
Okay. In that case, that's all from me. Thank you.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. The question comes from the line of Tom Zhang from Buckley. Your line is open. Please ask a question.
Yes, morning. Thanks for taking our questions. First one for me. I just want to get a sense of what kind of tariff risks your order book is baking in today, because I think your guidance is predicated on what you see today in your order books and the prices that are in there. I imagine a big portion of your order book is still from prior to these Liberation Day tariffs. I guess my question is, since the tariffs were announced, did you see many order cancellations from customers who are getting worried? Could you maybe talk a bit about how your order intake has trended through April? Did you see everyone start holding off purchases after the tariffs? Did you see much of a sort of recovery, I suppose, after the 90-day pause in tariffs? Maybe we can start there.
If you're speaking about the general market in the United States, I guess you can split it into two. One, which is more consumer-driven and consumer-related, such as cars or even new housing and things like that. We don't sell too much into this part of the business. When it comes to the industry, like energy, oil and gas, heavy transport, the order intake has still been very, very strong. Also for pipes and tubes, we've had a massive amount of orders coming in related to these segments. I guess it's a very simplified picture when we talk about the general steel market in the United States. You're right, the consumer-driven steel industry has been going down, but the part that we're working with primarily is still very, very strong.
Would you add any comments on Europe as well? Because I guess it's kind of a global impact, not just within the U.S.
No, I mean, one of the questions you asked, if we've seen any cancellations, and we haven't seen that anywhere on the market, not in Europe, not in the United States. In Europe, there is a balance between the supply and demand. In Q1, we could see sort of lower imports. That was good for the market in Europe or good for the suppliers in Europe. We haven't seen any kind of impact. I mean, the market conditions in Europe have been quite weak for the last two years. We haven't seen any impact, more or less, from the tariffs in general.
Okay, fair enough. Thank you. The next question was just on you were talking about heavy transport already. I think in the presentation, you mentioned there's some recovery in heavy transport and heavy production in Europe. In the press release, you write the slowdown in demand has continued in heavy transport. Maybe you could just help join those two up. You saw a recovery through the quarter in heavy transport. Yeah.
Depending on what kind of products we're talking about, but let's say if we focus on Europe, we've heard some positive signs, both from Volvo trucks, that it is slightly improving. That's good from that regard. Also, I think I've heard similar from Scania. This part of the business is improving. We've seen some positive signs in other segments similar to this, where you do tippers and trailers and so on, even though that can also go into yellow goods or raw material handling. We've seen some positive signs from very low levels. That's also good. Agriculture is also an area where we've seen an improvement from low levels again. There are signs on the market that it's picking up.
You're right, Tom, that Q1 heavy transport, some of these segments you want to describe were relatively weak.
Yeah, outlook.
Q2 outlook, Q2 recovery. One comment is for Q1 and then for the next quarter. That is also part of the things you referred to.
Okay, that makes sense. Thank you. The final question, maybe for you, Leena, was as a follow-up to the previous question around raw material costs. I think the lag makes sense. The other portion I thought would have helped on the raw material costs is currency. Obviously the move up in kroner, if you put a lag on that as well, I would have thought gives you a bit of FX-linked cost tailwind. Are there hedges in place that prevent that tailwind from coming through, or is that all already baked into your stable guidance?
The hedging is not sort of included in any of these analyses. You are absolutely right that it should start to show a reduction in the raw material cost due to the currency impact as well. That is more than remains to be seen during Q2 and end of the quarter rather than in the beginning.
Okay, that's clear. Thank you very much. I'll turn it back.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. Just give us a moment. The question comes from the line of Tristan Gresser from BNP Paribas Exane. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Yes, hi. Thank you for taking my questions. The first one is on the U.S. plate market. It seems that prices have stabilized despite lower scrap prices in April and now into May. Can you discuss a little bit the change in the structure of the market following the tariffs implementation, notably if you still see some pressure from Canada? You mentioned improving demand. Anything aside energy? Do you expect that positive momentum to hold up now? It seems energy has been weakening again. Lastly, just on plate, how big is shipbuilding for your business at the moment? Do you believe there's some opportunity there for that end market?
Okay, a lot of questions at the same time. I'm trying to remember. Related to the U.S. market and the pricing, you're right in a way that the prices seem to have stabilized right now on the market. The question is, is there room for any price increases? What are the market dynamics looking right now? I think for the plate market, we know that the distributors and service center haven't been able to restock fully yet. There is still an underlying demand from them. Also, when you talk about the plate market, which is related to the industry, there's still a very strong underlying demand there. Even though there are some announcements saying that offshore energy or wind power mills are going to pretty much disappear, there's still a lot of orders right now for the onshore.
A lot of our customers are delivering to that. We have seen a lot of demand related to this. Of course, we are going to try to do whatever we can to maintain prices. I think that there is an opportunity maybe to at least stay on this level. We are very optimistic for the remainder of the year when it comes to orders, because we have had a good order intake that is spread over the year, which gives us more opportunity to be more aggressive on the pricing. I am quite optimistic in that regard. You asked the question regarding shipbuilding. I think that is something that we do not talk about maybe enough. We have one customer in Mobile, Oslo, that last year bought almost 40,000 tons. That is only one customer. We have a few.
It has been roughly 200,000 tons, which is significant. We're expecting that to actually grow going forward. I think here we also supply some unique grades for this kind of application. That goes into what we would typically say as in Swedish icebreakers. I do not know if you call it the same way in English. Here we do some unique supplies into those kind of ships. We're quite optimistic and we think it is going to maintain on a good level.
Okay, that's pretty clear. Kind of a similar kind of question for special steel on the demand. You mentioned heavy truck and mining doing well. Any increased interest on the defense side just yet? We've seen some higher Q&T prices in North America. I know your products are pretty differentiated. Do you believe there is actually a possibility that you've seen ASP stabilize to actually see some higher prices into H2? Or is the goal now to keep those ASP stable while you grow volumes? Yeah.
We're always going to try to match our pricing with the market, put market prices out there. How the price is going to look like for the second half, it's hard to say. I think the intention is to try to increase it as much as we can. We see if the market accepts it or not. The question regarding defense industry, there's a lot of quotations out there, a lot of demand. Usually there is a time lag between a customer getting the order for a military vehicle or a military ship until the order comes to us. The defense industry is good in a way because it's usually five-year contracts. It's very solid when it comes to payments and so on. When it's on the table, we know we're going to get it.
The question is when we're going to get it. We foresee an increase in this demand. We don't really know exactly when, but it's going to come.
All right, that's clear. Maybe last question, just a follow-up on special steel. I think you had some volume targets of 80,000-100,000 ton of additional volume every year for the next couple of years. Now that you're saying that demand is pretty good, that you managed to stabilize ASP, is there a reason why we shouldn't get back to that growth trajectory for this year?
I mean, we should be able to grow with that kind of volume. We said that in the past as well. We had this Russia-Ukraine situation with a lot of sanctions that reduced our sales by 80,000 tons overnight. We have other political issues where we have not been able to deliver because of those kinds of reasons. It is a little bit hard to say. I think I have mentioned it before, if the German tipper market would come back to the level where it was in 2019, only that part of the market would give us roughly 30,000-40,000 tons just for that segment, for that market. It is really hard to say. We have a good product. We have the potential. The market needs to come back.
When that will happen, it's really hard to say.
All right, that's clear. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. The question comes to the line of Anders Akerblom from Nordea. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Starting off on Europe, I would like to ask just with regards to some, should I say, third-party market forecasters that have stated that after quite intense restocking during the beginning of this year, most distributors are quite well covered until Q3, while you state both in the report and now that inventory levels in Europe remain at a somewhat low to normal level. I am just trying to bridge this and grateful for anything you can say here. Has the beginning of this quarter perhaps changed your thinking a bit going forward?
Per, you want to cover that?
No, I mean, we know that there is no sort of the statistics in Europe regarding the inventory levels have quite a lag to it. There can be different views on the status. This is sort of our best when we listen to the organization, what do they see, what do they estimate. These are estimates. There is no clear statistics that you can follow with a short lead time to get. These estimates will vary also in the future, I think.
Exactly, it also varies. I mean, if you look at the material that goes into the car industry, we know for a fact that they're maybe a little bit overstocked. There are other segments which are understocked. Looking at our own inventories, we need to improve our stocks to improve the availability. The demand is high. We haven't been able to do that.
Okay, thank you. Asking just shortly about Americas and your expectations of the price increases that, of course, will come through going forward in both Q2 and Q3. It would be interesting to hear the proportion of your upcoming deliveries in the coming six months that have been contracted now in Q1 and how much kind of remains.
The tactics we've had, because the demand has been so high, we try to open our order books a month at a time. When we opened up May, it filled up within a day. It was just like selling Bruce Springsteen tickets. The demand was massive. I think that Chuck was going to open up June, if it was this week or the end of last week. What he told me is we're going to experience exactly the same situation. We also have contracts which are a bit longer. We had some pipes orders that are delivered through the year, even into Q1 next year.
That gives us, because when we have this load, this base load, that gives us confidence when we walk into price negotiations that we do not need to take orders just to fill the mill because we have a base load. I think that is good for us. When you talk to Chuck, who is the divisional head of SSAB Americas, he is very confident for the full year of 2025 when it comes to production volumes.
Sorry, just so I understood correctly, when you opened up the books for June, you're saying that you didn't really note a sequential slowdown, so to speak, compared to May.
No, what he told me is that he believes that we're going to fill that order book immediately, just like we did in May. That's his assumption. I mean, the marketing, I say, is differentiated. We can't just say that the overall condition is like this. We have to look at what is it that we're selling. Material that is, let's say, normalized material that goes into pipes and tubes or for other sort of special applications, here we see a very, very strong demand. When the requirements are high, we're one of the few suppliers, even from SSAB Americas. Here we see a very, very strong demand.
Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. Just a final question, if I may. Yesterday, obviously, the announcement from LKAB about, should I say, slowing down the investments in the Giellavarri hybrid plant, does this change your thinking in any capacity? I understand, of course, not with regards to the investments in Luleå. How should one maybe think with regards to the potential cost inflation in your production owing to the DRI, planned DRI volumes? How does this change your thinking?
We have a long-term plan to improve the production footprint for SSAB in Sweden. The decision for the Luleå investment rests on a lot of aspects. One aspect is that we have a horse-driven mill in Borlänge that was built in 1965. It is also located in Borlänge. We need to upgrade that. We also need additional capacity in order to supply the automotive industry with material that is going through the continuous kneading line or that is galvanized because we are fully loaded there as well. We need to add more capacity. That is part of the Luleå investment package. Maybe thirdly is that we have an old blast furnace and a coke oven in Luleå that needs investments. Either we invest in old technology that is emitting a lot of CO2, or we invest in new technology, which would be the electric arc furnace.
For us, our strategy remains. We have several different options to run this electric arc furnace on. It does not have to be DRI. With that said, the cooperation we have with LKAB is very, very important. It has been very fruitful. We stay in close contact all the time. We talk about the development, technical development, innovation development together. We do that jointly. I would say that, first of all, it was not really an announcement. There was an interview by Anders Borg. I think that we have some insights here that have not been published yet.
Okay. I mean, the logic makes sense. I guess the question was a bit more, but I appreciate your elaboration. I was kind of referring more to how you're thinking about the steel, the scrap volumes vis-à-vis the DRI with this announcement in mind. If we just assume that it will change the future volumes that you're able to receive, how does this change your thinking with regards to cost inflation in the production?
Of course, it's a very large investment we do in Luleå. Just to put all the eggs in one basket would be too risky. Of course, we have other options. We have backup plans. We have mitigation plans that we're working on continuously. If we would use scrap instead of DRI, our assumption is that it will not be more costly. It will be a cost-efficient product, even so. Yeah, that's all I can say.
Okay, yeah, no, makes sense. Thank you so much. I'll get back in line. Thank you.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. The question comes to the line of Bastian Synagowitz from Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Yes, good morning all. Thanks for taking my question. I got two questions left, actually. Just starting off on Europe, I guess when I look at the European volume performance, it's really been the strongest since about seven quarters in an environment where demand is definitely lower versus what it was, say, a year and a half to two years ago. That is obviously despite the strike. What has been driving this? Was there any front-loading due to tariffs here or anything else? I guess the European volume number does look very strong in the current market context. That is my first question.
Can you repeat the question? I was just asking about the specific driver behind the SSAB volumes. Bastian thinks it's a really strong number for Europe, I think 880,000 tons something. Has there been any specific drivers of this?
I think the strongest quarter in seven quarters when the market clearly has been trending weaker. I am wondering if the market is weaker and you are basically printing the strongest volume numbers in almost two years, what has been driving it?
One of the things that we should maybe take time to inform the market on is that the SSAB Europe sales is more fragmented than you can actually think. A lot of it goes into color coating. A lot of it goes into tubes and pipes. Some goes into galvanizing. Some goes into continuous kneading, becomes advanced high-strength steel. We try to avoid to sell hot rod coil as much as we can. It was not just a single reason for the increased demand. We have an overall general demand for our products. We are being perceived as a better quality supplier on the market. I think that we sometimes underestimate the uniqueness of SSAB Europe and the amount of premium that they actually sell into the market.
I think that we at some point need to educate the market a little bit more on the portfolio of SSAB Europe and a little bit of the uniqueness that they can provide. The question is, it's right, because a lot of our competitors are struggling and have a very hard time to fill their mills. At the same time, we have much better orders than the rest at slightly higher prices. Of course, there's a question mark. The reason for that is because of the uniqueness that we actually provide. There are only a few areas where we're not being unique, where we are more spot price sensitive. All in all, I think that we have more resilience. That's something that we're going to continue to build on.
Also, at the same time, to invest in the Luleå production will give us more capacity to be unique and sell more premium to reposition Europe even more into a premium supplier into the market.
Okay, okay, understood. Okay, and just maybe being a bit more detailed here, did automotive come in much stronger in Q1 as well? I guess there were a couple of automotive suppliers which actually did notice like a reasonably decent, I guess, volume trend in Q1. Have you been seeing anything in particular out of that segment as well?
No, I wouldn't say that there was a unique increase in automotive. We are a preferred supplier of safety parts going into automotive. We have a global demand for these kinds of products, also to the United States as well as in Europe. We supply a product that offers excellent crash barrier properties. This is the reason why we need to invest in additional capacity, because there is a big demand for it. There wasn't an increase in demand in Q1. We can't say that, no.
Got it. Okay, great. My second question is just on the U.S. as well. Your investment into the new tempering line, is that a reaction to, I guess, the recent U.S. policy? I also want to ask if you look at the competitive landscape. Companies like Hyundai, I guess, have announced a new capacity project in the U.S. in reaction to the recent U.S. tariffs. Are you seeing the risk of any additional market entrants into your particular segments as well in play?
Not really. I mean, first of all, the investment of the tempering mill. We're continuously upgrading our customers to more advanced material to help them to have a much lighter vehicle and more sustainable vehicle. This Hardox 500 Tuf, which is unique on the market, can offer that kind of property for the customers. Like I said, in order to produce this at really advanced grade, we need to do tempering. This capacity we have been limited with in the United States in the past. We have a long-term plan for the Mobile facility to gradually produce more of the special steel grade, more advanced grades. We will take investments when we have the need and grow with the demand. That's the plan. We will probably see more like this in the future.
Okay, great. Any peer projects, any capacity projects in the landscape you're seeing?
You mean, are there any new plate mills planned?
Yeah, correct.
Whether you've heard anything in the market. Right into the U.S., any new plate mills?
Not plate mills. There have been some announcements regarding coils and material for the automotive industry, but not any new plate mills.
Nothing on the plate floor.
No.
Got you. Okay, very good. Thanks so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. The question comes to the line of Patrick Mann from Bank of America. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Good morning, Johnny and team. Thank you for the opportunity. I just wanted to ask maybe a longer-term question, because most of the questions have been asked, obviously. Just around European policy around steel, a while ago now, we had the announcement about the action plan on steel, the review of CBAM, a permanent replacement for the safeguard measures that expire. Is the industry or is SSAB in the industry sort of actively involved in talking to the European Commission on what those policies will look like and sort of getting to put in input? I suppose it just feels like it's gone a little bit quiet after those initial announcements. Are things progressing? And are things what are you expecting, I suppose, going forward towards the end of the year?
I think they've both said that they wanted it, or they wanted to propose something before the end of the year on both measures. Just where we are with that would be helpful. Thank you.
SSAB is very active in these discussions. Of course, the policies of the European Union are of great importance for us going forward. I also have to say that I'm very pleased with the way the European Union has been acting. They've reached out to the steel industry. I personally was invited with a meeting with Ursula von der Leyen to talk about topics like this, to sort of give them input on what kind of concerns that we see: impact from tariffs, impact from Chinese material coming in through other countries into Europe, those kinds of discussions we've had. I think that the intention is to try to support the steel industry in Europe and try to make sure that we maintain production of steel in Europe.
I'm confident that the European Union will put up whatever measure is needed to sort of help or protect Europe from unfair trading. That's my belief. I also think that some of these initiatives might happen short term and not maybe long term. But those are my beliefs.
Yes, as the operator, we just have to say now that we're approaching one hour and we have a bit of a busy schedule. We can take one more question before we close.
Yes, of course. Now we're going to take our last question for today. The question comes to the line of Christian Kopfer from Handelsbanken. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
All right, thanks, operator. Yeah, two quick ones for me then. On the European division, it seems that you are doing a lot of good things. Still, profitability in SSAB Europe is still on very low levels. How far from more acceptable profitability are you with the current production setup in your view?
I think that we're pretty far away from the acceptable level, according to my assessment. The profitability needs to improve. We have a long-term plan for that. We're going to continue to work effortlessly to reach a higher profitability level. It's going to take some time, develop new grades, develop new customer relationships, qualify new materials, at the same time getting the investment in Luleå in place so we can get that kind of capacity. We will be able to do things prior to that. That's also very important for the optimism of SSAB Europe that is more unique than maybe people know. We will capitalize on that and try to increase our uniqueness and our premium sales within SSAB Europe.
Yeah, excellent. Finally, I think you guided for flat pricing for special steels in Q2. What I understand is that you have started to raise prices for Hardox in the U.S., for example. Is that something that should come in Q2, or is it more later on?
I think we should stick to the guidance in this case. Like I said in the previous statement, of course, we'll try to maximize our prices. We are increasing prices. We'll see what the effect is going to be and when it's going to happen. You're right that we are working on the pricing here as well.
Okay, excellent. Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you. That will conclude today's conference. Thank you, Johnny and Leena. Thank you, the audience, for listening in. We have to stop now. If there are further questions, you are most welcome to contact Investor Relations. We are available here through the day. By that, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Per. Thank you, Leena.
Thank you, Johnny. Thank you, Per.