Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to this presentation of the first quarter of the year for SSAB. My name is Per Hillström.

I'm Head of Investor Relations at SSAB. Presenting today, we have our President and CEO, Johnny Sjöström, and also our CFO, Leena Craelius.

If we look at the agenda, we have the usual agenda here with Johnny starting with the first quarter in brief, Leena will then present more details on the financials, and then Johnny will come back with the outlook. Then we will also have good time for questions at the end.

By that, Johnny, the floor is yours.

Thank you very much, Per. Good morning to all of you.

I will start, like I always do, to go through the safety. We still have a rather good safety trend within SSAB.

Our lost time injury frequency, which is a rolling 12 months, is at 0.49. If we're looking at the year 2026, we have quite a good start, actually.

A really good performance, I think, from the whole organization. The focus on the safety is our main priority.

I will come back to the Luleå discussions at the end of this presentation. Now looking at our financial performance, measured now as EBITDA, we ended Q1 at 3.2 billion.

It is a good and stable earnings. What I'm happy about is the improvements, both in Europe and Americas, and we'll get back to that in the next coming slides.

Of course, Special Steels still continue to present a solid performance. Our net cash position, we have some seasonality, and I think that Leena might say something about that in her presentation, but we are at 9.6 billion right now.

Like I said, normally in the first quarter, we have higher amounts of cash out than normal. We have a strong balance sheet, and there is a proposal now from the board, that we should have a dividend of 2 kronor per share.

Now the transformation update, and I will cover more about the illness in this discussion. The conversion in Oxelösund is progressing quite well.

We were there in the beginning of this week with the whole board. That was actually yesterday.

We can see how it's taking place, how it's progressing, and it's on time, and it's on budget. I think so far, a good performance by the whole project team.

We're looking forward to the start-up that we're planning to have in the beginning of 2027. When it comes to the Luleå transformation project, the construction site has been paused now.

I just want to emphasize that the most important thing for us and our main priority is the safety of the workers on the construction site. There has been some reports on illness, and we took that very seriously.

We were the ones that initiated a construction stop, because we wanted to understand more. We've done an enormous amount of measurements.

I think I have more information about that later on. Far, we haven't seen or found anything that is deviating or which is above the threshold, which makes us a little bit puzzled.

We continue to work on this. Right now, up until now, the additional cost or the stoppage is not material.

It will not have an impact on our overall time plan, and the cost is not significant at this point. We still have a stable production in our production site in Luleå.

The steel mill is still continuing according to our plan and our expectations. Now moving in to the divisional performance.

First, SSAB Special Steels, we came out on a fairly good level when it comes to shipments, a level of 356,000 tonnes. It's a rather high amount of shipments, higher than we were at last year and higher than the year before for the first quarter.

Very pleased about that. Also, the financial performance was in a stable and high level.

I'm happy to see that Special Steels is continuing to deliver on a high level and are quite stable at that level. Then moving into SSAB Europe, the financial performance for Q4 was significantly lower than Q1 2026.

I think that what makes me most happy is that they had a record-high level of sales of advanced steels, which is according to our strategy and sort of direction that we have set, and also is one of the foundations for the Luleå investment, where we add more capacity to be able to sell more of the advanced high-strength steels. They were also able to increase the shipments by 18% compared to Q4 2025.

It was also significantly higher than Q1 2025. I'm also pleased about that.

Then moving into SSAB Americas, a stable performance there as well. Prices have increased, and if we compare Q1 2026 with Q1 2025, it's a significant improvement.

Prices have moved up, and they are continuing to move up. We had some scrap price increases in the beginning of the quarter that sort of reduced the spread, but those scrap prices are on its way down and it's helping us to improve the profitability even more going forward.

Shipments were stable, and Americas has been stable when it comes to production and output, and hopefully that will remain. Then we have the two subsidiaries, Tibnor and Ruukki Construction.

Then we start with Tibnor, we can see that the shipments were of course higher than Q4, but pretty much on the same level as Q1 2025. Looking at their financial performance, we can see that they came in much higher than Q4, but also much higher than Q1 2025, which was a little bit expected.

Now we see that they have a positive inventory effect, while Q1, they actually had a loss in the inventory. That's a positive effect.

Then looking at Ruukki Construction, unfortunately, the winter season was a little bit longer than normally is, and was actually delayed by one month. That had a big impact on the order intake and also on Ruukki's financial performance.

Since then, we have seen that order intake has been very, very strong. I think that they will be able to compensate for the lower performance in Q1 in Q2.

Now moving into financials, I'm leaving the word over to Leena.

Thank you, Johnny. Then we will have a bit more a group level view.

If we start the revision of financial figures by actually looking at the steel shipments, this is now the total of steel division shipments. Performance in Q1 was 1,736 kilotonnes, which compared to Q4 was 15% improvement in the shipments performance.

Of course, to bear in mind the seasonality in Q1, also the fact that we didn't have any maintenances taking place during Q1 like we did during Q4. Market remained cautious, as Johnny already referred, but also the production performance was supporting this good performance in the shipments.

If we compare the performance to the outlook we gave for Q1 compared to Q4, we were spot on in Special Steels and Americas and even slightly higher in Europe division with 18% improvement in shipment volumes. Then compared to previous year, the increase in shipment was 4%.

If we then move to revenue, Q1 was 25.3 billion, also improvement by 15% compared to Q4. If we similar way compare the prices outcome compared to the outlook we gave, all the divisions were in line and Special Steels even slightly better than the outlook we gave.

Then compared to previous year, the revenue reduction was minor, it was 1% reduction. Here, actually, the biggest impact is coming through the FX, while volumes and prices were somewhat higher.

I will talk about that more detailed in coming slides. EBITDA performance, already mentioned, 3.2 billion, in relative terms 13%.

Of course, clear improvement compared to Q4, which was 1.8 billion and 8%, but to bear in mind that Q4 had the impact of annual maintenance outages around 1 billion. Then compared to previous year, we do see improvement in the EBITDA performance on a total level, as well as per delivered tonne level, and I will dive into details more in the bridge analysis.

First, comparing Q1 versus Q4, and here we have operating result. Operating result in Q1 was 2.2 billion, which is improvement by 1.4 billion compared to Q4.

As the graph is illustrating, the biggest impact to this improvement is coming through the shipment volumes, which were 15% higher. Prices, as already mentioned, somewhat higher in all steel division, which is offset negative impact of FX.

However, this is actually offset in the variable cost with a positive impact of FX. The iron ore and coking coal, they were somewhat higher in Q1 compared to previous quarter, as was the cost of scrap, as Johnny already was referring to.

Of course, somewhat lower variable cost, which were related to maintenance audits, also impacting positively the fixed cost in Q1. Of course, to bear in mind that we do still continue the strict cost control that we have had during last year as well.

The capacity utilization positive impact over 300, and majority of this is coming through the Special Steel division who had the maintenance outages during Q4 as did Europe division, both of them are contributing positively to this element. If we then continue comparing Q1 versus previous year Q1, the improvement in operating result is 850 million SEK.

As the graph is well illustrating, the biggest positive impact is coming through the variable cost, also supported by higher shipments and better production performance. If we start with prices, prices on average being 5% lower than last year.

Here we also have impact through the stronger Swedish crown, FX is offsetting this minor positive impact in underlying prices, however, again compensated by this positive impact in the variable cost. To point out that iron ore and coking coal, those were lower compared to last year, while scrap cost was higher compared to previous year Q1.

Volumes, they were 60 kilotonnes higher in Q1 this year compared to previous year. Both Special Steel division and Europe division had higher shipments than last year.

The capacity utilization, there the biggest contribution is actually coming through Europe division, followed by Special Steel division. Just to point out that in Q1, big improvement in the European division mills.

Cash flow analysis, Q1 this year compared to previous year, as the table is well illustrating, very similar trend both years. This is representing sort of the seasonality that Johnny was already referring to when it comes to change in working capital.

Q4, we tend to have a positive impact, and during Q1, we have this negative impact that is mainly related to the fact that during Q4, we are building raw material inventories, and these large invoices we are paying out during Q1. Also, the accounts receivable is going up during Q1 with higher sales.

Inventories were somewhat lower during Q1 compared to previous quarter. The outlook for Q2 is that the change in working capital will be less negative, as we will have a lower build in the working capital.

Maintenance CapEx, fairly similar level as previous year. The other line here tends to be related to CO2 emission allowance transactions.

The strategic expenditures, almost double compared to previous year, and, of course, this is now through Oxelösund, Luleå transactions. We have actually added more information on the strategic spend in our external report.

No dividend paid out in Q1, but to bear in mind that during Q2, there will be dividend payout if the AGM later today will approve the proposal by the board of 2 Swedish crowns per share, which is then just below 2 billion payout during Q2. This cash flow is leading to net cash position of 9.6 billion, and the gearing -14%.

End of last year level was 11.6 billion with gearing -17%. Of course, the biggest reason behind this drop is actually the strategic investment close to 1.5 billion, and on top of that, we add this FX impact related to currency-related assets and liabilities, which was around 400 million.

Raw material, this slide we have updated. We have drawn this iron ore and coking coal price development as indexed.

We start from Q4 '24. As the graph is illustrating, Q1 this year, the cost of iron ore and coking coal was slightly higher compared to Q4, however, lower compared to previous year.

That was giving the positive impact in the Nordic mills and Special Steel division and Europe division. The outlook for Q2 is that the prices will be somewhat higher or the cost of raw material consumption actually slightly higher than Q1.

To remind that the lag in the impact in iron ore is one quarter and in coking coal a bit longer, 1.5 quarter. Then on the right-hand side, we have the scrap price in US, and as the graph is illustrating, during Q1 '26, we had higher cost compared to Q4 last year and also slightly higher cost than Q1 last year.

The outlook, however, is that the prices have stabilized, and then the cost will be more stable for Q2 compared to Q1. The lag in scrap cost is around 1 month.

Maintenance cost, this table we have not updated, this is exactly the same that we were showing last time. To remind Q1, Q2, we don't have major planned maintenance outages, most of them will take place Q3 and Q4, and the full year spend in maintenance cost is fairly well in line with the previous year on a similar level.

The CapEx guidance, this we have not updated either, we are sticking to this year view that the maintenance CapEx is remaining on the same level as last year. Strategic CapEx last year was 7.2 billion, this year it will be around 10 billion, and, of course, related to transformation projects Oxelösund and Luleå, where we are picking up the pace in investments.

We were also guiding the impact in cash flow when it comes to CO2 emission allowances, and we have kept the estimate on the same level. During '26, that will be on a similar level as '25, which was just above 700 million.

Also, we were telling about our IT projects that we have started during last year, biggest one focusing on this minimill ERP environment build. These projects will continue also during '26, and this will be reported as operational expenses, and we are following these in the other division.

Impact of these activities on annual level estimated to be 200 million SEK. With this, I give it back to Johnny.

Thank you very much, Leena. I will give a short summary and outlook.

Normally I will go through the different segments, but I think what's important here is not really what's happening with the underlying demand, it's actually what's happening with the supply and demand situation and the regionalization that we can see on the market. As you all know, this Made in America policy with the Section 232, they have implemented a more stricter condition with the melt and pour, and they did that 2024.

Then 2025, we added these up to 50% import tax for steel coming in to United States, but they've also added sort of these derivatives that they need to be paying an import tax on that as well. For us, we can clearly see that the import level into United States have reduced significantly, decreased to less than 2%.

That means that there is sort of a higher demand than supply, especially if you talk about these industrial segments, we see a very high demand. That is, of course, benefiting SSAB, since most of what we sell in the United States are actually produced in the United States.

We are one of the few plate producers in the United States. Now we see similar things are happening in Europe.

Now the CBAM was implemented 1st of January, that immediately meant a price increase, but now it seems as if the European Commission will take the decision to implement the safeguards from 1st of July. That means that roughly 18 million tonnes will be subjected to an import tax of 50%.

Here this will, of course, change the supply and demand situation. Now, just like we could see in November, December that the import into Europe increased just before the CBAM, we see similar behaviors now that distributors are increasing their inventory just before the new sort of tariffs will take place from 1st of July.

Hence, there might be a temporary hampering of the price increase, but as soon as these inventories are going down, it's very likely that prices will go up due to supply and demand situation. I think that's probably the biggest impact on the steel market in Europe and United States where we are mostly active, hence sort of what's happening in the segments are of less importance.

The guidance we've made, they look pretty much the same for the all three divisions: shipments stable, and prices somewhat higher. I guess there will be some questions on the prices going forward.

I think I will save my answer to those questions, because I can understand that there are questions on that. Let's wait with that until we have open up for questions.

To summarize, we see financial improvements in SSAB Europe and SSAB Americas. I'm very happy and pleased with that.

I'm happy with the whole organization and the way they have managed the production output, and the shipments. We continue to see a very good and stable earnings in SSAB Special Steels, and the shipments were also higher than it has been for a long period of time.

I'm very pleased about that. Also, I'm very happy to see the progress of the Oxelösund conversion from a blast furnace to an electric arc furnace is progressing according to plan, and it's very close to being finalized.

I'm also very pleased about that. With that, Per, I think I'm done with my summary.

Thank you, Johnny, and thank you, Leena. Now then we can prepare for the Q&A.

In order now let as many people as possible ask questions, I suggest we limit to two questions each here in the first round. We also have our AGM today, we will need to close at around 11:00 this conference.

There's good time now, it shouldn't be a problem. Then I would please ask the operator to present instructions.

Hi, guys, and thank you for taking my questions. You touched on this briefly a bit earlier, Johnny, but regarding the illness reports in Luleå, some sort of toxicology experts from Karolinska have been in the paper suggesting that one possible explanation could be vanadium-containing slag sort of generating airborne dust.

I appreciate it's too early to draw any conclusions, and that you're still conducting tests, but if that turns out to be the case, what would it mean for the sort of restart timeline construction? I guess how fast could that be resolved, and could it have any implications for the environmental permit?

Yeah.

Just like you said, we don't want to speculate, you're absolutely right about that, and we want to have facts on the table. If let's say if this would be the case, this would not mean the whole area.

Because we've done 170 ground testing. We know pretty much what's in the ground.

If we would have vanadium in some area, it's from the LD slag, and that would be a smaller part of that industrial area. Of course, we would handle that according to the guidelines that we have.

There are clear guidelines of how that would be dealt with. Of course we would then need to remove that soil, and how much time and how much cost that will mean, it's hard to speculate.

Having in mind, we have already moved 3 million tonnes of material from that area over a period of 3 years without any sort of illnesses or incidents being reported. All of this is a surprise, and we're very puzzled.

Having said that, we've done more than 150,000 gas readings without any reading close to the threshold or above the threshold. It's hard.

It's difficult to understand, and we will continue to measure this. The vanadium theory is one among a lot of theories, and, of course, we've looked into it, and we talked to Swerim, we talked to a lot of others to get better understanding of this.

Okay. That's very helpful.

Thank you. Just as a follow-up to that, if this drags on for, let's say, another month or two, because I notice you keep your CapEx guidance of 13.5 billion of strategic CapEx this year, at what point does some of that get pushed into next year, I guess, if this takes a while?

If we talk about the timeline, the whole project was delayed with one year because of this power station. That was announced, was it a year ago or something like that, a long time ago.

Because of this, we have actually more time for these kind of events. From a time perspective, we don't believe that, even you said 3 months, even if it's 3 months, we don't believe it's going to have any big impact.

From a cost perspective, it's not going to hurt us. We only have small amounts of additional costs because of this.

That is not our biggest concern. Our biggest concern is the safety of the operators and the workers at the site.

That is a priority, and we will do everything we can to understand what's causing this. That is our main priority.

Okay. That's clear.

Thank you. Just lastly, you mentioned seeing some inventory build-up ahead of the new tariffs as you sort of did for CBAM, but the inventory levels as you describe it in the report are still somewhat high, which seems to be unchanged, I guess, since last quarter.

Just to clarify, did you start seeing it in the past 2 weeks, or do you sort of more expect for inventory levels to stay unchanged?

We can see it now at the end of April, because the safeguard hasn't been clear, but it was an announcement not so long ago. After that announcement, we've seen more activities in this regard, and we expect now also the inventory levels in Europe to increase.

Hence the reason why when we do sort of pricing guidance, we believe that this is going to have some effect on the spot prices on the spot market. That means that there will be an increased amount of material coming into Europe.

Okay. That's all from me.

Thank you for taking my questions. Thank you.

Yes. Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions.

I have a couple. Firstly, on the Oxelösund ramp-up, Johnny, when will you be in a position to give a guide on the ramp-up costs from an OpEx perspective, given that you will be running both a blast furnace and the EAF simultaneously?

That's one. Two is on the plate markets in the US.

You've given some market color about the strength of the end markets. However, the lead times have increased quite sharply in the last few weeks.

What explains this dynamic, and what are you hearing from your commercial teams in the US? What has changed in the last few weeks to support this sharp increase in lead times?

Those are my questions. Thank you.

Maybe Leena can start with the first question, then I will cover the USA. Yeah.

The Oxelösund ramp-up cost, we can get back to that in the coming webcast. We have some estimates at the moment.

The impact in the operational cost will actually be rather marginal. We have succeeded to keep the cost on a good level.

Of course, existing organization is working with the EAF and some sort of support coming from Americas division or actually from Mobile and Montpelier mills. Those costs are rather marginal, but when we have more details, we will get back to this topic.

To your question regarding plate market in United States, we've recently learned that a lot of distributors and stockholders are running out of stock. They have been passing plates to each other just to survive, but now they all realize that they need to start restocking.

The demand has increased quite fast, hence the reason for an increased lead time. Which is positive news for us, because that means that they need to start building up their stock again.

I think that they have been hoping for prices to come down, but it seems as if it's not going to come down. Now with the increased demand, prices are going to go the other way around.

It's going to be higher. That is the word from our market team in United States.

Thank you. Thank you.

Hi, morning. Thanks for taking my questions.

Two from me as well. First, just to follow up actually on the US, please.

You've just mentioned inventories are actually now really low. It feels like pricing could get quite tight.

Can you talk a bit about the 0% to 5% pricing guide into Q2? I recognize there are some lags, but spot prices have been really strong on US plate, especially in April.

I know in Q1, FX was a bit of a headwind, but that looks like it's normalized a little bit into April as well. Is there anything else negative on the US pricing front that we should know in Q2, either from mix or further negative FX impact that you're baking in?

Why the pricing guide is a bit more conservative than we might otherwise guessed? Thanks.

We have already seen, and we know that we have price increases, because we know exactly what kind of price increase we have in the order book. I think here it's a little bit difficult to guide, because it's just between sort of somewhat higher and higher.

We got to be a little bit cautious here. Also there is a delay, there's a lag, I've said that before, when we have sort of half-year contracts, quarterly contracts, those changes doesn't happen until next quarter, etc., and that's one effect.

We can already see that plate prices are moving up, hot rolled coil prices are moving up. Then, I think there is a threshold where prices probably will not move up as much.

Here it's all about speculation. What we can do right now is only look at what is our sort of order book average price level, and try to do some guidance from that.

Okay. Sounds like towards the top end of the somewhat higher range, perhaps.

Okay. Then in your comments also, Johnny, you sort of talked about the segments maybe don't matter as much, it's all about supply, demand, and bigger picture.

I kind of hear you on the US, and it feels like part of the tightness has been because of that expansion to downstream applications. I guess we're seeing in Europe protectionism from the 1st of July on direct steel imports, but not yet the rollout of protections to downstream applications.

Do you see that as much of a risk to your end markets, basically the shift of direct steel imports towards indirect steel imports and basically demand destruction?

Long term, of course there is that risk. I think that we have been watching United States a lot and trying to learn from what they're going through.

We already have talks on adding the derivatives and so on, because otherwise we're afraid that a lot of manufacturing will move from Europe, and that's something we don't want to happen. Of course, it can't happen overnight, but if nothing is changed, long term this will have an impact.

Like I said, the European Commission is on it. They were discussing it.

The question is when will there be an implementation of adding sort of derivatives into the European safeguards.

From your conversations, nothing on a kind of timeline yet for when that could be implemented?

No, I think that would be very difficult to speculate on. The lead times are somewhat longer than you expect, I can't guess.

It's going to be impossible.

Okay. Fair enough.

Thank you. I'll turn it back.

Yes. Hi.

Thank you for taking my questions. The first is a follow-up on Europe and your comment on the ASP guidance.

I just wanted to make sure I understand it. You do expect spot prices to fall in May and June because of this inventory overhang?

Then on the cost guidance as well, if I look at iron ore, coking coal, they've been pretty steady. Why are you seeing a cost base moving higher?

Is that due to carbon costs? We've seen ETS benchmarks being revised lower, as expected.

Any impact there? That's the first question.

Then the second question is on the ETS reform. I think you made a comment in a press release.

I would be keen to hear you on what would be a good scenario for you when the commission comes in in July and announce the change, and the implication perhaps for your Luleå project and timeline.

All right. If I remember, the first question about the pricing in Europe.

You asked whether I think prices will come down now in November and June. Your guess is as good as mine, but I don't think it's going to come down, maybe stabilize.

That's just my speculation. Then to your question regarding the ETS, I know that the European Commission is looking at the ETS system.

They want to try to balance it, but they want to keep it. That's clear.

We've done a lot of sensitivity analysis, and looked into how would this impact our investment in Luleå and also in Oxelösund. We see that let's say for the sake of it that the free allowance trajectory would be postponed until 2039 instead of 2034, we see that a very limited effect on our business case.

We also then did a simulation of what would happen if we took away the ETS. It would have a negative impact, but we still have pretty good strong case both for Luleå and Oxelösund.

It wouldn't be as good case, but it wouldn't be detrimental. It rests on other aspects than just sort of the ETS system, which makes it less vulnerable in that sense.

A

question on the raw material guidance, Leena, why do we expect Europe to have slightly higher?

Slightly higher, as we have seen during Q4, the coking coal prices have been developing up, and to some extent, also iron ore. The lag of the purchase price impact in P&L will come with this quarter delay.

There will be somewhat higher impact now in the consumption cost of Europe division due to that reason.

The carbon cost, is that any impact with the lower ETS benchmarks starting 2026? Or I've seen you kept your cash flow carbon cost kind of guidance unchanged, I'm just curious there.

We are forecasting a certain level of purchases of CO2 emission allowances on the market, and at the moment, the view is that on annual level, it will be on a similar level as last year, we don't see big change in that.

All right. Thank you.

Yes, hello. Just a follow-up question on you mentioning some inventory build-up among the European distributors ahead of the new safeguards.

I guess after the safeguards are implemented, do you have any assessment on how long it will take them to destock before we start to see the full impact of higher market prices from this effect?

We have simulated it. We have a guess.

Are we saying stuff like that, or are we—

You can maybe make a rough estimate. Because of course, like you said, Johnny, we can simulate, but it's a fair degree of uncertainty, of course.

It is a fair degree of uncertainty, but towards the end of Q3, that inventory has come down to a level where prices are again going to start moving up. That's sort of our assessment.

Okay. Thank you.

That's helpful. My second one, you got a question on the guidance in Americas being conservative.

I'd like to push you on the guidance in Europe as well. Market prices seem to be up around 8% in Q1 on average, and I appreciate it's not a one-to-one ratio always, but to me, the somewhat higher pricing in Q2 sounds a bit conservative.

Was that also a point where you were deciding between somewhat higher and higher?

Yes, we are conservative, yes.

Thank you. That's all for me, sir.

The annual and half-year contracts, those are making the quarter-on-quarter price development a bit more stiff, so that's also the reason.

Okay. Understood.

Thanks.

Hello. Thank you for taking my question.

I wanted to follow up on the most recent question and what you said about sort of the contract mix. Could you elaborate a bit on how that's changed in recent quarters and sort of how material sort of that impact is to sort of stickiness on prices?

The contract mix hasn't changed.

The contract mix hasn't really changed. If we talk about Europe division, some 15% is annual contracts of the total volumes.

Then we have half-year contracts around 25%, which is actually quite high level. Then the quarterly contracts are around 40%.

The spot pricing, purely spot pricing, is around 20%. When it comes to Special Steels, they have around 60% quarterly contracts and then 30% on monthly pricing, spot pricing in their division represents only like 5% to 2%.

That over time hasn't really that much changed.

If we go back a few years, it's a change with the product mix a bit in Europe due to higher automotive growth. Not recent quarters, Anders.

That's not a sort of dynamic in terms of why sort of guidance could be viewed as conservative vis-a-vis sort of the market price accretion then. Okay.

Thank you. I wanted to ask a bit in terms of Americas.

As you mentioned, some scrap inflation impacting Q1. Kind of in your high-level view, could you share in a bit more detail maybe what you're seeing here and what you think about a representative level for 2026?

As you said, scrap prices have come down recently, but sort of how are you thinking about it for the full year in a general sense?

It's difficult to predict the full year, because the scrap price is updated monthly and then the impact on the result is with month lag, the outlook we have is only on Q2. There we foresee that these prices would be a bit more stable.

Then, of course, Americas division with somewhat higher prices and then less impact through the scrap cost, we could see some improvement in the margins during Q2.

I guess moving a bit further out, my question maybe more what are you seeing in terms of tightness in terms of the scrap market specifically? What are you sort of seeing in that end of the market?

In US market, we haven't been sort of discussing anything related to the lack of scrap availability, or lack in scrap, but we foresee that it is relatively stable and secured market, at least in our business.

Okay. Thank you for taking my questions.

Hello. Thank you.

I have two questions. Just the guidance and commentary on the outlook.

Obviously, you've given us building blocks for Americas and Europe, but could you maybe just talk to what that looks like in terms of your current order book trajectory? I note in the comments, you do mention some emergence of more cautious customer behavior.

Do you actually see any evidence of that building in your order book? Then my second question is just on cash flow.

A strong cash flow performance in Q1, could you just help us with the bridge for cash flow, particularly working capital into Q2? Thank you.

I'll answer the first question, then I let Leena take the other question then quite naturally. If we talk about the order book, and I can't go into details of it, but I think in the report we mentioned the impact from the war in Middle East, and I think what's causing a concern is that we've been hoping for the construction segment, which is important for the sort of demand for steel in Europe, we've been hoping that construction segment to kick off, to have an increase.

We've been waiting for it, we've been expecting it, and especially since the interest rates in Europe has been going down, we've been waiting for sort of the construction segment to kick off again. Now when we see an inflation which is driven mainly by the energy costs, similar to what we saw when Russia attacked Ukraine, we now can see that construction segment is more cautious again, afraid of increased interest rates and so on.

They're in wait-and-see mode with some of the investments. I think that's really what we refer to.

When it comes to the order book, the order intake has been very, very strong, both in United States and in Europe. There we cannot see anything of that.

That's probably more driven and related to the supply and demand situation that we talked about before, related to CBAM, safeguards, Section 232, and so on.

Yeah. Then for the cash flow, we can say that you can have a look at the previous sort of years and historical performance with the working capital, the seasonality will support the working capital to be sort of less impacting the cash flow, it will be more neutral.

Of course, to bear in mind that the R&C investments will still continue and the strategic investments, and, of course, the dividend payout, depending on now the decision today, but that will take place also during Q2. Those are sort of the elements when we talk about cash flow in Q2.

See any exceptional CO2 outflows?

Nothing exceptional. We had now Q1, we had the impact of 44 million SEK related to CO2 transactions.

At the moment, I don't have any sort of a forecast or prediction for Q2 impact. I would say that it would be minor, if anything, in the big picture.

Okay. Thank you.

Thanks.

Morning, Johnny and Leena. Thanks for taking my question.

First one just on your comment around inventories that are building up now. I'm conscious that there's only 2 months left until the slated implementation date of the TRQ.

Can you just give us a sense of what shipping times look like at the moment, and I guess when that window of opportunity for orders is effectively going to

close? Now yeah, if we talk about shipments from Asia to Europe, and that's usually the most normal stream that we see, those lead times have increased now because of the situation in Middle East.

The approximate lead times would be from 6 to 8 weeks. That window is closing very, very fast.

To your question why haven't we seen much of that inventory build-up so far, but actually, it's about to happen because of the lead times. It's happening as we speak.

Now how much inventory they will be able to build up, that is remaining to be seen, but we have clear signals from the market that they're trying to do whatever they can to build up some inventory just before this new safeguards are implemented.

All right. That's very clear.

Thank you. A question just about kind of, when you look at the market balance in Europe, do you think that European steel producers can actually produce an extra 10 million tonnes of steel come 1st of July or 3Q this year, because you did mention that you're seeing more capacity actually getting idled in Europe?

Is there a risk here that we might maybe actually see, once we work through the inventories in 3Q, that the market actually does get a little bit squeezed?

We know that there are at least one larger blast furnace being started up again, adding more capacity. The utilization level in Europe right now is roughly 65% to 68%.

I think that we could easily get up to 78%, and that should give us roughly 10 million tonnes. So 10 million tonnes, I think Europe can do, but if you're talking about 18 million tonnes, that is a big question mark, as a really big question mark.

Then it could be a situation where there will be a sort of a shortage, and yeah, maybe not on all products, but maybe on some products then.

Understood. Thank you very much.

All right. Thanks, operator.

Just follow-up, sorry for taking this one more round on the pricing guidance for Americas, but just looking at the spot prices are up roughly 20% year-to-date, even if you measure from the quarterly average of Q4, you're coming up to pretty much the same number. On your guidance, 5%, 6% up or where you are, I don't know exactly, but I'm just wondering if you expect SSAB Americas to catch up with the current spot price, just assuming it will stay on current levels.

Will it be in Q3, or will it be in Q4?

We have been pushing and taking the lead in price increase, and announcing price increases. All the price increases we have announced have been accepted, absorbed by the market.

We're quite pleased about that. The minute that we have announced something, Nucor have actually announced something as well.

There seems to be a consensus in the market that price increases are accepted. Just like Leena explained earlier, we have this quarterly contracts, yearly contracts, etc., some of them we're actually stuck with.

We know what our order book average price level is at, and that is probably what our standing point when we took that decision. I think we're just about to open up the orders for June, and that's going to fill up immediately, because that's what we saw from May.

It was just a matter of days and the order book was just filled up for that quarter. Normally what we do is that we increase prices before we open up the order book.

We haven't really done a price adjustments in the middle of a month, but we're looking into whether that's possible to do and how the reaction would be. Of course, that's only related to the announcement.

Of course, we can always negotiate higher prices. To your question when do you think we will catch up with the market, I would say that it's rather towards the end of Q3 than Q4, but there is a delay, and we're gradually catching up.

We have a strong order book as it is, and I think that was sort of the foundation for the guidance. Just like we alluded to before, it was a close call, and we decide to be conservative in this case.

All right. Excellent.

Then finally from me on Special Steels at the whole. You're coming up quite remarkably on volumes here quarter-over-quarter.

The mix between the different grades, is that roughly the same from Q4, or is still the bulk a lot more than 50% Hardox 450 or I don't need exact number, just to understand how you are succeeding to take your customers in Special Steels up to better grades.

In general, we see an increased demand for grades such as the Hardox 500 Tuf. That grade is growing really, really fast.

I think we also had an increase of the non-branded Q&T in United States, and one of the reasons for that is because Algoma is not really shipping any material from Canada into United States anymore, they left those volumes on the table, and we picked it up. I think that's probably where you see the biggest change.

All right. How's it going from the defense industry, just to follow up on the grades?

Are you able to ramp up Armox now for the upcoming quarters?

Ramping up capacity to supply the defense industry is one of our priorities. That would mean, with the capacity we have today, that we have to turn down other orders and replace it with this, because that's how constrained we are for some dimensions, especially in Oxelösund.

Of course, we're looking into whether we can add more capacity, and that's something that we're looking into as we speak. For sure, we have extremely high margins on the defense material, and there is a commitment for us to supply the market, because we're one of the few that is qualified to supply.

That demand will continue to grow. Like I mentioned before, if there are orders coming in, let's say there's a tanks or any type of military vehicle, there's a lead time.

When they talk to us, it usually takes 2 years before we start to deliver. That's the normal lead time.

We're very slow in Europe, I have to say, but that's the way it is.

All right. Thank you very much.

Yes, operator, we have time now for one more question.

Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. Just two very quick ones.

Maybe first of all on Specialties, where I thought your volume performance was actually quite good also relative to last year's comps. Could you please help us to understand how far this is driven by the business basically getting back on the structural growth path which you are aiming for, or have there been some tailwinds from CBAM and the pending EU import policy as well?

Then the second one is just on the cautious client behavior you're citing, and I think you gave a lot of good and helpful color here already, but just to make sure we have not missed anything, have you seen any hard warning signs, such as order cancellations, in any parts of your business?

Right. First, the answer to the first question is very much related to the question that we got from Christian Kopfer.

What is this related to? I guess that some of the volume increases actually coming from Algoma not selling into United States anymore.

That gave us a big push. They left those volumes on the table.

We have a steady growth on the strategic products for Special Steels, such as the 500 Tuf, the HiAce, the Armox. We have a steady growth for them, but the big jump is mainly coming from the non-branded Q&T that we picked up from Algoma, sort of more or less.

Then what was your second question?

The second one was just on the cautious client behavior, just I wanted to understand have there been any harder warning signs, such as order cancellations, which has prompted you just to say that?

We haven't seen any order cancellations. Like I said before, the order intake has been very, very strong to us.

Like I said, it's also more related to regionalization than it's related to segment improvements. We have to have that in mind, but the order intake in Europe, in United States has been very, very strong.

Got you. Very clear.

Okay. Thanks so much, Johnny.

Thank you.

Okay. Thank you.

That concludes today's conference. We thank the audience for the attention and good questions, and thank you, Johnny and Leena.

Thank you, Per.

We wish you a nice day.

Thank you.

Thank you.