Companhia Brasileira de Alumínio (CBAV3) Q2 FY2025 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hi there. Good morning, everyone. I'm Amabile Silva, the Investor Relations Manager at CBA. Welcome to the earnings call for the Results of our Second Quarter '25 with participation from Luce Alves, our company's CEO. As communicated to the market on the 29th of July, Camila Abel, CFO and Investor Relations Officer of the company, will be temporarily absent from her duties due to her maternity leave. We would like to let you know that this event is being recorded and that all participants will only be listeners during the presentation. Then we'll begin the Q&A session and participants will then be able to raise hand on the platform. To submit questions by audio or submit questions through the Q&A button. This event's presentation will be available on the Investor Relations website where we'll also provide the recording of the event after the closing. Before proceeding, we would like to clarify that some of the statements contained in this presentation may include statements that represent expectations about future events or results, and they depend materially on general economic, political, and commercial conditions in Brazil and in global markets, as well as existing and future government regulations, among other factors. Operational data may affect CBA's future performance and lead to results that materially differ from those listed in such forward-looking statements. Now I want to invite Luciano to start the presentation for the second quarter '25. Please, Luciano, you may proceed.

Hi. Good morning, everyone. Thank you so much for participating during another earnings call. So to start off, I want to bring in some highlights about this quarter. So in May, we acquired stake in a wind power self-production assets to supply about 115 megawatts on average as of '27 for a total amount of BRL 158 million with the term of 15 years, which reinforces our competitiveness in the self-production portfolio and expands the diversification of our CBA energy matrix. Also, in July, we announced the second issuance of our debentures, adding up to BRL 530 million with a cost of CDI plus 120% a year to reinforce our cash position and the anticipated prepayment of our debt throughout the years, maintaining ongoing improvement of our debt profile. It's also important to highlight that the issuance was linked to ESG indicators, so it counts on annual targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in aluminum production in line with the company's commitment also to sustainable practices. On the operational side, as we had mentioned to the market in the last earnings call, we had a maintenance shutdown for some tanks in the refinery of alumina, which also led to have some refurbishing in some of the kilns. This was a little more complex than what we imagined, and that's taking longer, as the shutdown had greater impacts in our results that we didn't expect initially. What happened were basically some materials were stuck on the tanks of the refinery. They had to be physically removed. So you have to open up the tanks and physically remove this encrusted material that's on the sides of the tanks. So with this, we had a reduction in our alumina production in the quarter that led to some one-off purchases in the market to reestablish our stock. Alumina production is already in a ramp-up phase, and we did this in the beginning of this quarter, the second quarter. Now we're already in a ramp-up phase. But the normalization of this process that we expect would happen throughout the second semester until the end of the year. So generally, some of the main impacts we had in our earnings were the following. First, we had a reduction in the production of liquid aluminum of 5,000 tonnes in the second quarter versus the second quarter of '24 due to the shutdown of some of the aluminum kilns as well. And that's one of the first impacts. Then the second impact, we had a purchase or acquisition of 31,500 tonnes of alumina in March this quarter. And we also had an additional -- we'll have an additional purchase of 30,000 tonnes for the second quarter -- for the third quarter of this year. So we performed a purchase in March. We'll have another purchase now in the third quarter. This shutdown also led to greater consumption of sodium and gas in the refinery. With this, we impacted some of the specific KPI consumptions and also greater consumption of alumina in the potline rooms. And we had greater CapEx in the maintenance, which were more complex than what we imagined, especially for aluminum, and to guarantee the integrity and safety of all of these. Then we also had greater investments in the working capital, and that's mainly due to the establishing of the alumina stock and a greater need for soda and greater accumulation of ICMS due to additional purchases. So, of course, we naturally had an increase also in specific consumption. So, to summarize, these were the main impacts. We can get into more details about them in the Q&A session later on. But I wanted to reinforce to you that although the shutdown has generated these results and this impact, it was necessary to keep the integrity of our [ productive ] process and also to keep up with our commitment with the safety and operational quality of our assets. So this is all part of our DNA. Besides this, I want to emphasize also that the biggest amount of the financial impact has already taken place in this, and so, the production of the liquid aluminum, which is a relevant impact in this quarter, was already resumed. So ever since June, the potlines have been operating well and at normal levels, and we shouldn't have this impact anymore from now on ever since June, which is already reaching normality. Now on the next slide we're going to bring in some of our highlights in the quarter and the ESG front specifically. On the climate agenda, we published -- we also have the organizations that reach the highest levels of transparency. And then we also announced a new partnership with DELGO. And also in the sustainable supplies, we performed the first event to perform the recognition of international suppliers. And then in the certifications, we also highlight the completion of the recertification of ASI for performance and also in the custody and also in the Legado Verdes do Cerrado we had the achievement of the [ green seal ] and CBA also had the award of the [ Projeto Alto ], which is like a sensorial garden that benefited a huge amount of students in that region and also some of the merits and education for institutions that organize and contribute significantly to students and education in the municipality. On the next slides, I'm going to talk a little bit about the market scenario with the aluminum in the quarter. Well, in the second quarter, the global aluminum market had a deficit, the balance sheet of about 350,000 tonnes negative, and this result reflects the strength of the Chinese demand, especially when you consider this, as well as the growth at a more moderate level in China and out of China as well. So we've been talking about this for quite a while also with you guys. But despite all of this, CRU is still considering a modest surplus for the rest of the year. And that indicates a pretty balanced market between supply and demand. When you talk about demand, China has proven to be very resilient, and they've reached the highest level in the history for the 3-month period despite global macroeconomic uncertainties and the tariff wars that we've been seeing, we can really feel that there are positive perspectives at this moment from there. Then out of China, the scenario is a little different due to the stability -- despite the stability in the demand we can reach in the graph in the last quarters, the advancing of the tariffs and imports could maybe reduce the consumption of aluminum, especially in the American market, which would lead to a reduction in demand out of China. Moving on to the next slide, let me talk about the stocks. The stocks and consumption days went back to dropping. And now once again, they're getting to the lowest level in the historical series, below the balance, we consider it's about 50 days despite -- mainly due to this demand in China that I mentioned in the previous slide. And about the official stocks, those that are at the warehouses at LME and SHFE, they followed a downward trend and the volumes registered a drop of about 40% compared to the last quarter. They registered the lowest levels ever since the beginning in 2003. It's important to highlight also that today about 70% of our stocks officially for LME are from Russian origin. So on the next slide, we're going to talk about LME. In this first quarter, LME had then this period was ended with an average price of [ $2,480 ] a tonne. And then it went from $2,500 per tonne in mid-July. And then they reached levels of over $2,700 per tonne recently after the end of the second quarter in the month of July already. And then we had this volatility, but it's really been kind of stable in levels that are considered really healthy for the industry. And so this movement we've seen for LME really reflects the risk of new offering shocks due to geopolitical conflicts going on around the world, also a weakening of the American dollar, which is so important as well. And at this moment, this really became an investment in aluminum that's more attractive. And there's a big flow of investors also in the last week, let's say, of investors. And then about the premiums, naturally, we would also like to highlight the Midwest award. And with the effectiveness of 50% tariff for aluminum in the U.S., this premium went skyrocketed and the average in the last quarter was $1,269 per tonne in the month of June. But today, it's already at a level of $1,500 per tonne. So there's a really big volatility in this premium. Then the Rotterdam premium also took a step down because of fear towards redirecting volumes that used to be sent to the U.S. and now they're going to start heading to Europe, and that's why you have this impact in premiums that could lead to an additional offering or supply of this in the region. Now I'm going to talk about the Brazilian market a bit more. Heading inwards in the second quarter of '25, we started noticing a slight moderation in Brazil's economic activity. This movement reflects more challenging scenario with uncertainties politically and geopolitical uncertainties, especially with the U.S. Besides inflation that's so high still with interest rates that are still high. But despite this, sectors that most consume aluminum demonstrate very positive performance. As we can see, in the auto sector, the production of light vehicles went up 10% compared to the first quarter and 8% compared to the same period of last year. Exports also surprised us with a 60% increase in the year, especially for Argentina. It's one of the countries that more than doubled its consumption and now represents about 60% of Brazilian exports. And then in the bus body segment, we had a growth of about 7% in the first half of the year. An important emphasis is on the highway models, which grew 27% compared to the previous quarter, and it was the best results ever since '21 for this kind of segment. And this movement also reflects the increasing demand for tourism and chartering and that should continue to receive incentives for fleet renewal and electrification, especially in Sao Paulo. In civil construction, cement sales grew about 44% in the quarterly comparison. The sector remains resilient. It's supported by last year's real estate launches and investments in infrastructure and the Minha Casa, Minha Vida program, in addition to a still heated labor market. Now the continuous energy sector heating, let's say, or warm up, the auctions that were held last year and those that are scheduled for this year continue to drive this demand for aluminum cables. And finally, it's important to highlight the impacts of the tariffs imposed by the United States in Brazil and for CBA. In practical terms, this deployment now in July, specifically for aluminum, what's valid is a 50% tariff imposed by the United States on aluminum imports in Section 232. It's not in addition to the additional tariff that's set to be valid in the beginning of this month. So it's the same 50%, but through another tariff basically. However, this 50% tariff on aluminum is already in force ever since June, actually, could favor imports from Argentina to Brazil or other countries to Brazil, especially for ingots and billets. So as we mentioned, the impact for CBA is pretty limited because we only had 3% of our sales directed to the American market, and that was quickly redirected to other markets in Europe and other markets. We are selling more to Brazil now. We actually were able to minimize this impact by adding products to other markets. However, there is still a risk that's not so material, but we've monitored this of possible competition in our market in Brazil due to these players that are searching for markets that [ differ ] from the American market. So this risk is natural, and it's valid not only for Brazil, but for other markets around the world as well. So we understand that the aluminum players are searching for new markets to access their products, especially those that haven't been able to access the Brazilian market. Now I want to pass the floor on to Amabile and she's going to talk about the financial performance of CBA during this quarter. And I'll get back to the final messages in the Q&A.

Hi. Thanks, Luciana. Well, I'm going to start talking about the sales volume in this quarter. We sold 120,000 tonnes. It's a stable volume compared to the first quarter of the year. And when we look at primary aluminum, we sold 61,000 tonnes. This represents a 15% drop from the second quarter of '24, mainly due to lower demand for billets and ingot alloys. And it's worth remembering that in the same period last year, we had an atypical demand, way above normal. Now when we compare with the previous quarter this year, the volume was kept stable with consistent demand for the billets and VAP. In processed industrialized products, we had positive performance. Sales added up to 34,000 tonnes and a growth of 3% compared to the second quarter of last year and the first quarter of this year. This advance was mainly a reflection of the good performance in the sales of sheets and basically emphasis on the segments of consumer goods and packaging. In the recycling segment, we had 24,000 tonnes sold. This volume is stable compared to the same period of '24, but there's a drop of 8% compared to the first quarter this year. And this setback is related to the lower demand in the DIY and self-building sector, which is impacted mainly by the higher interest rates in Spain. And when it comes to the destination of these sales, we're still strongly present in the internal market and our domestic market, in line with our history. And it's important to highlight that in regards to the previous market, the exports volume was due to one-off negotiations for Latin America, Mexico, and Europe. And now I'm going to move on to our energy balance. So the contract volume in the second quarter of '25 was kept stable in regards to the first quarter with 165 megawatts on average referring to the 100-megawatt contract and hiring the 50 megawatts we performed through a contract last quarter, in addition to some occasional contract on energy for trading in the short term. The average cost of contracts increased 84% compared to last year, which is mainly due to the price variation in the exchange rate in the swap contract, keeping up stability in regards to the first quarter of this year. Now about our own power generation, it was 3% lower in the second quarter of '25 compared to the second quarter of '24, and practically stable if we compare with the previous quarter. In the same way, the average cost of self-generation was also practically stable compared to both periods compared. Now I'm going to move on to talk about the cost of liquid aluminum in the quarter. We had an increase of 16% compared to the same period last year and 5% compared to the first quarter. And this increase is mainly linked to the increase in the cost of alumina. As Luciano mentioned in the beginning of the presentation, we performed a shutdown for maintenance in the alumina refinery, and that's why we had a reduction in alumina production, which led us to anticipate the renewal of some liquid aluminum furnaces or kilns. When we resumed our operation, we went through a ramp-up phase, which naturally had lower productivity, lower production volume, until the process would be stabilized. And besides this, we had the restarting of the furnaces, which led to greater consumption of inputs, and that contributed to the increase in the use of alumina in the furnace rooms or the kilns and potlines. And as a measure of safety, to guarantee the supply of our production, we chose to acquire part of aluminum in the market, which obviously has a higher cost than the internal aluminum. And there was also an increase in the price of the caustic soda, reflecting the global restrictions in the supply of this input, impacting the cost of internal alumina. In regards to fixed costs, there was an increase of 11% compared to the first quarter of '25 due to lower dilution of costs. Since we had lower reduction in liquid aluminum and therefore, we had a lower reduction in costs and some occasional maintenance to perform some additional equipment to take advantage of the operational conditions of these shutdowns. And on the other hand, these increases were partially offset by the reduction in the cost of electricity due to lower need of using more expensive contracts due to lower aluminum production -- liquid aluminum production. As I mentioned, in this quarter, we produced 86,000 tonnes of liquid aluminum, which represents a decrease of 3% compared to the previous quarter and 5% versus the second quarter of '24. Here, it's really important to reinforce that all of the plants that were shut down for maintenance are already operating normally. And with this, the expectation for liquid aluminum will already be normalized most likely in the next quarter. Moving on to the next slide. We are going to talk about our consolidated results. So the net revenue was BRL 2 billion, a reduction of 3% compared to the second quarter of '24 and 14% compared to the first quarter of '25. About the aluminum business, despite the stable sales volume in the quarter-over-quarter comparison, there was a drop in the LME and the exchange rate valuation. And then there was also a reduction of BRL 146 million in revenue from the other segment due to the lower sales volume, considering that there is no more volume [ alum ] to be sold as of this quarter. And also referring to the Alunorte take and there was a reduction of BRL 23 million due to the effect of exchange variation of the hedge accounting instrument. Now if we consider the CPV or the COGS and the reduction in revenue, as we mentioned the adjusted EBITDA was more pressured in this quarter and reached BRL 189 million with a margin of 9%. Moving on to the CapEx. On the next slide, I'm going to talk about how we had a greater concentration on maintenance related to shutdown of the alumina refinery. And this is -- it's also worth noting that the refinery shutdown is still expecting to see some effects on the coming quarters. So we should still see an increase in the concentration of maintenance CapEx. And moving on about the cash flow, we have a negative generation of BRL 210 million in this quarter, and that's mainly due to the higher investments in working capital with the increase in inventory with the purchase of alumina and a reduction of the balance of some suppliers also due to the payment of the purchase of alumina, reflecting the shutdown for maintenance of the refining. Moving on as we get into our debt level we had a reduction in our net debt versus the first quarter of '25 due to the impact in the real's appreciation compared to the dollar in the mark-to-market of derivative instruments in our gross debt. And we ended the quarter with a leverage of 2.29x, reflecting a reduction of BRL 149 million in accumulated EBITDA over the last 12 months. Now about our debt still, I want to get into a bit of our amortization schedule. We refinanced our export credit notes of BRL 500 million, and that reduced the concentration of maturities in the short term and lengthened the debt profile, reducing the cost from CDI plus 195% per year to CDI plus 120% a year. We also received a new release or approval from BNDES of BRL 33 million related to the contract signed in '22 to finance the modernization of our Pot Room 3. And in July, we also performed some improvements to improve our debt profile and all of the operations that are connected to our ESG emission reduction goals. And these new funding initiatives intend to reinforce our cash and also perform the early settlement or payment of debts throughout the year, with the second issue of debentures, that Luciano has already mentioned on the first slide, and part of the resources or proceeds were used for the early redemption of the first issuance going from CDI plus 155% per year to CDI plus 120% per year. We also had financing via export financing guaranteed by SACE, adding up to $100 million, and we also have a revolving credit facility also for $100 million, replacing the existing facility. Now to end the presentation, I'll call Luciano back to get through the final messages, and then we'll hop back into the Q&A with me.

Thank you, Amabile. Now to wrap up, I want to highlight some key points that we've covered throughout this conversation today. So about the aluminum market, we have demand in China demonstrating resilience and strength in this quarter, and it reached the highest level in history for the period, which reflected in the depths of the global primary aluminum market, and that contributes to supporting the aluminum price at the current levels. Now on the domestic market side, demand remains positive. There are some concerns that we've been taking care for specific sectors, but most of the sectors mentioned this demand for billets and laminates and these are products that still have a pretty strong demand. And with the recovery in the aluminum production and the restarting of our pot line, CBA is prepared to capture the prospect of more heated demand and aluminum prices at healthy levels. And an important point is that the cost of production and the CapEx can continue the next semester with high levels still due to the effects of the refinery shutdown during this quarter, but probably at a lower proportion compared to what happened in the second quarter of '25. And it's worth noting that the application of the tariffs for the imports of Brazilian products to the United States is not added to the 50% tariff aluminum imports, as I mentioned. But for us, we're just going to have the applicability of a 50% tariff that's been applicable ever since June under Section 232. And so, this tariff related to aluminum could reflect an increased supply of the metal in Brazil coming from other locations. And also on the other hand, to be very honest, up until now, what we felt is that impacts are limited. So the sales we had, we were able to redirect to other regions. And we've continued daily to search for ways to mitigate this. But so far, we're doing pretty well when it comes to sales. And finally, as a last point of attention, I think the tariffs may still generate volatility in regional premiums. We've already felt this comparing the American and European premiums, and they're very different levels, let's say. But that could also reflect on the premiums applied by CBA, not only in the exports market, but also in Brazil, due to what I just mentioned. So to summarize, I think that's it. Those are the main points we had to cover, but now we're open up also to Q&A to clarify any other questions you may have. Now Amabile, I'll hand back to you so we can begin our Q&A.

Thank you, Luciano. Now we're going to begin our Q&A session And I want to remind you all that participants are invited to participate through the Raise Hand button on the platform or they can also send their questions by chat. And we already have our list here of participants for the Q&A. Our first question comes from Edgard de Souza, Itau BBA.

Now I wanted to explore a bit more of this issue with the shutdown for maintenance. I think the conversation with you guys was always very transparent throughout -- over time, right? But I think now the stock performance demonstrates that maybe the impact of these shutdowns was greater than what the market was expecting. And what I would like to understand about with you guys, even for us, this wasn't very clear that we would have such an impact on results and costs coming from these shutdowns, right? So these shutdowns, were they already mapped out? Was it something you guys were already expecting in your internal budget? Was there something that went sideways or was worse than what you expected when it comes to duration or even greater consumption in alumina in the market? Maybe prices that were higher than you were expecting. I just wanted to get more details about this, right? Because was this a maintenance shutdown you already planned? Was it considered in your budget anyways? And then in line with this, of course, you had a significant increase in the liquid aluminum production that had already been guided and identified by you guys in the second quarter of this year. But what I want to understand is basically 2 points when it comes to costs. How do you guys see a potential slowdown in this production cost over the next quarters? Of course it reached an all-time high, but you have a currency impact. And how much do you guys think that with the stabilization of your entire factory, we could expect, right, when it comes to the reduction of the liquid aluminum costs? And when would this be? In the end of the year? Would it be more like for the end of the year? There's a ramp-up of the factory and so many other aspects. But then about costs, we had that little rule about how the liquid aluminum production costs would probably take 2 quarters to clean out the results, right? But, of course, we have some other factors such as the acquisition of this alumina that could be maybe have been consumed a bit before. So I wanted to understand how you're looking at the impact of this cost for liquid aluminum production that's higher into the results. So the transition of the COGS, right? This has probably moved around a few times, but more up ahead, how do you imagine we'll see this dynamic between liquid aluminum production costs and also the COGS from now until the end of the year?

Well, first, I want to start off with the first question you made. We have 2 scheduled shutdowns at alumina every year, normally between the first, second, and third quarters. And that's what we did. But what happened here actually was that we -- as I mentioned in the presentation, we saw a level of these crusting process. It's a liquid process, it's an ongoing process. But sometimes you may have the solution with some residues that are solid and stuck on the sides. And sometimes you can have a chemical cleaning, but sometimes you need physical cleaning. And that was our case. We required physical cleaning. So the point here is we found the level of crusts and substances that was a lot higher than what we imagined. And so the work we're having to perform this removal, it's physical, not chemical anymore. You have to get into the tank and remove these residues. That's taken a little longer than what we expected, right? So our expectation actually during the call of the last quarter was that we would take maybe 3 months to solve this, right? And so then we had greater challenges in the access and removal of these. And so, that's why we reviewed this until the end of the year, right? So we performed the cleaning physically, and we started this back then in March, but it should continue until the end of the year. If you look at alumina, it's operating normally, but with a reduction in capacity. So when you use this, you can operate with other tanks to continue to produce, but you do this gradually, right? And so I think what's new here, that was your point, Edgard, it took longer to remove this crust on the tanks than what we had originally imagined. And that's why we had to review the schedule that will be kept until the end of the year. When it comes to costs, the alumina costs, our expectations are that the peak will probably now in the second quarter and that it should be gradually reduced until the end of the year. So 100% stabilized and normalized level probably by the first quarter of '26. I think the fourth quarter this year, we'll still have a significant part of costs that are related to the removal of these crusts. But this is specifically for the alumina costs. When we look at the aluminum costs, then you have other components. So the anode paste I'd say is probably not much of a difference, just the cost of raw materials. There's nothing that relevant to mention. Then when it comes to electric energy, just another important observation to remind you. We should probably have an increase in power costs in the third and fourth quarters due to seasonality we always mention. We generate less in our hydroelectric power plants in the second quarter. And that's why we need -- sorry, in the second half, and that's why we're going to see this. But it's a natural phenomenon. The increase of costs that should come in the third quarter for power is really because of this. You're using more contracts to produce aluminum and you also have less contracts being sold and generating a bit of less losses in the power trading on the other line. So you're just switching the line, basically, right? But it's important to emphasize also that the pot lines are operating normally ever since June, so we should not have any impact when it comes to big KPIs or costs in the pot lines, right? This impact is mostly concentrated in aluminum, which is a smaller parcel of this. So when it comes to the timing for the results and alumina, this is very quick, right? And that's because due to the shutdown and the pace of the production as well, we were consuming this product very quickly. And so the aluminum we bought in the second quarter, we were able to rapidly consume and we already have a stock of this amount that's being consumed now. But we've been trying actually to perform a new purchase of alumina. And our expectation is that we would not need to perform more purchases. It's more like a safety purchase. And to keep the levels of stocks higher to go through this tank cleaning process. And we, of course, could have continued to operate, but we wanted to keep lower risks. And that's why we decided to buy, right? But, of course, you start this alumina now and it's going to be consumed in the first year, so the end of the year. And then we would start next year with a level of costs. We would see what was produced by CBA in the productive process. So I do believe I answered everything, but let me know.

So just an important follow-up. When you consider the decoupling of this in the CPV, the COGS, let's say, could probably have come due to the production of liquid aluminum that were higher that we noticed. And so this is probably going to -- when we consider the COGS for the third quarter, what would be the expectations? There's still an increase, right, in regards to this, right? Luciano Alves,

Yes, that is correct. And it's important to remember that this is also related to the increase in the power costs, right? That could be higher due to the fact that we use more of these contracts in our headquarters -- sorry, in our aluminum matrix, right? So we continue to see an increase in CPV. There's a reflex in the lag in the last quarters that we had seen an increase with. And there's also reflex of how part of the cash cost we saw in this quarter has already finished. So it was a lot more online than as normal or as it's used to. But we're still going to see an increase in the cash cost. So we will still see a reflex in the COGS really being an increase in the quarter-over-quarter, maybe some normalization after the first quarter of '26. Okay. So the fourth quarter would -- just to get back to this on the cash cost, this quarter was pretty high. The peak was mainly for alumina. And in the next quarter this should probably be adjusted a bit, but still at high levels. And so the third quarter would be this peak, right? But when you consider this lag of about 2 quarters, this will still go by in the first quarter of '26, right? So the cash cost of the fourth quarter. And so the peak that's the third quarter will be reflected to the third quarter and that will be an adjustment.

Well, our next question now is coming from Tathiane Candini from JP Morgan,

I think I have -- as you mentioned, we could imagine the cost will be the topic of this call, right? So I think it's super clear and no one imagined this. It wasn't in your pipeline and the magnitude of this impact. But if we consider this more up ahead, you've probably already considered the cost and that we should see these still pretty high. But what could be done so that in the next quarters, considering this moment that is a little more sensitive, let's say, for our results to be a little better, right? So what should we consider? Or should we expect the same levels being normalized in the next quarters? So we know there are some moving parts, seasonality, prices and other factors we don't control entirely, but when it comes to CBA and what you can control, what attitudes or movements are you working on internally to improve the profitability in the next quarters considering this current scenario?

Well, thanks, Tathiane. There are many different things. We're working on different initiatives and what happened, and even to answer your question, maybe I can give you some more details on the impacts of this quarter to show you what happens also from now on. So our expectation, especially towards what we imagined to have in this quarter was that we had this variation downwards due to the increase in costs of about BRL 150 million in the second quarter due to the effects that we just mentioned here and the BRL 50 million in CapEx, which, of course, when you add them all up, you'll have about BRL 200 million. So we tried to think about this in a more educational or user-friendly manner to consider this. And that would be broken down into 4 major parts, right? So the first part that's close to BRL 50 million is the shutdown of the kilns or the furnaces and the pot lines. But we're already operating normally with these. And so, this is something that happened. It was occasional, but it shouldn't keep happening from now on. So the BRL 50 million that happened now due to the shutdown, this was a more occasional effect. And so we also had the purchase of aluminum. When you purchase aluminum, you spend less than what you expected. And this happened in the second quarter. We'll have another purchase also that happened maybe at a level that's a little lower. So when you consider the aluminum we bought in March and what we bought in the third quarter, there is a drop in prices, and that should lead to an impact that's a little smaller. But we hope that won't happen anymore after this. And with BRL 50 million, another part -- of another BRL 50 million that was probably the worsening of the KPIs, and the fact that we had a shutdown and now we're resuming our production, the BRL 50 million that happened in the second quarter, we expect will also have a reduction in this over time, right? So it's gradual. There was an impact in the second quarter. It's going to have a smaller impact. Then from the third quarter of next year, we hope it will be getting back to normality. And so, these were the 3 blocks that were the BRL 50 million on average of results. Then you have the CapEx. And when it comes to the CapEx, we had the need to have additional investments of BRL 50 million. So that's another important block we're going to consider. And that increases our total CapEx for the year. So we had the BRL 50 million now. But for the year, we consider to have about BRL 50 million more. And then for the issuer, we have -- we also see that since we stopped part of the pot lines here, as I mentioned, we accelerated some of the refurbishment that was expected for 2026. And of course, we included other investments and other phases. But we should expect probably imagine about BRL 900 million. That's our expectation, partially related to the alumina, but also the acceleration of refurbishing that was expected for next year that we decided to bring in this year. And that's also why we're improving our performance because we were able to anticipate some of the work that will be done. So these are the effects that took place generally and some of them were really occasional. But besides this, we would get back to some normality. And so from the pot lines forward, everything is operating pretty normally with costs that will evolve according to the evolution of the prices and the inputs in the market. Then you have some commercial issues, as I mentioned, which is not a concern, but how all of the things that are going on in the world they're going to impact us. And we already have this perspective that we have a sales behavior that's very similar to what we've had in the last quarter. So we continue to sell billets and [ silicon ] really well. And if this continues in the next quarters, that's our expectation, we'll have profitability that's good with our process and costs. Even with these sales, we can offer good margins. And besides this, we have other initiatives that we have for operational KPIs to mitigate part of the impacts we see in the year. So overall, we had these impacts. Some of them are very occasional, but now we're working on reducing this to improve our operation from now to the end of the year.

Now the next one comes from Rafael Barcellos at Bradesco BBI.

That's clear about the explanation. And I understood that in the first quarter next year, we should see when it comes to operational matters and costs that the company would get back to normalized level. But then when it comes to the cash generation, I wanted to understand this effect more for the second quarter. And I wanted to understand how much we should expect for working capital impacts. And you also talked about the maintenance CapEx as well. So how do you imagine cash generation and everything keeping up a little more constant? And then on this point still, how do you, Luciano, think about the alternatives you have more in the short term to offset this effect? You talked about the CapEx, but is there any way you could maybe provide some relief on this? And how are you imagining the cash generation evolving during this period?

Well, there's an important component, which is the working capital. And so we have an increase in working capital and also a reduction in the second semester and the sales are a little stronger. So we build this in the first half and then we can release this in the second half. This year it's not going to be different. But when it comes to cash generation, our expectation and then we're going to work towards this is that we have this benefit due to our working capital reduction in the second half, especially in the stock account where it's something we've been working on a lot. And in regards to other -- well, before talking about this, we want to talk about CapEx a bit. At this moment, I would say that we don't consider CapEx reduction. If you take a look at this, you'll see that we have a parcel of CapEx for this year that is very important in regards to sustaining CapEx, which is something we're not going to stop doing and it's important to mention. And then we're talking about some months where we could maybe -- and that would really depend on the composition of our cash generation in the second half. And, of course, it's a scenario that we're looking at in the market. But if we look at this today, of course, excluding what happened due to the issue in alumina, then we'll have adequate profitability. The LME is not bad, premium is not bad. And then we expect to get back to this normality quickly. And we would follow this routine normally, while sustaining, we won't change. But eventually, the expansion and modernization would maybe not change the need to do this and the desire to do this. So we would just do this in a different time frame, and then we would expect this. Maybe that's our perspective at this moment, let's say.

So perfect. Luciano. Just the last follow-up on the alumina acquisition. I understand there was a purchase, but is there a need to have additional purchases throughout the second semester due to the ramp-up? Just want to understand, because I understand there's a second semester with a release of working capital. But just to understand the aluminum point, if there's any other effect?

Yes, we have another purchase now in the third quarter that's going to take place. But I think it's that purchase that won't impact the working capital because I'll buy and use in the second half. That's our perspective at least. So I would say we'll finish the year with levels of stock pretty normalized to start next year within the production. And so even with the purchase, maybe occasionally in this third quarter, you have some effect with the working capital due to this purchase. But for the year, no, we'll consume this within this year and probably won't be that relevant as it was in the second quarter exactly. And so, if I could just add on, when we look at this historically, the working capital normally has a seasonal effect of stronger consumption in the first quarter, slower in the second quarter, and a strong release in the second half. But the dynamic is still similar. The point is that now in the second quarter, we had consumption that was greater than what it normally is with this occasional one-off effect with the shutdown. But there could still be an effect in the third quarter, but not at the point of maybe becoming a big investment as it was in this quarter. And then we expect some strong releases in the fourth quarter, in line with what we imagine historically and have seen historically.

Now our next question comes from Lucas Laghi at XP.

Luciano and Amabile, I don't want to be repetitive here with the CapEx topic, but just some other add-ons I want to understand better about. I think it's clear, '25 when it comes to everything we can do and focus on sustaining, et cetera But at the end, it's what Luciano mentioned. If you look at the performance of LMEs and profitability in the products in this first half, that would already consider second half that would theoretically help with the leverage in the company. And when we look at the second quarter with this impact of the free cash flow, that kind of postpones it, right, this deleveraging process. But within this context where you have a postponing of this thesis and the reduction of the leverage, do you have any change in the assessment for capital allocation from now on? So with different projects of modernization and so in this context, which is the deleveraging that's postponed, do you think you'll reconsider this? If you think about 2026, would you imagine maybe CBA operating below what would be recommended or suggested by the depreciation to be able to somehow offset this postponing of the deleveraging we're seeing now in '25? And when you look at the financial side, a positive highlight with all of the initiatives you guys have been working on for the reduction of the cost of the debt and postponing of the duration of the debt, would there be some additional initiatives you'd be able to look at to try to help in the reduction of the net debt or some divestments or means or initiatives additionally that could contribute to the reduction of the leverage in this context that's a little more difficult from an operational level. I think these are the 2 points.

Well, thanks, Lucas. About the first question, I would say that space to review the schedules for investments always exist, but it's not related to what happened now, for example, or this perspective in the year. We'll even have a CBA Day this year at the end of the year where we bring in this long-term investment view. But eventually we could have some change. However, it's going to be a lot more considering a strategic decision from us or a market decision and what we want to do in the business and not that related to our leverage now or the situation in the short term. So the situation we're experiencing should not lead to big impacts when we consider our long-term strategy for the investments we want to work on. But eventually, yes, we could have some changes if we believe that there is something that we need to do that's more important than this capital projects with better returns or allocation of the capital that would be more interesting. xxx I'll give you an example. One of the investments we had here was considering an increase of sales to the U.S. That was one of our investments in the pipeline. Eventually, an investment like this will postpone because of the current moment, it wouldn't really make sense to have a payment or investment. So things like this that are related to the market, business strategy, and not necessarily the financial situation. Now what we expect is once we get back to normality, and then it's natural that we would do this throughout this year, we would have a cash generation that would allow us to get back to a healthier level of leverage. And what we can do to reduce the net debt would be that we have a perspective to reduce our gross debt. But we're going to perform this reduction whenever we think that it's the right moment. So for now, with what we've seen, there is an expectation to already maybe do this in the second semester, but that's still something we can think about. But if we're going to perform it or not, it's really going to depend on the moment we're in. And that's where we also hope to reduce our debt with a lower deleveraging, and we hope that this will also happen and then a reduction also in the gross debt with this cash generation additionally.

Our next question comes from Caio Greiner at UBS.

I think I have a broader question to explore this moment operationally in the company. And as we've been accompanying this ever since the IPO, we've already seen some operational problems impacting the company's results and especially when we consider like the petroleum coke in '22 and '23. So other factors also that we remember that impacted the results in the company with different factors and company decisions, the rain crisis in '21 and the hedges and other issues within the policies. But that also maybe removed the company's results a bit more at that moment. But I've been working on this and reflecting on this that the market's reaction at the moment is related to a slight loss in trust in the company when we consider the company's capacity to deliver operational results and have a stable operation, right? When we accompany this, we don't always know what the day-to-day will be like or what we can do possibly to avoid these problems and how these could be avoided. So the question here is, is there a reflection process today in the company about this operational moment and in regards to these problems that took place in the last few years? And is there something today or some initiatives made at the moment so this doesn't repeat, and so investors can get back to looking at CBA as it was back then in the IPO phase with a company that is extremely stable and organized and that we can really consider in our spreadsheet that the costs are really going to continue to drop downwards and volumes and production will continue to go up. I think today maybe if we go back to this point on the market's reaction, it's really about this that's being questioned. I'm sorry about the broader question here, but I just wanted to hear about this a little more.

Well, thanks for that. Well, this is a business and we've always talked about, it's a very unique business, just the way we've built it over time. This is not going to change. When you consider a long-term view, it's a very unique asset compared to other aluminum assets you could consider, right? So it's a complex production process. And since CBA is 100% integrated company, that adds even more complexity. Of course, you have aluminum refinery, you have a smelter, you have mining and recycling of all the predictive processes. And when you look at other competitors in the aluminum market, like a bauxite mine that only produces bauxite. And so these predictive processes are also very complex. When you have problems, normally it takes a little longer to solve, right? That's what happened with the pot lines and pot rooms in '23, and that's what's happening now with aluminum in '25. So on our behalf, we've been working on this a lot ever since we started with the pot rooms in '23, stabilization of this process, and we haven't been doing this in-house. We have a specialist and people that are working on this with us to guarantee that this doesn't happen anymore from now on. So if you look at the pot lines, they're doing really well. We had a production level that is really good. And ever since the problem we had back then, this quarter, we had to have the shutdown in the pot lines -- in the pot rooms. But that's because of the alumina issue, not the pot rooms. But now we've gone back ever since June and indicators are doing really well. So it's an operation or a process that is pretty balanced and anyways operating pretty well, and that's what we hope will happen with aluminum from now on. So once we solve these issues, we'll keep up with a life, let's say, without any further concerns. And the way we found how to do this and make it work better is to consider the internal knowledge we have in-house and the market from specialists or companies that are going to support us. We did this with the pot rooms when we had this problem. We did this now with alumina. And what we hope is that this is really balanced out. And taking advantage of this moment, actually, before we even had this problem with alumina, we were already assessing this with other specialists, and also from a view of how we could add capacity and optimize metal flows. And we've been doing this in other processes as well. So it's not our expectation now, of course. And we have a team that's really engaged. So we have not only -- we should not only talk about the pot line, the pot rooms back then, but also with the alumina issue and with some changes in people, we also hope we'll be able to equalize this a little better. And then from then on, it's going to be a market issue. So if we have a market that's going to offer profitability due to the price of the commodities or the prices of the premiums that are being offered, but we're really confident and optimistic about what's coming ahead. And we believe that the LME is going to continue at the levels that are healthy as it is now. The currency, despite volatility, is still at a level that's also healthy, and that's good for us. And so what we need to do is guarantee that our costs are below from now on, so we can offer the adequate profitability to this business.

Thank you, and thank you, everyone. Due to our time, we're going to end, but the IR team is always available. And Luciano, feel free to hop in if you need. Luciano Alves,

Thank you, everyone for your participation. And well, thanks, everyone. And once again, thank you so much for the questions, and we always have great debate and it's one of our most important moments in the meeting. And we'll be available on our next earnings call. Thanks, guys. Have a great day.