Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I'm Moritz, your call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the AMAG Austria Metall AG Q3 2022 results presentation. Throughout today's recorded presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you may press star followed by one on your touchtone telephone. Please press the star key followed by zero for operator assistance. The forecast, budgets, and forward-looking assessments and statements contained in this presentation were compiled on the basis of all information available to AMAG as of October 20, 2022. In the event that the assumptions underlying these forecasts prove to be incorrect, targets be missed or risks materialize, actual results may diverge from those currently anticipated.
We are not obligated to revise any of these forecasts in the light of new information or future events. This presentation was prepared and the data contained in it verified with the greatest possible care. Nevertheless, misprints, rounding errors, and transmission errors cannot be entirely ruled out. In particular, AMAG and its representatives do not assume any responsibility for the completeness and correctness of information included in this presentation. This presentation is also available in German. In cases of doubt, the German language version takes precedence. This presentation does not constitute either a recommendation or a solicitation to either purchase or sell securities of AMAG. I would now like to turn the conference over to Christoph Gabriel, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our conference call for the first three quarters of 2022 of AMAG Austria Metall AG. Today, Gerald Mayer, CEO of AMAG, will present the developments and results of the first nine months of this year. After Gerald's presentation, you have the opportunity to ask questions during the Q&A session. As usual, the presentation as well as the press release have been published this morning on our homepage under Investor Relations. I would now like to hand over to Gerald. Please start the presentation. Thank you.
Thanks, Christoph. Good morning from my side to our Q3 earnings presentation. I would like to start with the highlights on the first slide. It was a very strong third quarter for us, and on the one side, on the other side, we got the first, let's say, indications that we see a slowdown for certain industries in the market. All in all, Q3 was very strong with a significant revenue growth of 47% to EUR 1.35 billion for the first nine months, after EUR 900 million, roughly, in the first nine months of the year 2021. Also, EBITDA grew by 48% to EUR 217 million, which is a record, of course, for AMAG.
Up to now, the best full year was last year with a very strong first nine months. The significant growth can also be seen in net income. We are at EUR 107 million roughly right now, after EUR 57 million in the first nine months, 2021. One reason for that, or the most important reasons for that, was an optimized product mix, of course. We took advantage and we used quite well, I would say, our plant and personnel capacities. As you know, we had some bottlenecks there, in particular the HR side, and we managed a very stable production. Of course, we also had tailwinds from the market.
What we also see right now is that the business performance increasingly will be affected by declining demand in some of our sectors and the slowdown in markets, as well as by energy prices. I will talk about that a little bit later. This brings me into the outlook for 2022. We expect and our guidance right now is an EBITDA range between EUR 230 million and EUR 250 million based on our current estimates for tonnages and shipments, volumes and prices. Of course, we assume a stable energy supply. Midterm and long term, we are convinced of a solid growth expectation for aluminum products. I think the future is absolutely a positive one. Slide four, some highlights regarding sustainability.
I would like to share with you that our approach regarding sustainability, which is definitely an holistic approach, was awarded several times in the last weeks and month. We have a top sustainability rating from EcoVadis, from Sustainalytics. We just won the Energy Globe for Austria for the erection of our rooftop photovoltaic system. We were awarded with the Effective Sustainability Communicator Award two weeks ago. We got the Best Business Award, which is an award in southern Germany. We have other awards like the ICT, which is very interesting, one for sustainable digitization. We got another one regarding our expertise in climate protection for our construction of the pedestrian and cycle overpass.
It's a holistic approach which is seen in the outside world and also awarded. Let's go to slide number six, which is the purchasing managers' index, the heat map. What you can see at the heat map perfectly also translates into our order intakes situation and our downstream business. We saw end of second quarter, beginning of third quarter, a decline in this sentiment in this heat map. The color turned red and this is also reflected in our order intake situation quite well. We saw a decline in order intakes, which I will share with you a little bit later.
Just in some of our industries we supply, and this is in particular for the industrial application industry and to a smaller extent in the automotive industry. Very important for us on slide number seven, the aluminum price trend. What we can see there is that the decline started after a real, let's say, a sharp development upwards. We saw a decline which started in spring, right after the war in the Ukraine started. We saw the peak, and then it started to decline, and we see a continuing decline until today, actually, despite we saw an increase last night to more than $2,300 again. All in all, we were between $2,100 and $2,200 the last days.
A high or a low aluminum price always affects our EBITDA, and it also is in our metal division in particular, and it also affects, of course, working capital. This decline, you will see it a little bit later, also affected our cash flow significantly in the last quarter, which is a fairly positive number right now. Let's go to slide number eight. Alumina price, also very important. It's a similar picture, more or less in parallel with the decline of the aluminum price. Also, price for alumina trend, it's down. As you know, it takes two tons of alumina to produce one ton of aluminum, so this is a very important raw material for us.
We see some sort of correlation there, despite the fact that the aluminum price declined, of course, a little bit more in absolute numbers than the reduction of alumina was. All in all, this level of alumina price is a good level for us. The overall situation for the upstream business is still quite positive, despite the fact, of course, that the let's say overall top-line number will go down there and also the margins because of the sharp decrease in alumina price. Slide nine, shipments. You saw a stable situation, some increase, compared to the prior year, from 317,000 to 319,000 tons for all our divisions.
If you look to the bottom of this chart, at the details there, minus 1,100 tons for our metal division. This had to do with early shipments in the prior year. So there's no impact. There's a very stable production there, actually, at our smelting operation in Canada. A topic from last year. In our casting division, we made it possible with high productivity to increase shipments by 1,300 tons. In rolling division by 1,400 tons, and this is despite the fact that we, of course, had a bottleneck in the area of HR in manning in the first nine months. Slide number 10, rolling division, the shipments by industry. You see some changes there, compared to the past.
We saw in particular an increase in aerospace to 10%. We were quite low there after COVID. We increased by 6,400 tons compared to the prior year. This is quite significant. We see a stabilization and still increase for aerospace industry. Also automotive was up and we are now at 18% share. Also quite positive is packaging. What trends down is tread plate, industrial applications. Here we see a decline, and this has to do in particular with market developments. This is the part of our business which is affected by the downturn of the economy right now. Slide number 11, you see the order backlog development.
You see this downward trend there, and we see the slight decrease since Q3 in automotive in demand. We also see, and this is a significant decline for, in particular, non-heat treated products, in the industrial application area like tread plate and so on. We see that our customers ordered a lot in the first half of the year. We shipped a lot. Stocks are full there, and they have to destock before they start to order again. In addition to that, of course, a big piece of uncertainty is the energy price level. We're waiting for actually a final solution there. We are convinced that our customers will also start to order again in the industrial applications area.
A very solid order intake still from aircraft and packaging industry. We have pluses and minuses there. All in all, I would say the level of order backlog is still a healthy one. The revenues, turnover sales number on slide 12, you see that we were up roughly nearly 50%. We saw the increase in all our divisions. In metal, we are up 77, roughly EUR 80 million from EUR 215 million to EUR 290 million. Also in casting, we are up EUR 40 million, which is 45% increase. Our rolling division, we are up more than EUR 300 million. It's a 50% increase, roughly.
Going through the bridge, you see that this increase first of all reflects, of course, due to a higher aluminum price by EUR 120 million. Price premiums in general had to go up in order to compensate for higher energy prices and inflation trends in particular. We saw an increase in prices in general by more than EUR 200 million. Volume was up. This accounts for EUR 20 million. We have, for example, in others, FX effects of roughly EUR 40 million. This bridges from EUR 900 million and gives us the reconciliation from EUR 900 million to EUR 1.3 billion for the first nine months. Slide 13, EBITDA. We exceeded for the first time the 200 million level in a year, and this after nine months.
We are at 217 after 146 in the prior year. As I said before, this is roughly 50% up or EUR 70 million. If you look at the reconciliation, we see that, we, of course, aluminum price EUR 50 million has a big contribution there. We have prices and premiums in general, which were up EUR 150 million, and they had to absorb raw material increases, energy price increases, and increases in the section of other, which refers to structural costs, other inflationary effects, some valuation effects there which had to do with inflation, and so on, in particular. And EUR 20 million of this higher EBITDA refer to higher volumes. Slide number 14, the change in EBITDA by division.
You see a positive trend in the divisions there in all our operating divisions. Metal division is up EUR 15 million compared to the prior year, casting EUR 3.5 million. They did an excellent job this year. Rolling EUR 55 million, also very positive development there. Let us have a look on slide 15 on the EBITDA of Q3. You see in Q3, we are up compared to the prior year by 15% or roughly EUR 7-8 million. The third quarter of 2021 was already a strong quarter for AMAG, and EUR 60 million is still a very strong one. We also, of course, see the reduced run rate compared to the first half of the year.
Looking and having a quick look at the reconciliation, you see aluminum price is responsible for EUR 5 million of the increase. We perfectly, let's say absorbed with higher price increases the higher cost for raw material and energy. We had a positive impact of volumes and mix, and then we had, of course, some other structural and valuation effects in the third quarter, in particular, with regard to inflation trends as I mentioned them for the first nine months. Net income, also, of course, quite positive, driven by the operating result. Depreciation is a little bit up, of course. Net financial result is a little bit negative, and of course, we have to pay higher taxes or account for higher taxes for higher results.
We end up at EUR 107 million after nine months. I think what is very interesting looking at the energy situation, I have a chart on slide 17, which shows the average energy cost for just our site here in Austria, Ranshofen. If you look at that, we see that the average number is significantly below the market prices. AMAG does not pay the market prices right now. We have hedges in place, also for next year. If you look at the 2020-2021 number, we saw an increase of 100%. 2021 to 2022, it will more than double again, and we are still significantly below the current market. This is the average number of Q3, so it came down again a little bit.
It's getting better, of course. This chart, I think, shows perfectly the necessity to increase prices, to have a strategy of price increases in place. This is exactly what we did quite well in this, let's say, starting more than one year ago. We have step by step increased our prices. Of course, what you also see there is that hedging absorbs for energy price increases, which is also quite positive. As I mentioned before, we have hedges in place also for the year 2023. Next slide. You see the summary of our strong results. You also see quite well that the run rate in Q3 is reduced, as I mentioned before, compared to the first half of the year.
Aluminum prices came down for metal division. Of course, we also saw the decrease in demand for non-heat treated products, in particular for industrial application non-heat treated products. The rest was, I would say, quite positive. Cash flow, I would say in particular in Q3, very positive after a difficult first half with strong aluminum price increases. We built up safety stocks for alloying metal, also for primary metal on our side. Of course, this had to be financed. In the third quarter, we had a positive operating cash flow of EUR 125 million. This was very strong for us. All in all, year to date, we are at the operating cash flow of EUR 70 million plus, and deducting the cash flow from investing activities.
We turned the cash flow from a negative free cash flow to a positive free cash flow after nine months. The impact of higher volumes in the cash flow is still very negative of EUR 90 million. This has to do with a higher, in particular, higher safety stocks, as I mentioned before. Slide number 20. You see on the left side, net financial debt development. This number reflects the strong cash flow in the third quarter. It is, I would say, very solid. The EBITDA net debt EBITDA ratio is at 1.5 right now. Reduced net financial debt as well as a strong EBITDA are responsible for that. Solid financials, key financials also on slide 21. Equity increased.
You remember that we distributed a dividend of EUR 50 million, but we are up there compared to the 31st of December 2021 by EUR 90 million, roughly. Very positive, and it's of course in particular driven by our result. Cash and cash equivalents. We built up cash this year when the war started. We did one Schuldschein financing facility of EUR 200 million to be on the safe side there. Now in the last quarter, we also see, of course, the impact of the strong and positive operating cash flow. Metal division, slide number 22. I would say all good, all stable there regarding production. We had tailwinds in the last, let's say, 24 months from high aluminum prices.
Of course, these prices came down quite a bit in the last month. The expectation is that it's normalizing to a normal type of result and run rate in metal division right now. All in all, a very important thing is their shipments, stable production, and we took advantage of this positive market environment. Casting division, slide 23. Also very stable in terms of production. We had a high productivity there. We took advantage of our capacity, I would say, in a quite perfect manner. The cost increases we saw were offset by price adjustments. A very good job there and very stable development for casting division after nine months. Rolling division, we optimized the product mix.
We had a high productivity. It's a record year for our guys in the rolling division. We saw a sharp EBITDA growth on the one side. On the other side, you also see, if you're looking at the third quarter, it was still a very good one for rolling division. We also saw that a highly profitable part of our business is volume-wise declining, and this is reflected in the numbers there. Of course, always in Q3, we produce a little bit less as we have planned maintenance there always in August, as we have it also in December, by the way. Let's talk a little bit about the outlook, how we see the future.
It is of course quite difficult right now to do precise forecasts there. I think the only stable thing we have right now is uncertainty. All in all, I think in the first nine months, we took advantage of this positive environment. We had a high productivity. I think we did a quite good job and took advantage of that and enabled this really good result after nine months. We had in Q3 very stable order intakes from aircraft, aerospace industry, also from the packaging industry on the one side. As I mentioned, we see declining developments in industrial applications, in particular in the non-heat treat part of this business, as the stocks are pretty full on the side of.
We saw a slight decline throughout in the demand of automotive industries, but it will be a very strong year for automotive within AMAG. We will have definitely a record number in terms of tonnage there. On the other side, we see this ongoing Ukraine war with rising energy prices, big uncertainties, also uncertainties in energy supply. We have high inflation, and this all in all guides us and drives us to a negative impact on the overall economic growth expectations in the short term. In the long term, midterm, we are absolutely convinced that it will be a positive and stable development. The short term uncertainty, I would say, is quite high.
What we also have on our side in AMAG is we expect a very stable development for primary production in Canada, so we are not affected by the Ukraine situation at all there, and despite general global economic developments. Given that and all the current estimates for trends for shipment, also some, let's say, reduce some working capital initiatives. We produce a little bit less in the fourth quarter and try to reduce working capital there. We see prices which are trending down, not just for aluminum, but also for some of our. In particular, for example, industrial application products. All this will lead to our guidance of EUR 230-250 million for 2022.
It's definitely, given all the uncertainties, too early to give a specific band or guidance for the next year, 2023. With that, I would like to finish this presentation, and I'm definitely ready to hopefully answer all your questions. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two. If you are using speaker equipment, please lift the handset before making your selection. Anyone who has a question may press star followed by one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question comes from Markus Remis from RBI. Please go ahead, sir.
Yeah. Good morning, Gerald. Congrats to the record results. First of all, a couple of questions, please. The first one relates to the, I would say, price-cost spreads. We've seen that part of the earnings equation contracting in the third quarter compared to the first half. I mean, what's your expectation for Q4 specifically and then also moving into 2023? I mean, do you think that cost pressure kind of. Or let me rephrase it. To which extent do you think you will continue to be able to balance out cost pressure by rising prices? Or do you think that, I would say, price sensitivity or pricing power will decline owing to a weaker kind of macro outlook overall?
Markus, it's a difficult to answer question, but let me up to now it worked quite well. Also the order intakes we have right now, in terms of pricing, we managed to push, let's say, this higher cost to our customers, which is absolutely necessary. Without that, given this, the sharp increases, in particular on the energy prices, it would not be possible to, let's say, to work. Yeah. We have to do that. We have a pricing strategy in place where we definitely do everything to push, in particular, the high energy prices to our customers. It is necessary. By the way, it's also understood.
The difficult part there is that we act in a, I would say, in a global environment. We have a competition, not just from Europe, from outside Europe, from perhaps guys there in competition, which has a lot of advantages in terms of energy compared to us. On the other side, which will be more difficult in the next weeks and months, is I think the downturn of economy. Because with the downturn up to now, it was easier as everyone or all the people there were running their plants more or less really at very high capacity levels. This will be definitely more difficult, and it might result perhaps in an impact in lower volumes.
Up to now, the only part that we really have the impression that it might go into the first half of this year is industrial application on heat treat, as I mentioned before that several times, where we'll definitely see a pressure there on volumes. All in all, just price-wise, we do everything at the utmost to keep the level high and also increase if necessary. I think this is our job now and our people up to now, the last 18 months, they did a fantastic job there, and I'm confident that we also managed to do so at the beginning of the year. The pressure from the other side will be there. Sorry for this very general answer.
Yeah. No, in general, you're more concerned about the volume side than about the price side. Is that?
Yeah, of course, I'm concerned.
Fair.
With every downturn in the economy and PMI, as I mentioned before, it's a perfect indicator for our downstream business. It's reflected in our order intakes right now, and as long as it stays like that or even gets a little bit worse, we will be impacted. It's not just us, it's the whole, I would say, industrial sector here. Yeah. Normally, of course, it's more difficult in a not so easy market environment to keep price levels high. What we do right now, we compensate for higher cost. It's not that we have to do that in order to keep the margins.
Okay. I mean, the declining trend we recently saw. I mean, I guess another tough question, but is there any sense you have about the impact of destocking? Is it, I mean, customers kind of being more hesitant to place orders because they expect lower prices, they know that lead times have come down? Yeah. Anything you can
What I can share here with you is two things. First of all or three things. In our industrial application business, stocks are definitely non-heat treat stocks are full at the side of our customers. The expectation is that this will last, let's say, another three to six months, roughly. They will step-by-step reduce the stock level there. We'll start to place orders again on this side. I guess we will also here have an impact there in the first half of next year, for sure.
Mm-hmm.
On the side of automotive, and this is something that you see the uncertainty. Normally at this time of the year, all the contracts for next year are concluded. The bulk of that is still open because of uncertainty. Our gut feeling there is that the order backlog is still quite high on their side, on the customer side, but we all read daily in the newspapers that people are canceling orders for cars and so on. The uncertainty is very high. No one knows how shall this proceed. I think this is the big issue right now and the big uncertainty for the upcoming year.
What is positive for us is primary division, what is positive for us is aerospace, is packaging and so on. We have very positives, many positive, areas, for our business. For sure, we also have the automotive industry, which is a driver with big uncertainty there, and industrial applications. The supply stocks are full. In this area, you know, half a year ago, our customers thought they do not get enough metal, and things changed dramatically.
Yeah.
In the last month. This is simply an issue right now. It's also something we had in the past, so it's an up and down there in this area.
Yeah, sure. I mean, generally, referring to the kind of weakening of the euro, I mean, are there any implications you would see from that change on your downstream business?
A weakening of euro for us is positive. For us in two senses. Upstream, of course, we have a US dollar production. Downstream, we produce here and export. This normally compensates perhaps for the disadvantage we have in a part, at least to a part, to a certain extent to the disadvantage we have, for example, from energy.
All right. Okay. Last question, also referring to the topic of inflation. I mean, how big is the inflationary pressure on your capital spending? I mean, so it's not only cost, but I guess also your investments will become more expensive.
This is definitely correct on the one side. On the other side, it is more expensive. We are right now building, having a big investment project on our side. It's EUR 50 million roughly. We got an upcharge of, I don't know, 15%, 20%, I don't know, just because of that. This comes from last year. It dates back by twelve months. The market was very strong for the plant building industry at this time, but also we saw the trends of inflation also last year. And right now, what is interesting for me is we just had a minor investment which we approved the other day.
What we saw there is, again, reducing prices from the construction industry. We'll see how this develops. I think they see the downturn in economy quite strongly there. Building should. I think perhaps it also, we see a positive trend there after it was peaking, let's say in summer. Simply look at aluminum price. It came down from $3 to $3,500-$4,000, but down to $2,300 as of today. We have other, let's say, important raw materials for the construction industry were similar. This will have an impact also again on the positive side, I would say. All in all, it's there. Higher wages and salaries and so on, it's there.
Yeah. Okay. What's the most updated CapEx figure for this year and then maybe also an outlook for next year already? EUR 100 million?
Yeah. This year, I think it's more 90. We have a little bit less than we expected. We shifted something to the next year. Next year will be above 100. We will give you a guidance there. We are in the budgeting process right now, so it's not approved yet, and we have to talk about that in the next weeks internally. You will get an update there.
All right. Okay, thanks. I'll get back in the line.
The next question comes from Michael Marschallinger from Erste Group. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I have two. First one would be on your new outlook range. This EUR 230 million, the lower bound of the guidance. This, it would mean only EUR 30 million in Q4. This would be quite a big drop of some 70% year-on-year. Is that not also a positive statement, really a realistic assumption?
It was very difficult to get, you know. All this reflected in our guidance for the rest of the year. I would say in particular two things. First of all, in the fourth quarter, we always have maintenance. We expect for the fourth quarter a run rate in our primary metal division, which is definitely by far lower than it was in the last three quarters as prices came down significantly. In addition to that, for our downstream operation, we are running now also a sort of working capital initiative. We produce on purpose also a little bit less than it was run rate-wise in the last quarter, for example. This brings down our, let's say, value add in our operation here in Ranshofen.
That are the main reasons for these trends. If you look back in history, this is we always had between EUR 20 million and EUR 40 million, I think, for the fourth quarter. It's I would say okay.
Understood. One question on your hedging quotas. You gave us a number here last year. Last quarter. Given that we saw now the natural gas prices in Europe came down below 100 EUR per megawatt hour again. Did you use this timeframe to increase the quotas you mentioned last time to us is 75% and 50% for the next two years?
This was the question, natural gas hedging?
Yes. If you increased the quotas.
I think the price level you have in mind now is always the day-ahead price, which is definitely way lower than it was in the past. Day-ahead is reflected for sure in the price for electricity. That is my understanding. For us, when we do hedges, we have to look at normally next quarter, next year, and not to this day-ahead price. By the way, I also learned yesterday that there was a negative price for natural gas in Spain. Stocks last week, or this week, stocks are full, and you have these developments right now as the ships are there, they are queuing, and you have your spot business. You might have, again, way lower natural gas prices. If they stay where they are, I would doubt that.
For us, we are at the level for next year of roughly 80% right now of natural gas hedges in place. We increased and yeah. I hope this answers the question.
Yeah. Could you also give us the number for 2024?
It's lower. I think we are perhaps at around 50% for natural gas. Around 50% is definitely not wrong.
Okay. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Wolfgang Matejka, from Matejka & Partners Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Thanks a lot for taking my question. At first, congratulation for bridging all those troubles ahead and behind. Very well done. In any case, we had nightmares that have come into reality. My question has been also as well on the natural gas prices of today. If you take advantage or not, it has already been answered in that respect. My question is twofold. The main question is the net financial debt you mentioned about the changing interest rate development currently. Is that an impact to your outlook or not? Second question is forward-looking, maybe your suggestions in relation to a dividend. Thank you.
I don't know if I got your question now right regarding net financial debt. For me, you know, what I said is that we had a very positive impact because of positive cash flows in the third quarter. I do not expect a significant impact there on our, let's say, bottom line or financial result. For us, it is also the case that the majority of our financing facilities have fixed interest rates. We have some flexibility there, you know, simply to be flexible and pay back if possible, and it makes sense. Therefore, we have also a part in with variable interest rates. You can read that in our annual report, I think, this split.
I do not see a big impact there on bottom line, if this was not the question in terms of valuation.
No, no.
Interest rates have an impact in.
Mm-hmm.
Let's say, in our provision for pensions and so on, but this is reflected in equity and not in the bottom line. To a little extent, for sure, the operating result when it comes to jubilee provisions. There you can see it. Regarding dividend, for me, it is still too early. We are thinking about that in our board, what we can do and should do there for next year, and it's too early for me to give you a guidance there.
Okay. In relation to the earnings development. Okay. You will skip a dividend. Smiley. One question is still remaining on my side related to the natural gas situation. Do you see some kind of development on your client side in relation toward the problems currently arising that you mentioned queuing up the LNG tankers in ahead of Spain and negative price development on the natural gas price because nobody's able to store that gas that there is some kind of industry development arising to build up in a fast mode storage facilities and so on.
What I see on the customer side that overseas customers sometimes are nervous about the situation in the geopolitical situation in Europe, and that it's more difficult to get orders, for example, from customers in the States who are to a certain extent nervous. On the one side, we have, of course, storage. This is very positive in Austria. It's also well received by our customers, for example, in the US. On the other side, it's still an issue if the gas flow will be totally interrupted, I think for Europe, Austria, Middle Europe. This is definitely something we see. For our industry and for our company, it will be super difficult to have a simple, let's say, substitute, for example, our gas supply, which comes via pipelines to our plant by LNG.
I can simply share with you what we are working on. We are working also on, and I think we are more or less there to have our own, let's say, storage facility for some weeks in place soon. We are working on other concepts like LNG type of concepts, but they are simply there to substitute a part of our consumptions. All in all, I think it is too big to store for a company like AMAG, I don't know, six months.
Of course. No. My question was related towards the, let's say, the storage industry, or let's say, the LNG pipe building industry. Is aluminum a factor in that, where it can take part of it when Germany, for instance, is building LNG terminals or so on? Or is it just more or less a steel business?
I would say not directly, but indirectly, but not as a supplier, because these are the tubes and pipes are not coming from aluminum, it's steel.
Okay. Thanks a lot. Congrats again.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you would like to ask questions, please press star followed by one. The next question comes from the line of Christian Obst from Baader Bank. Please go ahead.
Oh, yeah. Good morning. I just have two additional questions. One is a more technical one. You see some kind of valuation effect when it comes to your safety stocks, to your stocks as a whole in the first quarter that you have to go in with a lower valuation of the entire stocks, and this again then affects the result.
No. As we always hedge when we have the bulk of safety stocks for the primary metal for us. If you do that, it is always hedged, and so we do not have an impact there.
Okay. Thank you. The next one is we have some or we see some discussions about LME and a possible ban of Russian products there. What is your position there, and what do you currently see? How comes it?
Thanks. This is a very interesting question. I think a very important one for our industry. The position of the industry is, first of all, AMAG has just some kilos or some tons indirectly of Russian metal. We are not depending at all on that. We as AMAG, we don't need, let's say, a supply from Russia.
Yeah, of course.
We have some minor volumes, but this can be substituted. For the industry itself, I would say it is very important. Right now, roughly 1.5 million tons of aluminum come directly from Russia to Europe right now in the last year. Yeah. In addition to that, we assume that roughly 500,000 tons come via other countries. Indirectly, it goes from Russia to somewhere else. The bulk comes, let's say, in the form of semi-finished products from countries like Turkey to Europe again, who have free trade agreements and so on, and it comes then into Europe. If this would be sanctioned, we have to go in a little bit more detail. Do we have issues there, yes or no? I would say this is twofold.
If I go to our industry, as far as I know, there are some players in the market who need Russian slabs, for example, rolling slabs. So it is definitely an important raw material. So it is needed to a certain extent, at least there. Normally, to substitute a rolling slab takes time as you need to qualify and so on and so forth. You need to find a proper supplier. It's not so easy. We know that from our own experience. Then you have other products or also products where we have to be very careful in sanctioning, in my opinion, because sometimes, you know, that the metal flows.
It goes then from Russia to somewhere else, and then we have to close and shut all the back doors so that it does not come then back to Europe, but just more expensive. This is what I fear a little bit. All in all, it is simply affected. 1.5 million right now per annum come from Russia to Europe. It's one of our most important suppliers there. On the other hand, we are in a situation where we know that 1.1 million tons of annual capacity in Europe is curtailed right now because energy prices are that high.
I think it would be very wise to solve this energy problem for the, let's say, European production, because this would compensate quite for a big part of the mess, which we would see from, let's say, sanctions to Russian players.
Yeah. This is, I think, also some kind of a very interesting topic going forward.
Yeah.
How do you see customers behave currently? Do they try to avoid any kind of Russian material as far as possible so far? Or what is their behavior?
Not really. Actually, up to now, I would say it's not sanctioned. Of course, we know many players who say they do not take Russian metal or Russian raw materials on the other side. We all know that we are depending not just on energy, also aluminum, for example. We all know this is stored energy. You produce, you use energy, and Russia produce ingots, and ship then more or less energy in the form of aluminum to the rest of the world. We have many other raw materials, titanium and others, where I think to a certain extent, really depend on Russia.
It will be definitely interesting, and I think this is also a reason why all the players and all the people out there have to be cautious in simply saying, "Oh, I don't take Russian energy, Russian gas, and so on, Russian metal and raw material." We need it from somewhere.
Yeah, absolutely right. Okay. Thank you very much. All the best.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Günther Eick from Eicktrade International. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Congratulations for the figures. My question is about the high speed trains in Japan, where I think you are involved there. If I see the price of the yen to the euro as well as to the dollar, it is extremely expensive for them to give you orders. How does it work? Thank you.
I fully agree with what you say. It is very difficult for us in Japan. We supply to some industries. It's automotive, it's sports, for example. We also right now have new products which should go. We are at the very early stage and selling, for example, for building industry facade material. If you say high speed strength, high speed trains, we also ship some smaller volumes there. You are totally right. Right now it is super difficult to get new contracts there on the one side because of the weak yen. This is for sure not easy. On the other side, we also are aware that the local production of our products is not too high in Japan. There is definitely also an opportunity there.
I just visited the country and I saw some opportunities. We'll see how this develops. This is something to be solved for sure.
Thank you.
There are no further questions at this time. I hand back to Christoph Gabriel for closing remarks.
Thank you very much for joining this call. As always, I am pleased to answer any further questions via mail or telephone. Thanks again for your participation and have a nice Thursday. Goodbye.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for joining and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.