Gerdau S.A. (GGBR4) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

We do apologize for the delay. There has been a lot of traffic, but we will start momentarily. Good afternoon. Thank you so much for joining us in this Investor Relations event. This is our annual public meeting and it's a pleasure to be with all of you today. This is a hybrid event. This event is being also broadcast via Zoom and there are also some other participants in person here with us. Here is the agenda of today's event. So you will have a better idea of what comes next. We will have 2 break sessions, followed by Q&A. And there will be some surprises so that you will continue to be with us and at the end Gustavo will just say the closing remarks. I will start with a video that is very much related to our reality. Something that Gerdau has been signaling the society that it wants to be a lot closer to the company, especially in our less Rock in Rio event. Just a very short video that will help illustrate Gerdau's positioning as the largest recycler of iron scrap in the country. The stage of Rock in Rio was 100% recycled. Therefore, from the very beginning, Gerdau has always been mindful about society. And there will be a session that will talk about the E of ESG. So you will have a better idea of how Gerdau positions itself in society. So please let's play the video, that brings an overall view of the company. [Presentation]

So starting in the first block, we will start by telling you a little bit about our business operations in all of the different locations where the company operates, and then we will jump to our Q&A session. In the second block, we will talk about the environmental side of the company and next. So as we also have other audiences with us via Zoom, please refer your questions to each of the sessions of this event. So now I would like to call Gustavo next, CEO of the company, to lead the event.

Thank you, Renata, and good afternoon, everyone. It's a great pleasure to see you after such a long time when we couldn't interact with you in person. Many of you, I'm sure I've seen in more recent events throughout the year, I see some friends and familiar faces here. So I'm so pleased to see you all again in person. I would like to start by saying that everything that we've been doing in the past few years will certainly be in that there are some management beliefs that we follow. We are very close to celebrating our 122nd anniversary. This will be in January, we will celebrate our 122 years of history. I know that it's been in the market for a long time. And you then know that how difficult it is for a company to live that long facing so many adversities and so many prices. Now when we think about it more closely, the answer of our longevity is always the same. The capital markets all of you who are here with us and also when we start to analyze the health and soundness of companies, we can consider this in different ways. But in my viewpoint, 1 of the things that constantly, we have to focus is on is company's ability to attract and retain extraordinary people and talents. Despite being someone that has been diving into transformation, we can never boil down to robots. So Gerdau's ability over time to attract and retain great talent, this is something that we really have to look more carefully. In terms of comparison, comparing companies, and maybe we can imagine and think about the team's capacity to work on increasingly more complex problems. So a decision I made that it's not only having Japur and myself, talking about the company. I took the liberty to invite many of our people in the team. So you get to know them better. Over the years, we've put together talents and people who have been in the organization for a while now, and they will continue to be here. Most of the people who are here joined at a very tender age in trainee programs and now leading important business. And over the recent years, we've managed to bring brilliant people, Reuben will soon be my come after me to talk about specialty steels, we joined us recently. Julian is going to go deeper into Gerdau next. So Gerdau over time has this capacity to develop people and have a team, and this is brilliant. So we've been decentralizing our management over time. People have more autonomy. It's not by chance. Along the journey, we managed to have BRL 1 billion of SG&A per year. So the company has reached such of this level and benefiting from very consistent results in recent years. We were very careful not to have BRL 0.01 of additional expense. So we get into a cycle that perhaps is slightly more complex. So many challenges in the world right now, but the company is very sound, very strict and ready to deliver results despite more complex environment. So here, I have some introductory slides, especially for those of you that are not so familiar with our performance. And then I'll turn the floor to my colleagues. This is Gerdau's footprint, as you know, since 2015, we started off a divestment program, which was a bit pragmatic because we divested from business and geographies that you did not have such a relevant participation. Today, we are more focused in 9 countries. So we divested from countries like Chile, India, Guatemala because these are geographies that, in our view, could not bring profitability or profitability at the level we expected. Therefore, our footprint is more concentrated in the Americas. And it will be like this in the near future. We do not have any intention of investing outside the Americas. There is only 1 point in Europe, and this is our graphene research center because we believe that in the long run, graphene will be able to coexist with steel, also generating more technological value to our customers and also catering to their demands. And 1 of these demands is -- the demand for steel for energy generation. And this is important for decarbonization purposes. We also simplified our belief. The company is very much focused on its purpose. We define our purpose a few years back when people are the seller of our purpose. And we are careful about bringing the right people to the company, people who have similar views that share similar views. And this has been a decisive element in terms of delivering the performance we want. Our management is based on our purpose and the principles that are listed on the screen because they are part of our decisions every day. In terms of management and belief, these are the main pillars of our management. And without even getting into ESG per say because everybody talks a lot about the environmental challenges. But I think that the short-term challenge and the risk that companies run are very much related to the letter S of ESG. Therefore, you have to be very attentive to the S, topics like labor safety. Every company has to pay careful attention to safety, just to ensure that all of the people who work with you every day, not only our own employees, but also our partners, we have to make sure that they will go to work safe and they will go back to their homes also very safely so that they can enjoy quality time with their families. So safety has been 1 of our core values. Brazil remains a country where so many lives are lost, lost every day in the work environment. For the past 20 years, we've been monitoring our safety system. And to that end, we are using a lot of technology, and this technology can help us ensure the safety of our employees. This is a KPI that is constantly monitored the frequency rates that measures the number of accidents that happen in any industrial company. And more specifically, in our case, it is measured according to the number of hours worked in the past few years, as you can tell, this KPI has been very flat, which means that our accident number per hours work is very low. This is a very relevant topic for us in terms of the S of ESG. We have to make sure that we take care of the integrity of our people. More recently, 2 of our operations were certified as a B company, Gerdau Summit in Brazil and Gerdau [Steel mills] in Peru because this -- this means that we are audited by an independent agency. This shows a little bit about our governance. I think you're very familiar with it, but this just reinstates our commitment towards governance. Our current governance is 5 years old, just completed now, just celebrated now. I'm Gerdau from the controlling family of the company. He is now only operating as a Board member, but this governance has been maturing throughout the past 5 years. The family members are more active in the board and in the different communities that give support to the management board, we have the remuneration succession committee, corporate governance, finance committee and the committee on sustainability as well. Therefore, the activities of the controlling members of the family is mostly through the committees. And therefore, this gives us full independency to work every single day to generate value to our stakeholders as a whole. So all of the information, if you need any additional information, just go to our website and you get additional information on corporate governance. But this was just a summary to allow you to get more information about Gerdau and how our governance is structured. Well, this is just a bit of our journey throughout the last few years. We did a lot of work starting in 2014, 2015, not only in regards to the transformation of our business, but also in terms of what we understand to be more dear to us, which is our culture. In the academy in the past 10 to 15 years, a lot has been said about companies that would be successful, they should place culture in the core of their strategy. So when you look at the tax books and academia, they were able to demonstrate the companies that were able to humanize your management companies that throughout time can place culture to serve their employees and to generate value. They strive. So in the past few years, through our results, we are able to compensate our people. This is a very clear result. We can only manage to achieve such good performance last year this year because we were able to take advantage of all the opportunities offered by the market. So it's our people and our culture, which is decentralized, but with a lot of independents that can make agile decisions. We are quick to serve the needs of our customers. So throughout all the years with all of the simplifications that we were able to achieve, we were able to post very sound numbers. This is my last slide. This is just a summary of what we've been doing. And my colleagues that will come after me will be able to give you more details about each of these items. This was my last slide. Now Rubin, I would like to call you to take the microphone. Rubins is in charge of our specialty steels in Brazil, but he will also say a few words about the special steels operation in general. Rubins joined the company 2 years ago, and he's been spectacular. This is 1 of the many talents that we brought in the company is very knowledgeable now about special sales. He's been doing some exceptional work. And this is for you an opportunity to hear from him what we are doing in this regard, and he will talk a little bit about the U.S. market as well.

Well, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, as Gustavo always said, I will talk about our special sales operation. We operate in 2 geographies in Brazil and North America, which is just an overview of our operation in Brazil. Our products we produce, steel alloys and special steel bars of high-quality for application in different industries. What distinguishes special steels from common steels relates to the technical specifications. The specification goes ranges from mechanical properties, chemical properties, how that steel will perform in certain applications when compared to common steel applications. So this explains in a nutshell, our special steel businesses in Brazil, we have 3 mills, 2 in the Silat São Paulo, 1 in Mogi das Cruzes and then 1 in [indiscernible] close to Portola. The main products are special steel bars and also are rod and wires and our special bars. There could be no rolling mill bars or bars that go through thermal treatment or surface treatment in the steel. And we serve -- 80% of the market we serve is the automotive market and the remaining 20% is earmarked to the energy market and machinery and equipment or the industry. In Brazil, half of what we do in Brazil is earmarked to light vehicles, automobiles and the other have 2 heavy vehicles, trucks, et cetera. This is very peculiar to the Brazilian market, given our product portfolio. Now about our North America operations, the special steel that we produce in North America is produced in 2 mills, 1 in Monroe in Michigan and the other 1 in Fort Hill in Arkansas. In addition to that, we have 2 other facilities that do all the downstream, thermal treatment, finishing, in the bars, but without producing the steel from scrap as we do in the other mills. The products, and we are talking about special steel bars and also parts in the U.S. We also migrated so that we can supply an almost ready piece like the REX for hydraulic steering wheel. So instead of delivering the steel, we deliver the semifinished parts to the automotive industry. And in the U.S., 80% of what we supply to the automakers is 80% and 20% for other industries, namely oil and gas exploration. Unlike Brazil, the U.S. automotive market, almost everything we do is geared towards light vehicles. That's 1 of the differences because in Brazil, it's half in half. But in the U.S., almost everything goes to light vehicles, the light vehicle market. Now speaking about the performance of our Special Steel BD, we have here the 9 months, the previous 9 months, pre-pandemic numbers, we would ship 1.6 million tonnes in 2018, 1.2. And in 2020, with the pandemic, that number dropped significantly. But in '21, '22, it recovered, but not yet reaching the pre-pandemic levels that we had in 2018. And in the next slide, I will elaborate more on that. On the other hand, in terms of profitability, pre-pandemic levels was BRL 1.3 billion and in 2020, BRL 393 million and in the last few years, BRL 1.4 billion and BRL 2.3 billion of EBITDA, which was generated in the first 9 months of the year. And the EBITDA margin was 21.7%, which is the final number for 2022 in our special skills, BD. Now why did I say that we haven't fully recovered to get in numbers pre-pandemic. In the U.S., they have 17 million vehicles. There was a reduction caused by the pandemic, that number to 13. And in the rebound, there was the semiconductor prices, the semiconductors that go into light vehicles because they have more and more electronics and they are very demanding of semiconductors. And the chart down below, we show how many vehicles were not produced due to lack of semiconductors and here in the case of the U.S. This number shows that in 2021, there was more than 1 million vehicles that were not produced. And in 2022, things are improving but we are not fully serving the current demand because of life of semiconductors. The industry expects that by 2023, the semiconductor prices will get better and things will then recover and will allow that industry to operate at full force. On the other side of the slide, we have the higher rigs that use a lot of special steels, there has been a reduction of that consumption during the pandemic years. It's trying to recover again, but it hasn't reached levels pre-pandemic. But this explains a little bit about our volumes. The volumes are gradually increasing, but haven't reached yet pre-pandemic levels. Now speaking about Brazil. So we have 2 realities, light and heavy vehicles, we see a reduction in the number of automotive vehicles in Brazil, it was 2.7 million, 2.8 million in '18 and '19. This number now is down to 2 million vehicles. And this year, in the past 9 months is 1.6 million. ANFAVEA believes that -- at the end of the year, the numbers will be very similar to the numbers of last year. In Brazil, we also suffered with lack of semiconductors. So it's estimated that this year, I think we lost about 250,000 vehicles. Almost 2 months of production was lost due to lack of semiconductors in 2022. Again, there is -- we anticipate that by next year, things will get better, and we will not have to struggle as much with lack of vehicles. Well, but the scenario may be more uncertain because of funding. So the forecast for next year is that if on the side of supply, things may be a [cracked] shield. Post pandemic, the sale of trucks and buses, which levels higher than pre-pandemic levels. In Brazil, mean Brazil is a country that needs to transport iron ore ingrained. Therefore, the country needs a big lead of trucks, and there is still the possibility of renewing this need. Therefore, the outlook is optimistic. Therefore, we were able to reach pre-pandemic levels. Now 2022 and 2023, we anticipate a technology shift in terms of the trucks because they have to reduce emissions. So we go from Euro 5 to Euro 6. So In the beginning of next year, sales will decline a little bit because these new trucks will be more expensive than the trucks that are being sold this year. So they want to sell all of the trucks with the old technology this year. So this is the outlook heavy vehicles next year. Now this slide shows our investments in a few -- in the past few years. These are investments from 2012 until today in North America, especially investments in our Monroe Mill, our main mill, we invested almost BRL 2 billion to modernize that mill. And for special steels, this is certainly 1 of the best mills when it comes to supply special steels in the U.S. And for Brazil, we started up 2 investments. One is continuous cap in Pindamonhangaba, BRL 700 million of investment, and this allows us to have a cleaner steel with a higher degree of purity. So when we put together a part we cleaner steel, that part will have a longer life span and you can produce lighter pieces with the same performance, given the purity of the steel. And then we also invested BRL 90 million with a thermal furnace in Charqueadas in another mill. And these furnaces offer special physical and mechanical capabilities. And this is pretty much in line with our customers in the automotive segment. These 2 equipments, they are not available in any other place in Latin America. And now this is just an outlook for our business division in the U.S. and Brazil. The scarcity of semiconductors is something that should get to normal levels by the second half of 2023. And in terms of the U.S. there has a chips act, and this should normalize the production of semiconductors because they want to produce it locally. In the U.S., 70% of all vehicles produced in North America must have steel content from U.S. manufactured steel. And for Brazil and the U.S., the outlook that we have now is something that allows us to be in keeping with all of the steel demands for the production of electric vehicles because this is a trend we see coming in the automotive market. And with that, I conclude my presentation. And now I would like to call my colleague, Chia Wang from the U.S. He is with us on video.

I Work in Brazil, Canada, China and for the last 15 years in the U.S., I'm the CEO of Chile. Year 2022 was historical for North America, not only owing to record profit coming from a strong market but also owing to the consolidation of years of work setting up our business strategy. Our journey started back in 2018 when a new management took over the operation to leverage the company's performance and bring more performance to all stakeholders. We prioritize some markets, focusing on structural shapes and profiles. We also divested some lower profitability assets, exclusively dedicated to production and manufacturing of rebars. This brought us more clarity to develop operational and commercial strategy focused on segments of customers who bring higher margins, generating value to the whole chain where we are. At the same time, it's important to highlight that the North American operation has been going through a cultural and management transformation change in recent years, allowing us to have a better yield, operating excellence in our units and expand the product portfolio that we provide to our North American clients, particularly for construction, distribution and manufacturing. This commercial approach led us to investment and improvement in-house leading to more productivity, efficiency and diverse portfolio of our assets. Midlothian, Cartersville, Jackson, Petersburg and Ontario operations are involved. With that, we can provide better service to our local customers. At the same time, we lower our costs and improve the use of our assets. In this time frame, reinvestment in major assets were significantly higher than historical levels of investment and depreciation. We strengthened our commitment to reinvest in our main mills, strengthening our commercial strategy and improving our cost and productivity. Last year, we led 2 major products in projects in our road map. Firstly, investment in new pieces of equipment and our Petersburg mill to have a better footprint in the piling segment and corner you as well to improve the product-wise range means improving productivity in all the sizes that we currently manufacture. In 2023, our focus will be on revamping of Ontario's melt shop will be improving the production capacity, the use of the existing rolling mills and lower operating costs. In Jackson, Tennessee, investing in the growth of the current line of products with a unique approach to better cater to the regional market, being a one-stop shop to our customers. Next, we will be focusing on our main mill, Midlothian, Texas over the coming years, improvements will be made in our melt shop and in the rolling mills. The goal is to improve productivity and efficiency, and we also reduced our costs. This will further improve our competitiveness in our main asset in North America, allowing us to benefit from market opportunities resulting from the growth in initiatives in renewable energies and investment in infrastructure. With regards to our end user market, we are beginning to move away from this very strong market, construction and industrial markets. They are still at very high levels. However, the main indicators show a slowdown of the economic activity shrinking some markets. Please note that this move happens from a very high demand level and our order book remains very sound and healthy compared to historical levels. We are very bullish about 2023, we expect to see a strong demand in the markets where we are. Other drivers that will benefit the North American deal are the infrastructure bill, the inflation reduction act and reshoring. They will bring additional demand particularly in the construction market for the operation RBO, it brings higher demand for structural products like structural shapes and midsized profiles. Finally, we expect the stability brought by Section 232, we will maintain a balance between supply and demand and also dividend market, which characterize the segment where we are. We believe that the current portfolio of products for the North American BO focus on the line of structural profiles and shapes, we'll keep on bringing higher profitability to our business. The road map of the operation goes beyond organic growth. It includes investment upstream and downstream streamlining the cost structure to provide better value proposition to our clients. Our focus on the performance of the road map and cultural transformation in line with our commitment to better serve our clients, passion for customers, will provide a North American BO with higher results over the next business cycles. I thank you all for joining us today, and I'll be here to take questions at the end of the first block.

Thank you, Wang. Now invite Fernando Pessanha in charge of the Brazil and South America BO.

Thank you, Renata. Good afternoon, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here with you with all of you today. Let me briefly introduce myself, I'm Fernando Pessanha. I started at Gerdau as a trainee 23 years ago. I've been through several areas. I was the CEO of the joint venture in Mexico for 4 years. And since August, I have the pleasure to come back to Brazil. Speaking of our Brazilian deal, according to the title, we are talking about long and flat steel performance. I want to highlight this to you because I'm so happy and proud to speak about flat steel, considering our brand, maybe our strong brand, GG 50 rebar, we are seeing as a company that manufactures long steel rebars. And since mid last decade, we invested with a rolling new. Actually, 2 high-technology rolling mills in Ouro Branco. Over the last few years, we are developing amazingly, both technically and with our customers. And today, we managed to use 90% of the assets. Clients are really happy with high-quality products. Today, the flat steel operation accounts for over 30% of our total deliveries in Brazil. Speaking of performance, Gustavo and Wang also mentioned that our whole cultural transformation journey shows that we want to be more agile, a company more focused on customers, an operating excellence company that runs assets, bringing the best value from them, always bringing safety and quality. So here, we show the performance concerning the financial generation and EBITDA. Over the last years, our EBITDA was around BRL 3 billion. In 2021, we had amazing results in the range of BRL 12.9 million. And this year, in the first 9 months of 2022 nearly BRL 6 billion. This shows resilient results being the second best result of the last decade. When you look at deliveries, very resilient deliveries in the range from 5 million to 6 million tonnes in recent years. As for net sales, BRL 34 billion, BRL 35 billion in 2021, and in the first 9 months, we totaled BRL 26 billion. When we break down by tonne, we can see that 2022, by the way, we are even above 2021 in terms of tonnes. This shows that our major focus that we're already working on for 2023 is cost in our results. What about the market and the civil construction market, it accounts for approximately 40% of our deliveries. If we focus on construction GDP, 2021 posted a growth of 9.7%. 2022, above this high base, we managed to see growth of 6.4%. So posting very strong growth. Overall speaking, our portfolio is for very strong with rebar cut and band constructions are up and running, another very excellent driver. This is the number of work sites, last year, growing by 44%. And this year, we have another 18% growth. What about real estate in São Paulo, that's another important indicator, the largest real estate market in Brazil. The level of inventory remains low, showing that there is no oversupply in the market. And here, infrastructure in Brazil -- there is also a level close to historical levels for 2021 and 2022. And perhaps the only point which is not growing so much is retail, construction material stores. In this case, there was a reduction of 5.4% growth last year and a reduction of 8% in 2022. How do we envisage the outlook for 2023 in this sector? Well, let me say there are 3 possible upsides that we envisage. Firstly, infrastructure. We are going to have infrastructure packages, big emblematic works. And here, we have steel use, whether it's this type of demand, we managed to grab from this opportunity. Secondly, retail. We're going to broaden social programs, Bolsa Família, et cetera, by the administration. There will be an increase in income. High construction will come back. So that's a possible upside in addition to housing programs like Minas Casa Minha Vida. And let's see how much incentive there will be, but possibly a good upside as well. Another important segment, around 40% has to do with the industry manufacturing. We are very close in the flat steel, like I said before. So if we track the GDP for the industry, 2021 growing by 4.5%. 2022, growing 0.8%. However, if we check for instance, green line, machines and agricultural equipment like harvesters, silos, tractors, very strong growth in 2021. And maintenance of this demand level in 2022. Here, we can see the effect that Wang mentioned before, of reshoring, near shoring, many companies invested in Brazil, they didn't want to rely on imported machinery and equipment as part of their strategy, even paying more to mitigate the risk. Yellow line as well, we see a strong growth to 52% in 2021 and 3.9% in 2022. So also maintaining resilience. Another market, which is growing a lot in Brazil is energy, renewable energies like solar, wind power, they are growing, and we are also part of the chain benefiting from the demand. With regards to competitive advantage, our footprint at Gerdau Brazil is unique. We have some characteristics that are quite interesting. I believe they allow us to benefit from favorable market moments. It also helps us when things are not so favorable. When it comes to customers, I like this thing about a solution provider or a one-stop shop. I would tell you that we have a value proposition that is customized by segment. Let me give an example, civil construction. We can cater to any work needs regardless of the size and location in Brazil with a full-line cut and band, nails, mesh. This value proposition is unique at Gerdau. In addition, for instance, Gerdau Commercial, which is our distribution arm, more than 70 branches throughout the country. In each 1 of the regions, they understand the local demand, the products and how to be very agile. Digital platform is another one. Gerdau Plus for digital relations. And I'm not going to go deeper into competitiveness, [indiscernible] is going to tell you more about it later on. So I was in charge of metallics and recycling for a while. This area is really not passionate about it. So today, we can collect and process scrap throughout the country. And like we saw in the video, our steel is totally recyclable is a big case for circular economy. When you speak of 250,000 hectares of reforesting for bio-reducers and have green pig iron, we are import, energy and roads. Our own iron ore and about digital transformation, I believe all leaders have a digital mindset. And these are the guys who drive digital initiatives. We see digital as a catalyst, a leverage to the results of the company. For investment, Japur is going to dive deeper into it. But we have investments in all the advantages that I mentioned, including an IT update of our assets and we grow a lot in flat steel. Growing our hot coiled and we have stringent capital and also the performance of our CapEx, so we can deliver on time and on the budget. So just to close, 20%, 15% to 20% of the volume manufactured in Brazil is exported. One of the major clients are these big companies, Gerdau Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, these markets are performing very well. The level of result is very significant and positive. Level of demand, spread in Peru, we have mining investment, particularly in nonferrous with a vibrant demand for next year. And the same goes for Uruguay, particularly for pulp and paper. And we stick to this strategy. It's a strength at Gerdau. Gerdau show and Gustavo showed this in the slide. We have the volume of exports. And when there is domestic demand, we can turn things quickly and provide better profit locally. Thank you very much and I'll be back for the Q&A. And now I invite my colleague Japur.

Thank you, Pessanha. Good afternoon, everyone. I missed you all. It's so nice to have up in [indiscernible] so we don't have to wait until February to be back talking to you. I hope you're all doing fine both here in the auditorium and also those of you who are on the web. So just giving you more color, a presentation about our figures and financial performance. Things that we sold before actually. So big numbers and figures for those who got today are not so familiar with Gerdau. So this is the level of performance posted in the first 9 months of 2022, an amazing year, a great year in our context, truly outstanding in our history. We're closing the year for the last 9 months, the first 3 quarters of the year with more than BRL 64 billion as net sales. EBITDA margin is very significant, up-to-date EBITDA nearly BRL 18 billion, moving us to something similar this year compared to what we delivered last year, slightly lower maybe. Just to embrace match dividing by 3 multiplying by 4, significant free cash generation, not only did we deliver EBITDA, but also an important portion of what we generated as EBITDA is as cash generating free cash flow to the business. And later on, I'll show you how the company has for the current quarters invested and bringing return to shareholders based on this cash flow. Not only did we invest, but we also played a major role to lower the net debt over it in our balance sheet. Although we have extraordinary years, very strong years, 2021 and '22, the steel making industry is a cyclic company. So sometimes we have robust moments, and we have to grab the opportunity to lower exposure and the weight or the burden of the debt in our capital structure and also to make room for more challenging times. So we do our homework. Everything is okay and maybe we can tap into better opportunities and go through turmoil in a smoothly manner. This is something recurrent and has a lot to do with our history. Our company has, in its DNA, not only recycling, renewal and reconstruction but also being a perennial company. And this allows us to turn 122 years of age. So speaking and giving you an outlook or an overview of how things started in 2021 with a stronger flow of results in our operations. If you take into account the EBITDA generated, net of working capital invested and how we paid as increase in tax, we generated approximately BRL 25 billion as free cash and how did Gerdau invest this cash over the last 7 quarters. An important portion, like I said before, was used to strengthen our capital structure. So we reduced our net debt since January 2021, in BRL 7 billion. Today, in the third quarter, this is lower than BRL 5 billion, close to BRL 4.3 billion. This gave us very important support with our stakeholders and allows us to be 1 of the very few steelmaking companies that since 2007, maintained the investment-grade level with rating companies like Standard & Poor's, Moody's, et cetera. We are highly committed in terms of having our gross debt lower or close to BRL 12 billion. So with that, we invested a significant portion of the funds generated to lower our debt. In addition, we invested in a very diligent manner about BRL 6 billion in CapEx over the last 7 quarters and investing in M&A pretty much focused on well, Juliano Prado, who is here with us, he is from Gerdau Next, and he's going to talk about the initiatives at Gerdau Next in order to diversify our portfolio. But in addition, we also invested to revamp our industrial operations, bringing more long-term competitiveness to our mills and our core business. And last but not least, nearly half of the free cash flow generated in this time frame was targeted and sent to our shareholders, more than BRL 5 billion as dividend payout last year and more than BRL 6 billion over year 2022, they were already declared. If we also added to the share buyback program, which we started well, something new in our history, not only to bring back to shareholders via dividends, but also by share buyback. We understand that this has higher value than what we see at the stock market. So we allocate it to our shareholders for the 7 quarters more than BRL 12 billion. It's a lot of money. So this gives you an overview of our priorities for capital allocation and how the company has earmarked and paid the free cash that was generated. I'm not going to bio into details now. But this is just to give you some color. Since 2014, showing how actually Gerdau managed via cultural transformation that Gustavo mentioned, and thanks to all the changes that pursuing Wang and [indiscernible] show whatever we've been doing in each 1 of our BOs, we actually managed to improve gradually and consistently our level of performance through cash generation or earnings per share or EBITDA over time. And for us, this actually allow us to work on efficient capital allocation, not only reducing our debt but also making the necessary investment and providing return to our shareholders. Lastly, for the sake of time, this is just to highlight what we showed in our latest earnings conference call. This is about our priorities for capital allocation in the coming quarters. We have 3 major pillars, maintain our competitiveness and access to raw materials in the long term, assuring our uniqueness in cost to our business operations. Involving improvement in our iron ore processing capabilities in naira improving processing and capture in the scrap market in different BOs and also improving and growing our forest space in Brazil. [indiscernible] be joining us today is going to share more detail about the ESG agenda. The second block is to improve and increase our business, our core business coordinated trying to generate the highest volume possible unlocking value in the mills we already have. Wang, [indiscernible] and Rubins are going -- well, they showed you already actually each 1 of these projects in their presentations. And last but not least, we'll keep on working, trying to generate more value to our customers, delivering higher value-added products, a more robust, more challenging to be copied and replicated by our competitors and making sure we manage to be the top, the first name when somebody thinks about buying steel for the construction work, for the manufacturing company or by using varied value-added products, and they are eco-friendly. This is part of our DNA, and we were born as a company that recycles scrap. So basically, this is it. I'll be back with my colleagues during the Q&A, and I thank you all for being with us today. Renata, over to you.

While we bring more chairs, I think there is an echo, we have a sound. So anyway, we're bringing the chairs for the Q&A, and Wang will join us via phone in North America, and he's going to be here with us for the Q&A. Hi Wang, can you hear us? Great. So now we have 2 raffles to go just to break the eyes. So people who are here and people who are online, they will be running this raffle. So we're already in the World Cup environment atmosphere. So a surprise all of you who have registered your name will be here. So let's go on to raffle now. So as a reminder, for those of you joining via phone, you can also post your questions and then I will read your questions at live loud, and I will track your questions to whoever should answer them. So Renata, what is it that you're going to do Okay. Got it. Okay. So you're going to read the questions. Perfect. [Operator Instructions] I think the microphone is new. As we are having a technical problem with the line, I think Asia was the 1 that wanted to get the World Cup Jersey. He asked us a lot of times whether he could be a part of the drawing. And we start, I think it's working now. I do apologize. I was not familiar with this equipment.

I have 2 questions. I just wanted to be brief, but I think the first question is something you already talked about. I think you talked about potential upside in terms of steel volumes for Brazil in 2023. You talked about the Minas Gerais Mivida program and other income product programs. What would be a volume number for the industry or even Gerdau itself that you have in mind for 2023, you're thinking about an increase for 2023 or a decline in shipments so that we know the rationale behind it. This could be very helpful. My second question I think addressed to Japur. It's that same topic that we talk about so often. But it's always nice to hear an update on your capital allocation. The dividend payout announcement was really well received by the market because it's way above what you used to pay. But -- how can we think about that going forward? I mean, your policy is very clear in terms of gross debt, net debt, thinking about the BRL 12 billion and BRL 6 billion of cash. I mean that's clear. But there's still some uncertainty, the fact that probably we don't have a recent dividend policy whether the formulation is based on EBITDA or based on your net profit? Yes, I know that you have the 30% number. But I think all of that or the lack of a written policy brings about some uncertainties. And I know that the company is making some small investments but you recently announced an investment at Gerdau Next in terms of energy. And I mean, even though it's a small number, the formula may change a little bit. But when we look at the entire scenario, that brings about some uncertainties in terms of going forward what will happen looking ahead. So what is your view about the capital allocation or -- and even Gerdau's dividend payout and whether there is any possibility of having a formulation that can reduce the uncertainty that is around investors?

In regards to volumes or shipments, we are constantly working day and night, picking for larger volumes because this is part of the work we do in the commercial area. What I talked about when I refer to upside possibilities is that there's still a lot of uncertainties, how the program will evolve and what the program will be like. But the issue is whether we are prepared in case that demand comes our way, if we will be able to capture that opportunity. So the answer is yes, we are prepared to capture all of the opportunities if they come our way. So now I would just like to add what Pessanha said, what Pessanha said. Our demand level in Brazil is very high. Once we compare that to previous years in 2021, this is important it's important that you know that 2021 was a year of 13 months because there was a lot of inventory. When you look at apparent consumption and demand, it remains resilient. So in Brazil, for next year, we anticipate a slight increase in demand. But the major aspect that I also mentioned during our last quarter results, and Pessanha briefly mentioned that as well, has to do with our production capacity allocation towards exports. Almost all of our export production is to serve our sister plants in Latin America. But you're very familiar with the numbers historically, 22% of Brazil's production capacity is exported. During the pandemic years, 2020 and 2021, we turned around that capacity to serve the domestic market. In the second quarter, that was below 5%. So I think what you should monitor together with us for the first quarter of next year, is in regards to prices in the international market. The domestic market is very resilient in terms of demand and spread. And so these are decisions that we are about to make. We did not remove any production -- production capacity at this moment. But we do believe in the recovery of the international market throughout next year, so as to have a higher profitability of that portion that exports. So on average, when you look at all of the average margin, we believe we'll be able to have a higher margin. In terms of costs, we have to consider coal. If you look at our basket of costs and all of the raw materials, there is 1 thing that does not interfere with our management in Brazil because we have great capacity in terms of charcoal and scrap, but metallurgical coal has to do with the international market. In terms of the demand of the domestic market, we are very certain that this will not be variable next year. That may grow a little bit. But if we look back to everything that has been shown here today, we are very certain that demand in the domestic market is not something that will concern us next year. But the other question about capital allocation, I will turn it to you.

Well, going back to the topic of capital allocation, very few things makes us as happy as paying out strong dividends to our shareholders. It's important that we give back to them, be it through dividends or buyback. The formula or EBITDA or CapEx -- we ran a lot of things internally because we don't want to put together a formula by convenience that will only last for a few quarters, and then we will realize that, that formula does not work in different moments of the market or it only works in this scenario. So then when we test that internally with the numbers that we know, when we test different scenarios, at the end having a deleveraged company as what we want, the EBITDA multiple -- the multiples in the EBITDA talk to each other. So we hope that we can pay out more dividends once we generate more cash like it was in the third quarter of last year and the third quarter of this year. So we hope that -- if possible, we will add up to the dividend payout. If in another moment, we migrate our profitability model, moving towards areas of lower volatility, maybe we will be able to change our payout model. But looking at a volatile market like the steel milling market or commodities, which are areas where we operate and have volatilities not only pertinent to the industry, but also pertinent to the exchange rate, we believe that right now is adequate that we stick to our current dividend policy. I never miss an opportunity to reinstate what I've been saying for quite some time. We don't have any appetite for large M&As. We have no appetite in terms of building any greenfield plant. We will focus on generating or creating competitiveness. We want -- as Pessanha was saying, we want to create other alternatives in Brazil so that we can protect our business from all of the volatilities and variabilities in the market. The major change that we may see coming in the next few years in terms of capital allocation of our fixed assets is that our Ouro Branco plant will go through a cycle of refurbishing in the next 10 years. Unlike our other electric furnace plants where we ran yearly maintenance processes, the Ouro Branco mill will require the refurbishing of our blast furnace 1, the coke plant, so it will demand CapEx through a long period of time. And this will not disturb our free cash flow. So looking in the long run in terms of our decisions to allocate capital, this may be the major change. But what we've seen in past years, especially in the past 10 to 15 years, we already learned all the necessary lessons. As Japur was saying, we understand that this is a very cyclical business. Therefore, we have to be very disciplined in regards to cash generation and capital allocation. And we will be even more disciplined in years to come. So I think the most significant change will be in the Ouro Branco mill. We will continue to invest in that mill because we want to be even more competitive and we want to -- not to generate so much carbon. We want to reduce our emissions. Renata, can you bring the microphone here then later.

Well, I'm [ Ricardo Simoes ] from Goldman Sachs. My question relates to your North America BD. Well, it became even more relevant in these last results. Now on the demand side, we saw demand for warehouses coming down and nonresidential construction has gained momentum in the U.S., then there is the CHIPS Act, something new. I would just like to pick your brains a bit and talk about the expected demand for 2023. And on the same note, how do you see prices and metal spreads in the U.S.? We saw prices adjusting a bit, but if demand remains constant, metal spread remains high, but the average is much higher than the historical numbers. How do you see the pricing dynamics? And also the margins of metal spreads for the North America BD.

That's a very good question. Maybe Wang, you could answer that.

Yes, certainly, I can answer that question. That was a very good question. And when we look at the last 2 years and especially this year, when we posted fantastic results and even better than expected, both in terms of the market itself, and as I was telling you about our internal initiatives. Therefore, if we look at a possible recession scenario in the U.S., there is an expected slowdown. And -- but at the same time, we've then -- the potential beneficial effect of semiconductor reshoring, infrastructure bill and the recent CHIPS Act are factors are not materialized yet. And this could probably mitigate the effect of a general slowdown. And the crisis will come for everybody. We believe that if we look at the margins today per line of product, you will see that longs is being much more resilient when compared to flats. And more specifically, if you look at profiles and structures, they are even better. It's a very disciplined market with the players and supply and demand very much balanced. And I would say GLN today is a bit different. We are more resilient and more flexible to enter into different segments like solar energy, new projects. It's more balanced in the distribution, construction and manufacturing segment. And our investments in internal improvements means that now, our cost structure is much leaner. We will be able to increase the average utilization and even with this expected slowdown because it's difficult to maintain this peak for a long time. I think GLN will reach margin results above our historical levels, the levels of the past few years. Therefore, I must say that we are well prepared to face an expected slowdown and at the same time, we will be able to deliver strong results.

I would just like to add 1 more aspect. There is no major capacity being added in the North American BD in the segments where we operate. And this is important to bear in mind, if we look at the U.S. market, you are familiar with the amount of new lean fuel plants. And so it is easy to expect that there will be more competition. Another relevant aspect is that in the categories of products that we produce, the penetration of imported goods is limited. Well, we don't believe that there will be any policy to moderate imports. And this does not affect us as it did at a time in terms of rebars. No matter where you look, what we know is that our performance will be sustained at high levels. The decline in scrap that was experienced in the U.S. in the last few months, it still maintains an adequate spread. And Wang also mentioned reshoring. We are already seeing new orders from our customers that are bringing production capacity from Asia to North America. Chips, electronic components and tires. I think you were following macroeconomics in the U.S., and this is a reality that will support the steel. If I were to mention the difficulty we are facing at the moment, would be attracting talent to work for us. We've been dealing with this issue since April, May of 2020. It's still a concern for us. Well, we didn't have to stop any production capacity for lack of good people. But the labor market in the U.S. remains very intense. Therefore, it is still a challenge for us. We have 5,000 employees in North America today. And every month for the past 3 years, we still have almost 400 job vacancies still open. Sometimes people leave the company to engage in other activities. There are still fundamentals in the U.S. economy that remain very strong. If we look at the bulk of our customers, I mean we have strong customers. So there is another issue. I mean what remains another issue is the labor market in the U.S. So that leads us to believe that we will go through the coming years on a very positive note. Wang is working diligently in the past years because he's trying to achieve a performance level, like no other ever experienced by the company. In one of our conversations, I mentioned that 5 years ago, there was a difference of $20 per tonne between our cost and our competitors' cost. Therefore, in the past few years, not only we were able to capture that $20 per tonne. But I would say that many of our mills in the U.S. became a reference in terms of productivity, positive performance and customer service. All of our CapEx investments of the last few years were there to allow us to turn many of our mills into a one-stop shop. Today, our customers know that any category of product that they want can be acquired from any of our mills in North America. Wang works very hard. We've not created a bullet-proof organization, we're very close to that. And certainly, in the next few years, we'll be able to navigate comfortably despite the many challenges in the market. This is great management on his part.

And [indiscernible] from Itau BBA.

I think I will get the microphone to you if you don't get one.

I have 2 questions. My first question will be a follow-up question related to the North American market. With all of your divestments on rebars and I mean residential construction had a decline, can you give me a breakdown today in terms of the construction industry, what is your position in terms of residential and nonresidential share? In terms of reshoring, we've seen companies very optimistic, especially cement companies that we cover in Mexico and in the U.S. Last year, you were referring to an estimate of 5 million tonnes a year coming from the infrastructure bill. Do you have any estimate of what that additional demand would be together with that construction bill and reshoring? This will be my first question about the U.S. market. And my second question, I mean you talked about pricing and pricing will certainly depend on the global performance of prices. We saw a drop of prices with a macro expectation being worse, but with improved optimism coming from China, we probably see a slight increase in prices. How do you see rebar prices, especially at a global level? What is your view for 2023?

Wang, would you like to start answering that question?

Yes, certainly. Civil construction. I mentioned the most important segments like distribution, construction and manufacturing. I would say that construction would be around 20% to 25%. It is increasing. And even though we are no longer producing rebar or having mills that only produce rebars, we have the capacity to produce it. With the Charlotte and other mills could produce it. That's why I say that we are flexible because depending on the market, if we want to use full utilization of our assets, we will enter more or less into the construction industry by producing rebars. And that number could be 400 to 450 tonnes, which is 10% of our mix. This is probably the number that you are looking at, between 20% to 25% in the construction sector as a whole. We have -- we're still producing rebar maybe between 400,000 to 600,000 tonnes a year.

I would just like to add something because in the U.S., this is just a filler. Our rebar mills are very flexible because they can produce rebars and other products. So we shouldn't be seeing in the U.S. today as competing with rebar pricing because when and where we produce is very much focused on local markets where other competitors and other factors. So our rebar dynamics in the U.S. couldn't be seen as a normal competition dynamics when compared to other rebar peers. So right now, I think now looking at the capacity of up to 500,000 tonnes, we will produce when conditions are favorable and can give us good profitability when compared to the production of other products. Another important point and this is in tune with some of the changes we've been promoting. If we don't look at Gerdau's production capacity in the geographies where we operate, they are impacted by international prices. Our decision to divest in the last few years were made to fight that because it's important that we operate in markets where our competitive differential does not makes us hostage of international prices. Our exposure today -- I mean, as I said, we have a production capacity in Brazil that is still operational because I mean, this is focused towards exports, and they compete with international prices. But apart from that, all of the capabilities that have been introduced in the past few years allow us to have export premium, which are very competitive. The way we structure our business in Brazil -- imports of rebars in particular, it's very difficult to compete with the service level. If you look at any building in Sao Paulo, the quality of our services and the level of services rendered, the imported goods cannot compete with that. We built facilities around Sao Paulo and every night, we play like a Lego, we put it on an electric vehicle. It comes to Sao Paulo very silently and we remove every screen in the sequencing of where that slab will receive concrete. So the service level that is required in our business just to refer to construction alone allows us to have an extra premium that we didn't have in the past. I mean this changed a lot, and this is related to our strategy that allows us to be less -- to have less exposure to the international market. This is the reflection of something we did in the past few years that allows us to reach the service level that we have today. Well, rebar for us is a filler and a buffer, depending on market conditions. And the other question that was asked, what is the contribution coming from the infrastructure bill and other bills? I mean, this is difficult to measure at the moment, but we believe that this could in the market we operate, it could represent something around 5%. But this is just a macro figure. So I told you that I was going to take the microphone to you.

I'm Isabella Vasconcelos from Bradesco. I would like you to elaborate a bit more on your investments. First of all, I would like to ask you whether you have any CapEx estimate for next year or for the next 3-year cycle. And also, I would like to have a better understanding on the scrap position because you talked about expanding your scrap business. And even thinking about Brazil because you refer to some refurbishing in Ouro Branco. So the question is whether you consider decreasing the production by blast furnace or whether you want to focus on EAF. And about your Texas project, you talked about a possible expansion, something you mentioned in previous occasions. So what are the impediments or the prerequisites you need to execute these investments or you think that this could be approved in 2023. So these are my questions.

Thank you, Isabella. It's a pleasure to see you again. I think here, we have the greatest expert in scrap in Brazil Pessanha worked with that for several years. He knows that market very well. Some time ago, I invited him to go to Mexico and he did some excellent work there. And Faraco right now, is in a very relevant position. He is VP for Strategy. So Isabella, we are looking or monitoring very carefully all of our investments. And Cenira was also here today, can talk a little bit more about environmental issues and what led us to be a reference in this industry when it comes to low emissions of GHG gases in the steel industry. But further on, we will give you more details about our CapEx plan. In February, I think we will be able to give you more details about that investment cycle in Ouro Branco that I just mentioned. So we take very good care of our assets. This is a hallmark of Gerdau. The level of care we have with our equipment. We are very unique in that regard. Right now, we have a large team of experts and engineers that are looking carefully at all of our equipment in Ouro Branco, and they will tell us what will be the most appropriate time to interrupting activities of our blast furnace 1. And I don't know whether that will happen next year or in 2026 or '27. So maybe -- we don't know whether now will be a good time to acquire all of the equipment that will be necessary for that refurbishing. If we take the metal from that blast furnace, there are some refractory forms or models that takes a long time to be to be manufactured. We know that there will still be some bottlenecks in the market, in the next 3 years. So we are thinking about anticipating the purchase of some things that will be needed down the road. We have to conclude that exercise of checking the plant because this will be helpful to you in terms of looking at our working capital requirement going forward. But Cenira can talk more about that. But maybe we can use the fact that Pessanha is here because he is certainly one of the experts in this topic in Brazil.

Thank you, Isabella. When it comes to metallics, our investments, they are very broad. For instance, how do we relate to suppliers, investment-wise? And how do we move on along the chain. We might also consider social investment. Faraco is here with us. How can we support the base or the bottom of the recycling chain? We also invest in collection. So we need boxes, for instance, and trusses in order to provide density and volume to the scrap and transform it more economically. So to put it simple, scrap is nothing but still in obsolescence, like an old fridge, an old bicycle, a car that is already scrap iron. So there is a lot of impurities, and there is equipment to remove impurities when we can melt turn it to steel again, we can have better yield and better costs. So there are several pieces of equipment. I'm not going to get into technical details. But by and large, these are the steps. So we want to increase the number of places and yards for collection purposes. We want to grow in logistics, our own logistics for scrap transportation, and we also want to improve processing in order to reap the benefits in our industrial process.

Just adding maybe, it's not precisely your question, but anyway, why did you get into Rock in Rio, for instance? One of the main goals was to take away from an anonymous matter. So many Brazilians who live on scrap, scrap collectors, scavengers, sometimes they're not aware of this economy, anonymous people. If you look at the streets, they are pulling tracks and they are at the door of buildings, trying to find an old fridge, an old bicycle. This is the real economy in Brazil. So [ Lillian ] is a scavenger. And we wanted to show the importance, her importance to Brazil. 100% recycled steel, which come from her hands. We took her to get to know the world stage, it was a surprise that Ivete Sangalo, this famous Brazilian singer was there to hug and greet her. So we don't want these people to be anonymous because these are the people who really make the economy run. They drive the economy. And we have this unique thing along this year. The U.S. market heavily depends on this big scrap parties. And we have this unique capacity to collect scrap in places where nobody goes. This is competitive advantage and there is a lot of strategy, technology on how to look at this in Brazil. We go to every corner, where there is scrap to be collected. So Pessanha has gone to Brazil. Now he's back to Brazil. He considers how to use this capacity so we can continue to heavily invest in our capacity to be very competitive in scrap collection and processing. Pessanha is behind it all.

Well, we can stay here all night just talking about it. The questions via Zoom, but I think they're already answered, but [indiscernible] sent us this question. And he says, when it comes to the U.S., I can see some numbers showing signs of reduction in demand in the U.S., reduction of the capacity use, metal spread drop and prices drop. How do you envisage demand in Q4 and in 2030 and beyond? He also has a second question. What is the expected level of CapEx for the next 3 to 4 years, considering the renovation in Ouro Branco mill?

We already answered about CapEx. We will dive into details in February in our earnings conference call. And I think we also answered the first question. But if you have more questions, please feel free. Wang, anything to add?

Yes, this is the scenario, but everything was explained, and we expect to see performance way above historical levels. Well, this is our conviction.

Any further questions before we close the first block? Renata?

Werneck, considering you're down in the long run in terms of strategy, I hear you saying that there is not so much appetite for M&A. I heard you saying you don't have any plans for greenfield either. You have a very -- you are very tight on capital discipline. Gerdau next has been working on a number of methods in high innovation sectors. So everybody in the industrial sector talks about platform. You are a solution provider for end users in several segments that use steel. You have the client in your hand. We wonder if in a decade's time, Gerdau decides to pay just 50 tonnes and continues to manufacture 15 tonnes and 20 tonnes and source the rest with several manufacturers who don't have the same footprint nor the same capacity to solve customers' problems.

It's very asset light. Maybe there is demand in a region in Brazil and then you call another investor to build anew to you and you pay IPCA plus 8%, and then you buy the whole production, but I'm not going to invest. All I'm going to do is to be a distributor. Well, there are some dogmas for future management and we simply stick to them. One of them is always putting people at first, the integrity of human being. Gerdau's leading role to solve big problems in Brazil like housing problems, for instance, these are dogmas and it's part of our DNA and culture. We'll simply stick to it. But other than that, we are open for the future. If you look under Gerdau, the future is shaped because we are going to shape the future together. I particularly really like the concept of open platform, co-authorship, building things together. Whatever we can do to be the customer's choice, to be next to the customer, providing more and more services and solutions, delivering value throughout the chain, that's what we want. But how we do that, we are fully open to discuss. And history shows us that we are too stuck to paradigms and solutions. The customers will run over us. Some companies were successful in the past, but they do not guarantee their success in the future. So if you ask me, what keeps you awake at night. I'm really scared of not seeing what happens to the world and not being ready appropriately. So I'd like to ponder on these topics because if you're not in the front line, you'll be runover by it. So putting it simply, we are open to build any solution, any platform so we continue to be our customers' choice and deliver share value to the society. It's so nice to hear this. This is a piece of encouragement to me. Renata?

We have 1 last question. Do you have time to answer and then we close the first block? How about that? Rodrigo [ Belote ] wants to know. Considering the high demand and results in 2021, atypical and isolated in the EBITDA curve. I want to know if it was really atypical. Or should we expect to see continued results at the same level that was achieved in 2021?

It's atypical maybe in terms of macro circumstances. But it's not atypical considering what we did in the last 3 years to grab all opportunities. So it's a practical thing. Think about 2020, March 2020, March 13, 2020. I would say there was a total wake up in the Brazilian society about the pandemic effects on our daily lives. First thing companies did was to protect cash, shutdown. We did the same. However, today, our capacity and capillarity to read the signs of the market, I don't believe any other steel company in Brazil has the same. So within 3 weeks of the pandemic, we could anticipate many readings about the segments where we are, like civil construction, and they wouldn't be so impacted by the pandemic. So we reconnected our production capacity. We brought capacity back 120 days ahead of our competitors. So on that year, we managed to have extraordinary results during the pandemic. we created conditions, internal conditions. So our result level is well above what we have last year. I spoke of investment. I talked about our strategic decisions to focus on those geographies and assets that might bring unique competitiveness. I also mentioned our team. They'll more and more come to speak with you. So really measure company's health, considering the management's capacity to constantly renew the management. It's going on for 23 years. Japur has been about the same time with us and Nunes, 2 years. Our capacity to work as a team to cooperate and search for solutions, we are very different from what we were in the past. So we are a different company, and we don't assume we are going to have the same level we had in the past. Structurally speaking, Gerdau for the coming years is going to go to a better result than we had last year and grabbing market opportunities when they are available. Certainly, we're going to be very agile, but fully understanding, we have a cyclic business. Not always do we manage to mitigate all risks and volatilities. So we keep on being a cyclic business by nature but we also have a much better capacity to address the ups and downs and grab future opportunities.

Excellent. So let us close the first block. I would like to thank you all for being with us, and let's move on. And as I promised, we are going to have the raffle that we started. And in the meantime, Cenira will talk about the environment issue, Juliano Prado is going to talk about next. All the team remains available. So if you have any individual topics to ask, we are there for you. Thank you. As we promised, we are going to go back to the raffle. Let's come back.

Gabriel Simoes, are you there? Gabriel? Lucky. A Gerdau kit and a Brazil t-shirt. Another raffle. I'll find you on the list and we'll contact you. She is going to come now to talk about the environment section.

And in Rock in Rio, well, we showed how sustainability is in the company's DNA. And in the bag that you got -- by the way, I have to say 2 things. There is honey and a package of cookies. Honey is part of our program to support farmers. We support cooperatives with more than 25 bee or honey producers. With Minas Gerais, we provided technical consultancy, so they could have a formal business, increasing their income to their families. They live from honey, just have a sample with a history of honey in the little bag that you got and cookies as well. The person who was involved, well, this is an entrepreneur in the Gerdau [indiscernible] project, and she managed to have the support and mentorship of Gerdau for her project. And given the pandemic, she managed to improve business income, the family income by delivering cookies. So this is really part of our day, like I said, and now Cenira is going to tell you more about ESG.

Good afternoon, how are you doing? So the idea now is to share a little bit about sustainability and how this is addressed at Gerdau. When you think about Gerdau and about the foundation and what Gerdau really is, it was already built and based and founded from scrap and circular economy and recycling. Gerdau is a company that addresses sustainability from moment zero, the ethics, social environmental responsibility of all stakeholders. So when we begin to talk about ESG, which is a picture of sustainability, this is the part in which we manage the risk of sustainability in the business. We decide as an organization not to have a sustainability management. We already address this as part of our process and operation. So we bring the squad. A squad is made up not only by myself, but our colleagues like Paulo, Pedro from communications, the legal, the social areas. So we bring this movement to provide consulting to committees in the organization who makes the most complex decisions. So they get to know ESG matters in their decision-making process. By the way, the Strategy Committee, which supports the Board of Directors and shows what will happen in the short, mid and long run for important decisions as a company is now the Strategy and Sustainability Committee. In order to respond to ESG matters and to bring sustainability in this ESG arena since 2019, we've been addressing issues related to transparency and commitment. What do I mean by commitment? I'm referring to sustainability policy, human resources, human rights policy that we set based on everything that we envisage as ESG in the organization. We also bring internal commitments. From the moment, long-term incentives in our main leaders, they have 20% of these incentives related to ESG goals, having women in leadership and reducing greenhouse gas emission. This is my main topic, by the way, that will be addressing later on and also transparency. We start working on our annual reports based on this methodology. We also implement our support in CDP. Firstly, in climate change module and then with water safety. And it needs to be acknowledged we were awarded many times and not only that, Gustavo showed you before, we were the first steel-making company to have -- to be certified as a B company, which is something very complex and at the same beautiful because it brings the vision of sustainability. Somebody from the outside, somebody very acknowledgeable bringing a certification for sustainability in the company. Our first plant at Gerdau, to be a B-Certified company is a joint venture in Summit. Next we have our Peruvian plant also certified with the B system. So it's a very significant acknowledgment for us as an organization. Coming back to sustainability. Like I said, with this history of transparency, commitment, it involves environment, social aspects, women in leadership, renovation that transforms program that brings a lot of benefits to the surrounding areas, improving the quality of housing of the people who are around us. However, we are naturally guided by our material matrix, which was revisited in 2022. And it brings the main topics that guide our organization in ESG matters. So the idea today is to show you more about climate strategies. The focus is on E, environment from ESG. So why is it that the steelmaking industry is so relevant in the context of climate change? The steel industry is highly relevant for planet decarbonization. There is no planet decarbonization without steel. Steel is needed to build renewable energy, solar, wind, water energy. Steel is necessary to build electric cars. So we cannot think about a more perfect material considering the infinite sources of recyclability. Like our colleague said, the steel found today in a bicycle can then turn into an airplane and then the sole of our shoe. So because it can be endlessly recyclable, the physical, chemical properties, steel is relevant. It's an energy transition product. But the thing is steel produces CO2 from 7% to 9% when we compare to all our global CO2 emissions. So steel also has a significant share in decarbonization. Considering that per se in production, it emits CO2. So where do the CO2 emissions come from? How do they arise? Let me show you more about steel production. Basically, there are 2 ways to manufacture steel. Primary route, this is where we use iron ore to produce steel. Ore, just coming back to chemistry classes is composed by oxygen to turn into steel. It has to lose the oxygen. And then we use a carbon that is not renewable classically. We use coal. We mentioned about values, prices. This coal turns into coke. And this coke will have a reduction reaction to remove oxygen from ore, and this is when we have CO2 emission. This route has emission of 2.32 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of steel. That's a global figure. The second route is scrap. The scrap route doesn't need to have this removal of oxygen from iron because steel is already there, but differently, in obsolescence, which is scrap. So what do you need to turn scrap into steel? Basically, electric energy. And then emissions are lower. The world number is 0.67 in tonnes of CO2 per tonne of steel. When we check how world production is made, 70% of steel in the world happens through ore and 30% via scrap. The thing is that at Gerdau, we have the opposite. We produced 71% of scrap and 29% from ore. Scrap, in addition to avoid CO2 emission, it also reduces other environmental impacts related to residues and water. And when available, as in the case of U.S. and Canada, where we have our GLN and GSN operations, then we can produce all the steel with Gerdau by using scrap only. So emissions are even lower in these countries whenever there is scrap available. The primary route in Brazil. What we tend to joke that it is Brazilian Jabuticaba. That's the route where we use renewable-sourced carbon. We only have Jabuticaba in Brazil, and we only have renewable carbon fuel in Brazil. This is a country of continental dimensions. It is so easy in agricultural production owing to the climate we find in our country. As a result, in Brazil, we can produce steel by replacing mineral carbon by plant-based carbon or renewable carbon. Gerdau holds a forest area of 254,000 hectares. We plant our eucalyptus, which absorbs CO2. And once it is transformed into charcoal, it will reduce or remove oxygen from ore. This carbon goes back to the environment, but that's a cycle, it's a renewable cycle. And therefore, the emission related to plant-based carbon is considered zero. Out of the 254,000 hectares of forest areas at Gerdau, 91,000 hectares are preservation areas. It's important to remember that the energy, forest helps to minimize the pressure on illegal deforestation, from the moment we have planting. And we also have preserved areas, we manage to minimize this pressure. We can preserve these native areas. 5% of Gerdau's production, therefore, is made via these plants in Minas Gerais using this route that uses plant-based carbon only in order to reduce or reduce ore. So what is the reality behind Gerdau CO2 emissions? Well, that's why I had to share this long story to you. But once again, 71% of production comes from scrap. Remember, that the scrap route emissions are lower, 50.5x lower compared to the primary route or the ore route. Part of the ore route at Gerdau funds from renewable carbon or our planted forests. Another important point is that the ore route which uses mineral coal has operating efficiencies so we can make the most out of these gases. And in the process, we should have the lowest emission possible. So people might wonder, so why don't we do everything from scrap? Why not use charcoal all the time? There are technological and availability problems in terms of renewable carbon and scrap. However, if you check our numbers, we can see that from 2019 onwards, when we checked our inventory, audited by independent auditors, so we are certain of our numbers, we moved from a level of emission at 0.66. And we got in 2021 to a number of 0.90 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of steel, equivalent to nearly 50% of the world average. The world average is 1.89 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of steel. If we compare with some peers, they are in the rank of 2 or 2.1 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of steel. We might consider we are in a race and we're halfway through it. We already won part of the race. And when the peer manages per se look, I'll reduce 30%, 30% of the mission, they will still be far from the level that we already achieved. But naturally, we cannot stop there. We have all demands from society and all the needs to move forward with the emissions of greenhouse gas. And it takes a commitment. So we decided at Gerdau that we needed to work on a process that is really robust, not top down, but bottom up. What am I trying to say? We got our environmental teams involved. So we have the best inventories of greenhouse gas. We also work on customers, what do customers really need from our steel, automotive clients, civil construction clients. We also work with our engineering teams in order to pinpoint the best technology is available and those which are mature enough, so we could put this into practice in the short, mid and long run through our NACC. So obviously, we also -- it also takes governance. How do you make decisions? How can we think about long-term commitment, short-term, midterm, how can we work with these inventories? So we have new tools in the organization like carbon calculators for each 1 of the investments we made and several others with management related to CO2. So we were finally able to define our goal. We will leave the level of 0.93 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of steel in 2020 back to 0.83 tonnes. So how are we going to do that? Through the guide of our marginal curves of carbon reduction so that we can reduce emissions with higher energy and operating efficiency, expanding the use of biomass and scrap, the expansion of our forest base, investments in renewable energy business. And then my colleague, Juliano will bring more details about Gerdau next-gen investments in these technologies and innovation. For 2030, we know that, in fact, we have to reach a new level of challenges, because in order to be carbon neutral in steel really, you depend on disruptive technologies. Technologies that are not yet available today due to competitiveness or issues related to the availability of technology at industrial level. And so what is Gerdau's position? Well, our ambition is to reach carbon neutral by 2050. And in order to reach that goal, we've been working in collaboration with industry entities, developing partnerships. We also see opportunities to develop disruptive technologies and also seeking for more competitive technologies. We are perfecting our production systems. We are investing in renewable energy grids. We have new ways, which in a recent announcement, 30% of Newave's energy production will be earmarked for steel production. We have the case of Midlothian where we are building a solar park -- a solar farm and also other partnerships with the company, Minas Gerais that is producing energy. We are also working in collaboration with several stakeholders in our society. There is no decarbonization without partnerships. That's a fact. That's why we will have to build partnerships with customers, OEM, we need public policies and all of that is necessary if we want to be carbon neutral. And Gerdau will be a protagonist in this process. And the environmental issue goes even beyond environmental management. It is also focused on compliance, environmental management because we usually say that we seek to be compliant with legislation. We want to be society friendly. We do not want to generate anything that impacts society negatively. And Gerdau works the principle of circular economy, not only due to 11 million tonnes of scrap that we generate every year. But by the same token, we are the largest recycler in Latin America, but we also have to focus on reusing water. So we reuse -- so more than 60% of our water -- coal products -- byproducts or coal products are no longer a residue, but they work in other productive systems in society. And also renewable sources like our forest that can absorb CO2 and turn that into charcoal or a tree and then charcoal so that we can transform that into steel. We focus a lot on the environmental topic, everything supported by our circular economy. But we also have to think about the future, not only the present, the future or sustainability will become a growing pillar of our society. In the future, we know that there will be so many more restrictions. And Gerdau also focuses on the future in terms of bringing opportunities and sustainability that's part of Gerdau's next pillar. And I have the honor to give the floor to Juliano, who will tell us a bit more about the future and sustainability at Gerdau.

Okay. Can you all hear me? Great. First of all, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I am the Juliano Prado. I'm the VP in charge of Gerdau Next. And the first question that comes to mind is, what is Gerdau Next? So I will start by talking about what we are and then why we exist, and I'll give you some more details. So first, why is it that Gerdau Next exists? We are here to boost and to support all of the needs of our country. With that, we can promote sustainable growth. That's why we are here. Gerdau is here gathering forces with the country, the different stakeholders to find ways of promoting sustainable growth. But it's also very important when we talk of being ambidextrous. Then usually, we think about being ambidextrous by supporting our core business, while as a same token we work on different horizon. But here, Gerdau wants to grow its core business. Gerdau wants to continue to invest and grow its steel business, while by the same token, it looks for a portfolio of products and services that are initially complementary. And then I really like this photo. If you didn't have the chance to visit this building, this is an 8-story high building in the city of Tubarao. This is one of our first ventures into Gerdau Next and we made that -- we built that building in a few months. So this is a metallic construction. All of the foundation was done by our [indiscernible] We were carrying steel from our mills in different locations. We also used [ Logitech ] to do the logistics. So we gathered forces to build that building. So what is the differential whenever we talk about being sustainable in this building. This building was constructed in only 100 days. I mean, if you're building a house today, even if it's a very simple house, we talk about 1 year, 1.5 years, 1 year, 8 months, so this entire building was built in 100 days. 80 days inside the plant and 20 days to put it together. So there is a bakery across the street. They look at the lot and in 20 days, there comes a building, a building that had no working site. It does not use water in its construction, and it can be as competitive as any other construction. So then we see a huge opportunity to start building for B2B clients and also bring them the revenue. We just concluded the construction of Einstein Hospital right here in the district of Morumbi, if you have the opportunity to look at it. It took only 4 months for a new hospital with 108 beds to be built. So a hospital with high complexity. Imagine how long it would take to that building to be ready if they were done with a normal construction method. Not only this is very sustainable, but also you will shorten the time of construction by many folds and you already get revenue from the good. We have built 7 hospitals there were non-temporary hospitals during the COVID days giving the total support that community needed. On an average timing of 33 days in the hospitals are there even today, they were not temporary hospitals. That's why we emphasize the fact of growing but growing with sustainability and efficiency. Now I will tell you why. And then later, I'll tell you how. Looking at your right, look at 2 important words. I would like to highlight 2 words. The first word is portfolio diversification, meaning Gerdau going beyond steel, but also together with steel. Things -- these 2 things go together, taking advantage of the good things of fill to our business. Looking for synergies in all the business, we have done so far at Gerdau Next. The question is how can we extract synergies? How can we seek for integration of the businesses? And then what will be the consequences of that? We have lower volatility and also, this impacts the results of Gerdau because of Gerdau as commodity like any other. And then we see new businesses that allows us to integrates the profitability of Gerdau tends to grow. This is the concept behind it. And as Cenira put it well, we have to be protagonists in sustainability. So everything we do at Next in terms of having a very clear position in ESG. We focus on sustainability. And sustainability in this case is not just how can I cause less damage or control damage to the environment. No. The mindset is how can I be proactive rather than reactive? How can I think for new ways of revolutionizing construction and at the same time, being totally sustainable. This has to be our mindset. Okay, I talked about what? Why? And now I'll tell you how. How means that we work with 4 clusters, very dynamic clusters. I think as noticed to what has been posted in the media about the new developments that there is a logic behind it, and there is total integration between our business. But this is a very dynamic portfolio that can -- where we can increase our stake here or decrease our stake there. And all we do is space on collaboration and partnerships. All the business that are here on the list to the right refer to large companies, companies as big as Gerdau but we are gathering forces to deliver something better. And you asked a question about platforms. A big example of platform is being Juntos Somos Mais. Juntos Somos Mais is here as well. It's the largest marketplace of construction materials. We work with 45 different companies. And out of the 150,000 or 160,000 mom-and-pop stores of construction materials. I'm not talking about large construction material stores. I'm talking about mom-and-pop stores. So we already have 110,000 of these stores with us. So it's a marketplace of buyers and sellers with a high -- a large range of products. So with GNV, it's BRL 9 million or basically or $1.4 million, $1.5 million. It's a genuine platform. Another platform to answer your question, it's called circulabi. circulabi is something we started together with Accenture to work with spare parts. Any industry today has a storeroom. And sometimes there are a lot of obsolete items or items with very, very low turnover. So how do you make an exchange of these goods with other companies? Or in a way, it's cooperation. And there are competitors that are not fighting for some space in there, but they come with us together forces and therefore, improving sustainability. So I talked about the construction and now I'm saying that we are also expanding into Mexico and the U.S. We have met Mexico Al Cubo in Mexico City. We see the picture in the background of this slide, which shows a metallic construction. Brasil Ao Cubo has 2 offices in there. So that's my invitation for you to go and get to know them better. I'm not going to talk a lot now about mobility, and I will talk now about newave. This is our new business that has been recently announced. And there is a key aspect here that I have to mention. We -- for over a year, we tested something with a partner called facetime lab. It's from a Peruvian guy. He left NASA and he put together a company that is expert in machine learning and algorithms. Companies are becoming more and more software driven. This is a fact. And Gerdau wants to be in the forefront of that. We are running several tests today, both in our mills, like the one in Ouro Branco. We assembled [indiscernible], and then we have another one in GSN special steels and we are learning more and more to be able to replicate that to the market. We will have gains not only in our core business, but also Next business. So in general, portfolio diversification, looking for synergies, all of the business, talk to one another and everything is integrated. Another major example of integration for Suzano paper and pulp, we participated on a bid and we won the bid. We built a plant in the port of Itaqui in the state of Maranhão. And we were in charge of the entire design. So once our design was the winner, we worked together with a import export company. G2Base, it more than 2,500 foundation 51,000 square meters built in record time built by Brasil Ao Cubo using all the companies that are here. So this is just a collection of forces in synergies to deliver a product or a service from a company like Gerdau that has a very sound name and known products and now Gerdau is operating in the service space because we have a lot of service level agreements, and we are delivering B2B products like in the case of Suzano. Now speaking about logistics. I'll start with the right-hand side of the slide. Then I will go over logistics. More recently, we started a partnership with the Randon company for the lease of heavy vehicles and equipment. Here when we talk about a truck, I don't know how many of you are familiar with it. A truck has an approximate cost of BRL 1 million, a fully equipped truck. So that's a very high amount. The average age of the fleet is around 15 years in Brazil. When we have an independent driver, the driver who owns the truck, it doesn't work for a carrier. That number of years come to 22 years. So if you have a 2-year-old car or a 3-, 4-year-old car and you're worried about getting a new car, imagine a truck that is running for 20 years -- or over 20 years. They may be driving at a risk. So this is a market that is still developing in Brazil. So there is a portion of sustainability, of safety, not only we want to give more sustainability to independent drivers, but we want to improve the fleet. When we look at Europe and the U.S., that -- in terms of growth, that market is growing between 25% to 20%. And in Brazil, it's only growing at a pace of 1%. But that's not the issue. We don't want to fight for that 1%, but we want to change the mindset of that market. Rather than owning the assets, the market should move towards subscribing to that asset. So Gerdau and Randon together can be a lot stronger. We have Gerdau steel being used in the truck. G2L is one of the largest logistics operators, and we have great synergies working with many companies in this space. And this is a business, and I would like to emphasize that, and I'm here talking about our peers with an EBITDA margin that range between 75% to 85%. Some other companies -- some companies outliers have EBITDA margin of 89%. So both in terms of EBITDA margin and market multiples, this company has a lot of good opportunities. I think this is the first time that we are disclosing these numbers. This company started to be a highway transporting companies to supply our need for transportation. We started with a challenge of changing this into a logistic operator. What is the difference here? Highway account for 60% of all of the transportation in the country. We want to transport the product from point A to point B, and that transportation could be done in several different ways. And that takes us back to being sustainable. But then when we got that business, had earnings of BRL 162 million. Now the following years, the net revenue jumped to BRL 164 million, BRL 180 million in gross revenues. And in the first 9 months, we reached BRL 151 million. The projection on this is just an estimate. Of course, there might be some small variations. But by the end of this year, our net revenue should be BRL 1.1 billion. And this places as one of the top 5 logistic operators in the country. And this was achieved in only 3 years of operation. Today, we have 46 (sic) [ 45 ] fixed customers, but we serve more than 215 customers throughout Brazil. We have 27 branches, 730 employees in more than 4,500 municipalities. This is proof of our logistic position. And more recently, we signed a deal with Bunge for a partnership with Logitech to establish a relationship between logistics of cargo and independent drivers. In the past, we have more than 5,000 registered drivers. But with this partnership with Bunge, we have more than 150,000 independent drivers already registered with us. Can you go back 1 slide, please? Next, this one. That's why this circle that is here that relates to mobility shows that all of the businesses are connected. This is our mindset. We don't want to operate in nonintegrated businesses, but everything is connected to our core business, which is steel making. And finally, in our last slide, this is what was recently announced. We are now engaged with Newave Energy. We have a partnership with Shell oil company. Both companies had been working in solar farms. If you're familiar with Atlas Solar, where there is higher radiation in Brazil. It's a stretch of length that goes from the north of Brazil, all the way to the north of Minas Gerais and that's where we have the bulk of our opportunities. We have 230,000 hectares. So we sat down with Shell, and we said, let's look for the best of both worlds. What are your solar farms and what are yours? And let's look at where we can join forces. Newave has a greater mission in terms of reducing GHG emissions. Together, we want to produce 2.5 gigawatts of energy. The company we will have 33% investing at first BRL 0.5 billion according to the project milestone or performance goals, we will add another BRL 1 billion. So the already committed total is BRL 1.5 billion. In addition to clean energy, which is our main driver, this has a direct impact on steel competitiveness. So competitiveness, sustainability and profitability. So when we acquired 30% of energy from the solar farms, we have the benefit of high production. And this also gives us some tax benefit, and this tax benefit is relevant for the company. 60% of total energy used by Gerdau is already guaranteed through the -- to our staff production. And this is translated into benefits of 1/3 in the cost of energy. So in Newave, we will be very competitive in this relationship with us or with anyone else with Home Atos business. But all of the gains will go straight into our steel production. And finally, the diversification of the business because it's not just a matter of buying some brownfields and operating greenfields because after all, we are now engaged in the energy business. There are some opportunities of the free market, which is the so-called electric retail. I think it's something that you've been reading in the media lately. We also see opportunities of potential M&A. So in fact, we are diversified and getting into a less volatile business with margins of EBITDA of around 60% to 75% when compared to our peers. So this is my last slide. I would like to thank you all for joining us today and to conclude, I would like to play a video that somehow illustrates everything we talked about and shows Next operations in motion. [Presentation]

Thank you, Juliano. While we prepare the stage for the Q&A session at the end of the [indiscernible] we will now look at who the winners will be. I don't think you were interested in getting the Brazil jersey, but it will have your way anyway.

So let's go to number 2. Present or online Okay? If it's online, we'll get in touch with you. Now I would like to call Juliano, Cenira, Werneck to join us here and also Japur. Please come and join us. I'd like to remind you that you can also post your questions via Zoom. I need a microphone here, please. We have 225 participants joining us online. Questions about Gerdau Next, about our environmental footprint. Okay. Isabella you are going to be first.

Can you all hear me? Okay. I have 2 questions. First, about Gerdau Next. If I'm not mistaken, you once said that 10 years from now, you want to account for 10% of the total revenue. But I think the revenue now is at a different level. So I just want to understand, how big you want to be in terms of Next vision and whether you really want to focus on these 3 pillars or whether there is yet another business that would also be added or something that you would like to have? And my second question is about [indiscernible] emissions by 2031. I think there has been a drop slightly below 10%. What are the main drivers? Is it probably renewable energy as the main focus or there is anything else that we should keep in mind?

Thank you for the question. We thank Juliano for all the efforts to be here. Right now that he is in hospital, but he made a point to be with us. Thank you. You look a little bit gloomy, but we are altogether here. Juliano is going to answer the question, but this is not part of his goal or target. That's an aspiration in terms of what we envisage when we set up Gerdau Next 2 years ago. This was our starting point. Like Juliano said, everything is so fluid. Our desire to go beyond. Gerdau Next has been around for 2 years, if I'm not mistaken, Juliano started from scratch. So this is very open for discussion, and I do believe the potential of rating these numbers. Juliano, can you tell us more about the soundness of our models?

I think it's worth mentioning that we work our set of goals related to the core company or the mother ship, so to speak. If we do that, that's somehow unfair because we really want the core company to keep on growing a lot. At the end of the day, we want steel to skyrocket and this percentage will become increasingly more challenging. And at the end of the day, there is conflict that is good for no one. Today, we no longer discuss about 20% of Gerdau's revenues by 2030. We focus on how can we be a leader, one of the top players in the segments where we are. That's what I said. When you look at G12, for instance, and we consider that today, we are among the top 5 or top 6. How can I get to top 3 or top 2 or to be the first one. So this is what drives us today, consolidating the company as a leader in terms of adding value to the company synergy, trusting the business. This is highly profitable. The return on employed capital. We do manage to work a lot of digitization here. So we truly want to be the best in where we are, naturally restricting capital allocation. That's the first second -- first question. Your second question was -- actually, there are 4 questions that include technology and the technology is cost action. But in addition to the 4 clusters, is there another one? Are you considering getting into another one? Like Gustavo said it's fluid, but we are very lean a few people working with the squad with the maximum capabilities and the best resources in partnerships. Today, the focus is on these 4 clusters. Can things cahnge in 18 months, 24 months? Maybe we might come to a different conclusion of profitability for a given cluster and then replace it. Gerdau, if we consider the company's tradition, the relationship with banks, M&A, the NDS, somehow always invited to be involved in bidding processes and opportunities. So our current focus is, is it part of the 3 clusters technology? Okay. If we're not, it's not our top priority, but things could change in the future. And it should change. It should be accompanying constant evolution. Cenira?

But before we give the floor to Cenira, just to give some context, we don't have an officer for sustainability. Firstly, we have our commitment to be very stringent here. If we name an officer, everybody is going to be under and then we need a room. It will take a lot of things and G&A will go up. So that's the first worldly way to address it. But when you have too many structures, you lose agility. And the ESG squad, this is very modern and very agile. There are people who are knowledgeable on the topic and they work under a structure with no hierarchy, and we have very fast solutions. So we have an ESG quad. They include myself, Cenira, who are experts in governance and special topics. When we sat at this squad a while ago, the most important keywords, which supported this were transparency and consistency. You've been following up the growth of regulation when it comes to these topics, including the green wash. So at no time did we manage to go to market too fast or make public commitments of which we could not deliver when it comes to aspirations and desires even though they are not mature technologies right now to safely test if we can really decarbonize the sector by this time frame, that's an aspiration. But technologies to support decarbonization of steel are still being developed. Nobody today can say whether it will be hydrogen, green or gray hydrogen, if it will be carbon storage. So when we went to market to disclose ago, a target to reduce from 0.93 to 0.80. 2 years of in-depth studies on the methodology, known as marginal abatement cost curve, MACC. And Cenira was involved very diligently that is a relieve for 2 years to work on a plan that can be audited, can be performed in terms of technology and also in terms of economic feasibility. It's so important to highlight that you're keeping on noon this, so projects need to be consistent. Anybody who wants to show the plan, I want to see how consistent the plan is. So this is the backdrop that I said to Cenira 2 years ago and she developed it for 2 years. So Cenira, can you tell more about this to make sure that this is very well ground. These are the major topics on our plan. Use this microphone.

It's okay now. Thank you so much for the question. When we speak of a [indiscernible] it looks like a number of 0.93 to 0.83. What do you mean by 2031, not 2035. In order to come to this number, like Gustavo said, it took 2 years to work on a huge number of people from engineering, from operations. And by using the MACC tool and with the use of consultants, high-level engineering, we identified where our gaps were for CO2 reduction and also the investment amounts required. What makes sense? What would bring return? Depending on the country, carbon pricing is different or there is a public policy that will help us increase or decrease our ambition. So it's not of the renewable energies. For each one of our operations, we set special initiatives, which makes sense, not only financially but also environmentally and also in the competitiveness of the country. For instance, we have opportunities to improve raw materials, allowing us to be more efficient in our integrated round, which is coal. And we are also going to try to make the most out of the gas and energy in our process. We also invest in this. In our forest area how can we benefit the most from this wonderful resource, which are our forests. So we can really have the Charcoal with CO2 emission that could even be negative. We're strongly working with the environment team with the forest area, how can we give evidence that there is carbon removal from the process. So it's not included and much more is included in our marginal curves. And we work with our engineering team with our committees involved in all business operations, and we follow up these initiatives. They are very well set with adjusted CO2 emissions. So we rest assured we're going to reach the target by 2030, very smoothly with no hiccups.

Isabella, you know a lot about the steel world, so I'm not telling you specifically, but for everybody who's here, we have to keep an eye on the size of this account, the size of the numbers. It's an [indiscernible] to decarbonize the sector. Maybe that's one of our advantages when it comes to the current level of emissions. There are public papers and they do the math to decarbonize the sector like we showed the steel segment accounts for 7% of global emissions in Brazil, 4%. There are papers, public papers from consulting companies they sold $30 per ton additional CapEx. Think about all the CapEx that is required to maintain assets. So $30 per tonne of steel per year for 30 years to decarbonize it. Do the math multiplying by the production capacity of company A or B steelmakers, you see the numbers, they don't fit the balance sheet. So my question right now is how do we close these numbers? This was built over time, and it brings us a long-term benefit that is second to none. Isabella, if you ask me today, are there clients today who are willing to pay an additional $10 per ton of steel with a lower carbon footprint? The answer is no. So this is going to draw your attention more and more track over time, which companies can actually deliver, considering what they built over the time? How many companies can really foot the bill? In my opinion, this has to be more organized. So consistency being sort of transparent. This for us is of utmost importance. Great questions, by the way.

I think it's so cool to follow-up next growth and having Gerdau acknowledge maybe as a benchmark for sustainability. And maybe in this sense, this is my question. Today, when you look at existing technologies for decarbonization, even like Werneck had mentioned, we don't know yet whether it will be in green hydrogen. However, what makes you be positioned as you are is the way to produce by electric route and scrap route. We've seen this as a global trend, big steel makers. They intend to slightly change the way they manufacture steel from blast furnace into scrap. So how do you see this balance scrap, vis-a-vis, the share evolution of the electric route? And how is Gerdau protected shielded with all the initiatives you have, vis-a-vis, scrappers? Could you tell us more about this? It would be very useful.

I'm so happy these questions are coming along. I would say we have never been appreciated enough yet, considering everything we've built so far when it comes to CO2 emissions. Cenira, maybe you can elaborate more on technologies, right? Cenira is the greatest expert here. However, when you see this question, what makes you believe that for the next decade at Gerdau when it comes to result generation, this is going to be for the better. This is one thing that we cannot argue if attract any plan available for global steel makers to lower emissions. In the short term, there always the highest scrap use. Even if you consider a blast furnace integrated mill, basically use a scrap for a while, considering the back temperature. So the quest, the search for scrap in the world has already been increasing. So supply and demand is going to make scrap prices increase in the world. And we should expect that the price of steel and products will be different. We are shutting [indiscernible] shutting down. So if we consider the structural factors, that will become material over the next decade, they are different from the last decade. And this is just one of the drivers that makes us believe that results will be even better. And once again, the competitive condition we created with scrap in Brazil in recent years, this is going to make a lot of difference. I would say it's nearly impossible, considering the necessary time frame to build a scrap operation equivalent to ours in Brazil. You cannot do this overnight. So this is going to make a huge difference for us. We're highly competitive already in Brazil when it comes to scrap collection and processing. So this topic about scrap is something to watch very closely. It truly is going to change the game over the years. And another reason, [indiscernible] is here, and he talked about it. One of the reasons why we are searching for craft competitiveness for the reasons that you mentioned. So this is really, really important. Cenira, given us more color about technologies. What's ahead of us? What's coming up, things that may help us in the future.

Most importantly is to understand that there is no silver bullet. When you talk about hydrogen, hydrogen takes different structures like renewable energies. Today, when you speak of hydrogen in the world, there is not in industrial scale, whatever -- however, what is ongoing. There is a very strong public subsidy policy. $5 is the current cost of 1 kilo of hydrogen, and we need a $1 here for us to be more competitive. Everybody talks about carbon capture. This takes a whole structure to remove and stop this carbon under the earth. So these technologies, they're not going to be the same in all countries, in all regions. Regions in the planet have different characteristics. If you think about Brazil, for instance, we shouldn't think about hydrogen alone or technologies, which will actually lower greenhouse gas emissions disruptively in the route. There is a transition, natural gas, for instance, is very important to lower emission. So if you were -- if we had in our country, the chance of having natural gas, lower cost, more competitive, we could use natural gas as a transition gas until hydrogen really becomes viable might not reduce this by using natural gas. So whatever is neutral, truly requires disruptive technologies, and they take a lot of grant to be created. Werneck talked about the fight for scrap, increasingly tougher. But it's important to say that we won't be steel production without ore. Ore is very relevant. We need a volume of steel to support the planet's needs, including decarbonization, that will come from ore as well. So the ore biomass technology that we never master at Gerdau, we can move forward in Brazil. We can also work on natural gas but we can consider that hydrogen or carbon capture storage is a silver bullet and is going to bring neutral emissions without a cost with our subsidies. But you should also understand that every region, every country will have its vision in the reduction in the ore route.

We're also very involved in industry in Brazil, not only steel. So if we ask what would be the main game changer in the Brazilian industry for the coming years? The answer is natural gas. Brazil's capacity is unique to generate natural gas, along the coast in pre-salt, but a huge challenge to bring this gas from pre-salt platforms to the Brazilian coast. The vast majority of gas producers reinjected in the wells. So over the next years, in Brazil, has conditions to take this gas and transmit from pre-salt to the Brazilian coast. This will be revolutionary, totally breakthrough in the Brazilian industry that we haven't for a while. So this point is very, very significant. Maybe the most important thing for the Brazilian industry in the coming years. The possibility to make decisions on investments for not only public but also private players who work with pre-salt and also the possibility to bring gas pipelines to bring gas to the Brazilian Coast. That's a really breakthrough for decarbonization. Natural gas is the big transition fuel for the steelmaking industry, no doubt about it.

Let me ask my question. Firstly, congratulations. What about your selection process for invested companies? And is there a tax generation the investments you make? How does it work? And are these all companies that invest in? Or is that a wide range of very small companies that are also investing in, obviously, considering the venture capital strategy that would really do the math.

So let me speak be on behalf of Gerdau Next and then we can talk about the core business. Firstly, we have an instrument of corporate venture capital initially launched in Silicon Valley. Parent venture was the name at the time. With the creation of Gerdau Next, we turn into Gerdau Next managers. We brought it in Brazil. And today, we already made business not only with the U.S. and Brazil, but also Colombia, Mexico. The main point about the corporate venture capital in recent years, we learned a lot. I'm not saying cash-to-cash is not important. But the most important thing for a company like Gerdau, considering the size of Gerdau is this strategic fit. Understand what's happening to the market. And so to speak, have ahead of the disruption whatever could change the market overnight. How we close to these people who are transforming the world. So that's a main goal for us. Naturally, there is a lot of criteria. The management team, the strategy, growth, potential, the curve, the market, the size. There are many drivers. But for us, what do I bring to our business, be it Next or core? Can this be a threat, an opportunity, a replacement, an addition? So this is the main business that we'd look at today. We invested last year in 9 companies. As minority investors who are not in, we did it via Gerdau Next Ventures, which is our venture capital line. This market is also dynamic. You can come and go. We don't get today usually as an angel of steel. We look for Series A and B. So we are -- just after those that have a market down the road and traction. And we watch very closely in terms of governance. Governance is key for us. It has to be as an observer as a Board. Answering your question about taxation. There is a tax area that supports us in Next and core energy business with them. Even in energy, let's put it into the company Gerdau Next or into Atos Brasil, where does it make more sense when it comes to tax gains? So we act according to the law with FX, compliance. So where could you go for better tax gains? We have analysis. We have several tax consultants to support us before we make decisions. But I can tell you today that I cannot see a company today that wants to diversify and grow without having their small bags, without having minority shares, the 7 smallest and maybe they can bet more. Then prefab, this modular off-site U.S. manufacturing companies, they started in Rialto, 1.5 hours from Los Angeles. And now we're moving into Texas, expanding over the U.S. Texas is growing tremendously. In terms of housing and movement from many people moving into Texas. And we started with 2.5% stake, very small. And today, we are around 18% stake in a company like this. Working very strongly, sitting with [indiscernible] and the very strong management team, considering how to go for even higher steps. So it may be an embryo of something bigger, but a strategy fit is what really makes sense to select the venture capital, unlike as we see. Corporate venture capital and VC on very different animals. Japur, anything to add?

Two questions. May I ask the questions?

Renata, I think you raised his hand a while ago. I'm sorry.

[ Roberto ] from [indiscernible] Partners. I would like to talk more about Gerdau Next. First thing, I would like to better understand what we could expect to see for Gerdau Next, next years. Newave, for instance, we will have about BRL 500 million next year anything already committed from other investors, it would be great to learn more about it. And thinking about Newave now, I would like to understand what about a reduction in savings in energy accounts for Gerdau? And at the same time, what do you envisage as IRR of the project? An order of magnitude, just to give us some color about returns.

The last part of the question, I cannot answer. It's about the IRR of the project, but I can say that it's highly profitable. If we consider the business as a whole, also including self-production, but it's highly profitable, but I cannot disclose the number. It's a matter of competition. Now coming back to the first point? What is already committed and what are our commitments for the future? If we consider our commitments already made, the 4 clusters. We are speaking of USD 103 million, which were invested. U.S. dollars in order to have a better comparison like-for-like, $103 million were invested to date in all those companies. For venture capital, we invested USD 17.5 million, which is small considering the potential of the business. Now we don't consider by amount or quantity. That's not important. 5 or 6 deals or invest [indiscernible] millions. The question is, did I really find the startup company, start a company or venture capital that is going to make a difference? Let me give an example. 3D printers to our construction business. We have an industry, we are assessing other business we wouldn't have an M&A, we wouldn't bring in such a business. But this growth can be so fast and that's why we're watching. So a total 2 numbers: $103, $17, $120 million invested. When you think about Newave now, BRL 500 million plus BRL 1 billion, BRL 1.5 billion or roughly $300 million at Newave. And as we consider shell, we are around $96 million. We invested $120 million. We have about $190 million already committed. And if we are successful in both companies. That's how we're working right now. Now we discussed this on a case-by-case basis and the capital allocation project with finance. The CFO, Rafael from strategy, put everything on the table to check what's best for Gerdau as a whole, not considering what's best for NEXT, or U.S. or Peru. But for Gerdau as a whole, considering all the variables. It makes more sense when it comes to capital allocation. So I cannot say what will happen in the future. I'm only giving real numbers of what we already committed at the company. So what Juliano said, everything is on our balance sheet, our investment in lines and PP&E. Now as he said, this goes through the scrutiny or even more strict of the other investments we make in terms of compliance and profitability and also our metrics for return on capital. And we're always we're always very cautious and we never had a corporate guarantee. Gerdau Metalúrgica for these investees, which we hold 20% to 40% minor stakes because we don't want to add any risk whatsoever beyond what we already have in our business profile. When we decide to have a specific allocation of x number of reals in business A or B. We don't want to contaminate what we already have in our core business. Two things, [indiscernible] put it well. Not only Gerdau's guarantee, but we don't consolidate debt in Gerdau.

Great. Just one follow-up question about allocation. What about the fleet company? Is that a commitment to capitalize on it? Any idea?

We disclosed the market BRL 150 million as an initial number. Today, we are currently assessing third-party capital. Considering the next 5 to 10 years, very likely 70% third-party capital in terms of growing the company.

Renata Can I ask my question now?

We received some questions via Zoom. The first question from Vanessa Quiroga from Credit Suisse. Please address to Cenira. What is the carbon price that you use when you make investments related to decarbonization? And she send the second question addressed to Juliano. What is the emission reductions that you intend to achieve with Newave? When is it that Gerdau will achieved 60% of self-efficiency?

First of all, about internal pricing carbon. We've been looking at it for quite some time. We took that issue to our Board of Directors. And so we're heading towards a number that is at to be validated before we take it public. But as we've been looking at it for the past 1.5 years, to find out what would be the internal carbon price that would make sense in the countries where we operate. If we look at carbon prices in Europe, maybe it's around $80 to $90. But tell us a little bit about what you're seeing in the market. But -- we are in the midst of the discussion about our internal carbon price. We look at prices in the regulated markets like Canada and Europe. And we also look at our internal carbon price because this would allow us to change our CO2 emissions. So we are currently identifying what would be the ideal balance. So that the organization will go towards reducing emissions while at the same token, we wouldn't lose our competitiveness also with an eye towards this regulated carbon market in the countries where we operate and also look at the demands from our customers because they've been asking us about reducing our carbon footprint. We already calculate all of our CO2 emissions in our investments. We are running several simulations. You find out what would be this internal carbon price.

Now to answer your question about self production. First of all, the design of our business plan contemplates several initiatives. The strongest one is greenfields. That's where you indeed have major gains because 30% will come directly from that. And within Newave, not only we mapped out, but we already have some proprietary markets and way advanced studies on 7 farms. We will start construction once we evaluate ways of getting beneath together with XP. But all of these -- the go live to be around 2025 and 2026. To answer your question, maybe within 3 years, we will have reached that 60%. Any more questions?

I have another question via Zoom. [indiscernible] in relative terms, how big will be this joint venture between Gerdau and Randon? And when do you think we could see your Gerdau Next as a segment within your balance sheet?

In terms of that balance, and this gives us an opportunity to give you some more color about our numbers. With everything regarding balance, Gerdau Next has a balance sheet that is published monthly. But you think about Gerdau Next as a reported segment within Gerdau S.A. as every quarter, we disclose the numbers. So our accountant, which is here today, I mean he follows some criteria looking at the assets. And there are some things that have to be complied with in terms of the segments that are reported. To answer your question about the return, it will certainly depend on the execution speed of the partnership and how you will move forward regarding penetration of the market and other similar issues. Therefore, it's probably too soon to give you an idea about this Addiante initiative, vis-a-vis, the context of Gerdau Environmental unit. Any more questions from the audience?

I didn't get any more questions via Zoom.

Now continuing with our event. I would like to thank all of you for joining us today. And before I give the floor back to Renata would like to call Lucy Sousa, Chairperson of APIMEC. I got a question from Leo Correa. But let's welcome, Lucy.

So many years of partnership 27 years together, oh my.

Will you allow us to answer one more question? We have to answer those question.

Well question from BTG. Yesterday, he was voted the best analyst of the year. So congratulations to Leo. I think -- this was all arrange, right, between you -- between both of you? So his question is looking in the long run, is there any interest of a spin-off of Gerdau Next that will possibly will pursue an IPO?

The way you see Gerdau this traditional company in Gerdau Next, I mean both companies should be seen differently. So let's wait and see what the future brings and what can bring more value to our stakeholders even because according to our portfolio, we will divest from businesses that we think make no sense. So the structure of the 2 companies are very different from what you know of Gerdau traditional. And congratulations to you again. So Lucy, the floor is back to you.

First of all, good afternoon, everyone, to all the investments professionals, analysts and investors. Well, here, we have our APIMEC Seal Brazil, 27 years of continuous meetings and partnership with Gerdau, we have a lot to thank you for. This is the MRO category, one of the most long-living partnerships. We have a lot to thank you. Thanks a lot. And this is the Seal. Congratulations to all of the officers of the company. And that's it. Now I turn the floor back to you.

Thank you for being with us all these years. Well, we must thank you. I am even thinking about asking Gerdau Next to have a new metallic structure so we can hand all of our awards in frames. Thank you so much for this partnership. And just now that we are prepared to many more occasions like this in the future. And thank you for the partnership.

Just to add, I would also like to thank you because APIMEC celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2020, which we could not celebrate because of the pandemic. And we launched the book, and you help us with your sponsorship. I think you received a few copies of the book. So that's another thanks. Because our book tells the story of the capital markets, and you helped us with that book as well.

Thank you, Lucy. So let's now thank you all for being with us today. Those that were with us online and in person, we've been working diligently to be closer to you, to have a very transparent management. We are certainly available to answer your questions after this occasion, I thought I was hearing voices is another microphone. So once again, thank you so much for joining us. And please count on us any time because it's important that we continue to be very transparent and answer all your questions. Thank you so much. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]