Companhia Siderurgica Nacional Sponsored ADR Aktie

[Interpreted] Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we would like to welcome everyone to CSN's conference call to present the results for the First Quarter 2026.

Today, we have with us the company's executive officers. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] The event today can be accessed at ircsn.com.br, where the presentation is also available. The replay of the event will be available soon after closing.

Before proceeding, please bear in mind that some of the forward-looking expectations or trends are based on current assumptions and opinions of the company management. Future results, performance and events may differ materially from those expressed herein, which do not constitute projections.

In fact, actual results, performance or events may differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements as a result of several factors, general and economic conditions in Brazil and other countries, interest rates and exchange rate levels, future rescheduling or prepayment of debt pegged in foreign currencies, protectionist measures in the U.S., Brazil and other countries, changes in laws and regulations and general competitive factors at a global, regional or national base.

I would now like to turn the floor over to Marco Rabello, Investor Relations Executive Officer, who will present the highlights of CSN for the period. You may proceed, sir.

[Interpreted] Well, a good day to all of you. I would like to thank you for your attendance at another call of CSN.

We have joined here to present the results of the first quarter '26. We had a growth in EBITDA despite the heavy rainfall we had during the period and intense competition of imported material in the first two months of the year. Despite this, the EBITDA grew 5.5% vis-a-vis the same period last year. This shows the importance of having a diversified operation and a good portfolio. The main contributions came from cement and logistics, which ended up offsetting the effects of the exchange rate drop and the more challenging environment in logistics.

Another consolidated result was a drop in leverage with the indicator reaching 3.36x in the first quarter, 2026, a drop of 3 percentage points vis-a-vis the previous period. Now this goes beyond the focus of the company regarding projects that continue to advance and the company is still working with several initiatives to organically improve its leverage. The performance for the quarter is a consequence of that with operational improvements, new prepayment contracts and the payment of debt, all contributing to the reduction of indebtedness.

Finally, in April, we signed a bridge loan representing $1.2 billion that could be extended to $1.4 billion. This loan has the goal of anticipating part of the money for the sale of assets and be put to work immediately for short- and medium-term operations. This loan will also show the market that the company is still quite sound without an immediate pressure for liquidity.

Let's go on to the highlights for mining. In the first quarter of 2026, we had a record own production despite the rainfall in the state with some situations of public calamity in adjacent areas to our mine. This is a demonstration of the operational excellence and the ability to mitigate weather-related challenges.

TECAR reached a new shipment record for the period, totaling 8.7 million tons -- 1,000 tons, I'm sorry, reinforcing the robustness of this asset. The price dynamic of iron ore neutralized the impact on cost, especially because of the freight. This helped us to dissipate greater pressure on results. Iron ore prices present a favorable trend so far and should help us in the performance of the segment for the rest of the year.

In steel, we had a challenging beginning of the year with importers anticipating measures to avoid the protective measures that were put in place in March. Despite that challenge and with the negative seasonality of the period, sales increased 12% when compared to the previous quarter. Part of that growth is the result of the performance achieved in March, responsible for 50% of the sales. This shows that the commercial trend is quite favorable for local producers with a positive dynamic in volume and price.

Another factor that contributed positively to sales was the performance abroad and the resumption of exports that gave us to the results. Regarding the prices, we observed stability in the domestic market with the readjustments implemented at the beginning of the year, offsetting the pressure of imported products.

Now there was the appreciation of the Real and of course, this exerted pressure on the conversion of results. The company has carried out a new adjustment in April and the trend in the international market is favorable for these increases. This should contribute to the results in the second quarter and full year.

In the cement market, we see exceptional performance of the company. They transfer prices even in a period of rainfall and a weaker market. We prioritize results, and this shows the result of the cement market that has proven to be quite resilient. There is an incredible labor market, a new salary mass and the real estate constructions from Minha Casa, Minha Vida that continue to increase demand for cement.

The company reached the highest EBITDA in all of its history, even in a quarter that seasonally is weaker. This shows that 2026 can be an extraordinary year for cement. If we analyze the results of the first quarter, we would have a potential EBITDA above BRL 1.6 billion for the year. And if we use the seasonality of the segment during the year, the results could go beyond BRL 2 billion results.

This is not a formal guidance of the company, but shows the potential of the cement sector alongside profitability. CSN has an EBITDA margin above 30%, reaching 31.2% in the first quarter '26. This shows the competitiveness of the operation that is now fully verticalized with full price control, but also with new plants, strong brands and operational -- and logistic operations that truly mark the difference.

We have received more than seven proposals for the divestiture process, all of which are qualified. This shows the qualification of the asset, and we should embark on our expected schedule for this.

If we look at the right of the slide, we have the logistics and energy segments. Logistics in the first quarter also had a negative seasonality because of the rainfall on the railroads. This impacted the volume of cargoes. Despite this, the segment had a growth of 26% in EBITDA vis-a-vis the same period last year and maintained profitability above 40%, showing the resilience of this platform.

In energy, this is another quarter of strong growth with an EBITDA rising more than 92% vis-a-vis the previous quarter, impacted by energy availability and an improvement in prices.

Let's go on to the next slide, where we present the EBITDA results and the EBITDA margin for the first quarter 2026. We see the effects of seasonality vis-a-vis the previous quarter, especially if we consider the intensity of the rainfall that was higher. Despite this, the company had a growth of 5.6% in EBITDA on an annual comparison with a margin expansion of 1.8 percentage points. This performance shows the importance of having a diversified operation. We had cement and logistics giving thrust to the growth.

In the graph to the right, we can see the contribution of each segment compared to the previous quarter. We see the effects of seasonality and extraordinary effects. The difference reflects a non-recurring effect presented in the previous quarter, referring to idleness. If we exclude the BRL 314 million of that effect presented in the previous quarter, in steel, we would have a growth of EBITDA in the first quarter. In mining, besides the new volumes, the performance for the period were impacted by the strong appreciation of the Real during the period.

On the following slide, we show you our investment activities. We see a drop of 49% of CapEx vis-a-vis the previous quarter, showing what the company tends to do to invest at the end of the year, but there is a stability in terms of investments with more disbursements in mining because of the advance of the civil works for P15.

Let's go on to Slide 5, where we analyze our working capital. We can see an increase of 54.4% vis-a-vis the previous quarter because of higher accounts receivable due to increased commercial activity in the steel segment concentrated in March and a lower volume of investors and suppliers driven by reduced third-party iron ore purchases.

Regarding inventories beginning in April, we initiated the liquidity program to take advantage of finished products and other materials in the group, especially in the steel segment. This will be a vector to release working capital for the year and help us in cash generation for the group.

On the following slide, we will be speaking about our free cash flow, with a new opening to show all of the cash impacts we had during the period. As you can observe, the free cash flow was negative in BRL 1.6 million in the quarter. The main factors that led to this were seasonality with lower operating performance, working capital consumption, still elevated financial expenses and significant debt amortization verified during the period. We're going to use the cash to reduce our net debt as part of its leveraging goal.

The outlook for the next quarter improves as we expect to improve financial indicators. We will have a favorable seasonality. Besides this, we will have an improvement in working capital and a drop in financial expenses during the year, payment of debt and all of this will accelerate our deleveraging. You can see the steps of free cash flow, and we are going to address the main points to generate a positive and sustainable cash flow in the midterm.

On Slide #7, we show you the situation of our net debt and leverage as well as the payment of debt during the quarter. In the graph to the left, the main message here was a reduction in the leverage going from 3.47x to 3.36x. This improvement shows the efforts carried out since the beginning of the year to improve the capital structure of the group.

The company maintains its policy of maintaining a high cash generation, BRL 2.6 billion, a volume that is more than sufficient for the short term. In the graph to the right, we see that the main points that contributed to the net debt were a new contract for the prepayment of iron ore, that will cover some of the amortization this year and the positive effect of exchange fluctuation. So, most of the points that had caused problems in the previous quarter were reversed.

Now regarding future outlook, the sale of assets as a plan announced in January continues at full speed with better results than expected. This shows how attractive the assets are and how the management is focusing on the financial structure of the group.

We're going on to Slide #8, presenting our indebtedness profile. We can observe that we're keeping a high level of cash despite debt amortization during the period. The short-term maturities refer to banking debt where CSN has been able to address the problem without greater difficulties. There were negative news that came out on the sustainability of CSN. The situation is not this one.

CSN is still very active in terms of amortizations, and we're working with the bank syndicate where we have been able to increase the visibility of the group and, anticipate part of the funds so that we can continue working we are going to address our short- and medium-term debt. So, the environment expected going forward will lengthen the maturity going forward, ensuring that the company can execute its plan for divestiture. With this, we conclude the analysis of our consolidated results.

We can go on to Slide 10, where we see the highlights for the steel segment. Here, we see our commercial activity with a growth of 12% in the sales for the quarter, despite the weaker seasonality at the beginning of the year and pressure of imported material. Now importers are trying to avoid protective measures.

Part of the growth presented is because of the performance achieved in March, where 50% of the sales were carried out is a resumption of exports and consumption of steel in Europe. In terms of March, March already shows the results of the better price environment, and this will help us to increase the performance of the steel plant going forward.

When we look at the following slide on steel production, we see that the results of the first quarter 2026 reflects the PF to shut down and a reduction of inventory levels for this year. That slight increase verified in the period is due to an increase in raw material and energy exclusively, and this reduced the performance pertains momentarily with the goal of a reversal of the coming quarter, thanks to the price readjustment that was already practiced.

We go on to the financial performance of steel on Slide 12. On the graph to the left, we see an increase in net revenue, thanks to a greater commercial activity in the period relating to operations abroad. On the year-over-year basis, revenue was impacted by the price decline observed in the period and an additional negative foreign exchange rate. There was a slight drop in price in the quarter that offset the readjustment practiced at the beginning of the year.

Going to the graph to the right, there is stability in the EBITDA with non-recurring effects from the previous quarter. EBITDA margin was pressured by non-recurring effects because of market pressure and one-off effects. There are signs of improvement in the domestic market in the month of March shows us clearly the benefit of the protective measures that are being put in place. Now what we see in the first quarter are effects that we observed in the last quarter of '25. We will have stronger volumes beginning in March of the year 2026.

To go on to mining. On Slide 14, we see the result of productions and sales. Here, we see the typical seasonality effect for the period and the effects of rainfall. Despite this pressure, we were able to present a growth of 6.4% year-on-year in our own production, which demonstrates operational excellence in full capacity.

Another highlight for the period was a new shipment record set by TECAR in the first quarter, showing the robustness and efficiency of the company's logistics structure with consistent evolution quarter-on-quarter. We also consider the sales volume that is stable vis-a-vis the previous quarter.

Regarding the financial performance on Slide 15, we observed that the revenue decline reflects lower volumes shipped because of seasonality and the negative impact of exchange variation. This is a factor that impacts revenues in the annual comparison because volume and price have remained at a stable level.

Iron ore has proven to be quite resilient despite the conflicts in the Middle East, helping to offset the increase in freight and in oil. Now the increase of activity in the quarter is a direct consequence of a better performance and how the company is able to preserve value despite these conflicts. We have an improvement in the mix exported with a higher share of our own production.

In the following slide, we see the adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter '26 vis-a-vis the previous quarter. There's a direct impact of seasonality, the increase of freight and the negative impact of freight costs.

Now let's go on to analyze the cement segment. On Slide 18, we see the sales volume observed in the quarter. Here, we observed stability vis-a-vis the previous quarter and a small drop in the annual comparison. This reflects a period with higher rainfall and the company's strategy of prioritizing value over volume to capture the favorable market dynamic without entering into a price war.

There's a favorable trend. The segment has been resilient and will be very sustainable for operation in 2026. Here, we see the segment's financial performance, a growth of revenue of 14% in the annual comparison and stability vis-a-vis the fourth quarter '25. This reflects the price readjustments applied in recent months and the resilient demand in the Brazilian market.

In turn, adjusted EBITDA was the highest in the company's history with an EBITDA of almost BRL 400 million and a margin that went beyond 30%. All of this profitability reflects a favorable moment for the operation and underscores the competitive edge of the company as we have a fully vertically integrated management. Now to deliver almost BRL 400 million EBITDA in a seasonally impacted quarter shows that we will have a further increase of EBITDA going forward.

Finally, we will analyze the logistics segment. When it comes to revenue, the drop in revenue is due to the seasonal rainfall effects on cargo transportation. Now the segment has presented a very good evolution on the EBITDA graph to the right. Even with a negative seasonality, we were able to maintain profitability above 40% in the quarter, evidencing the operational resiliency and the strength of the integrated model.

With this, I would like to conclude the presentation on the segments, and I turn the floor to Helena Guerra to present the ESG highlights.

[Interpreted] Good morning, everybody.

I would like to resume what I mentioned in the last call. This is the base of how we look upon this agenda in the company. This is not simply part of our agenda or something linked to operational efficiency or value generation and regulatory and financial risks.

We have a very strong connection with the business, and we also evolve in terms of our reporting. We have a full report, bringing updates on indicators, goals and results. And so, it connects these indicators with the main ESG risks of the company and our strategy to mitigate these potential risks and the resiliency of our ESG performance.

So, we have that double materiality integrated in CSN and CMIN. We have the publication of that integrated report. And these reports once again follow the main frameworks of the market. What we have now is a more integrated version speaking about risk and value. And this will be applied during the next year. Our performance and this transparency of our reports has improved successively in terms of ESG, and we're positioned among the 10% of the companies with the lowest ESG risk.

Once again, we have the MSCI rating upgraded from BB to BBB. We have stability in terms of our tailing's dams. All of this was renewed in March. And we have had great efficiency in our plan to contain the rainfall. This was mentioned by all of the speakers. We had a period of intense rainfall that did not impact our dams and did not have significant impact on our operations.

In terms of health and safety, we had a very challenging quarter despite structural advances and reduction in third-party accidents, we had a certain gravity or seriousness in terms of the accidents we had. Of course, we have full focus on this issue. And we celebrate important achievements this quarter, the certification in ISO 45001 certification.

In the environmental front, we are reducing greenhouse gas emissions in steel production, in cement production vis-a-vis our baseline years. This, of course, is very important. It allows our company to become more competitive when it comes to carbon regulations and a potential increase of costs related to climate transition.

And in terms of women, we continue to advance in terms of diversity, 12% increase in female representation in the workforce and 7% increase in female representation in leadership positions. Of course, we're making heavy investments in retention to reduce operational risk, the scarcity of labor and increase our sustainability through time.

Thank you very much for your attention.

[Interpreted] Thank you, Helena. I will now give the floor to our Chairman, Benjamin, for his comments.

[Interpreted] Good day to all of you and thank you for your attendance at the CSN earnings call.

I would like to very quickly review what was presented now per sector, underscoring our commitment with deleveraging and basically working in two different ways. First, an operational enhancement of all of the sectors and with a reduction of debt, which, of course, is our priority. From the viewpoint of our operational segments, mining had extraordinary results, in my opinion, despite the heavy rainfall.

And when we speak about rainfall, it truly was impressive to see how this hampers production and shipment in all of our operational activities. And the characteristic of this first quarter '26 was not only the intensity of the rainfall, but the very strong rainfall that we observed in one day, we would have more rain that we should have in 10 days. This, of course, has caused several problems and we have been able to overcome the problem and continue producing.

It was truly exceptional when it comes to mining, steel and cement segments, all of which suffered from the effects of these unbalanced rainfall in the first quarter. Despite this, TECAR also reached a record in terms of cost. Well, we had a cost reduction, a significant cost reduction. I would say, therefore, that mining according to our assessment and our outlook worked in an exceptional fashion, presenting exceptional results.

In steel, once again, despite the impact of rainfall causing not only flooding problems but also energy problems. We eventually had significant energy cuts because of the rainfalls. Of course, this hampers not only production, but flow. We were able to overcome this. In January and February, we had weak results. In March, we observed significant improvements responsible for 50% of the results of production in the quarter.

With all of these efforts that are being deployed, especially in steel from the operational viewpoint and from the rationalizing methods and systems -- and working systems and reduction of everything that we can do. Well, we were able to have a much better March and April also has a positive outlook. We observed growing results and we should have significant improvements in the second quarter in steel.

Well, in cement, we had an exceptional quarter, a consistent and stable path during the entire quarter, presenting exceptional results. In the first quarter, we had an EBITDA of BRL 400 million annualized. It would represent BRL 1.6 billion. Our challenge is much greater than that, and we're committed to that delivery.

In logistics and energy -- in logistics, we see one of the businesses with greatest potential in the CSN Group. We're dealing with this very rationally with a great deal of devotion to obtain ever more better results. And energy also had excellent performance.

From the operational viewpoint of activities, we had a significant improvement in all of our segments, a cost reduction with a very strong cost control, working on the reduction of OpEx. We're working daily to systematically reduce whatever can be reduced in OpEx. Of course, this is a challenge for the entire team that is devoted to this. Each unit is focusing on this, and we begin to see results.

Beginning in March, we were able to obtain practical results when it comes to the reduction of OpEx and inventories. In December, we had BRL 12 billion in inventory between raw material and products under production and finished products and we're working strongly to obtain cash enhancements, improvements in liquidity offering us immediate results. It has been an enormous challenge in 2026 to truly reduce OpEx and reduce our inventories.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank the work of all of our employees, thank the teams from mining, Augusto, Enéas, energy, Edvaldo in cement, Martinez in the operational part and others as they're focusing on our operations. Now in 2026, we will obtain the necessary results to enhance the company's structural part, capital allocation. We are being pressured to offer good results, which is the most important part.

Now regarding the sale of assets, we're rigorously following the schedule. We're not advancing faster or slower as there's a great deal to do. From the viewpoint of cement, we have received several non-binding proposals, proposals that are higher than we expected. And presently, we're in the subsequent process to get to a binding offer.

We have a short-term set forth, enabling us to focus on and accommodate these proposals to come to a favorable conclusion in terms of what we will do with cement. In the sector of logistics, we also have a schedule. We have been working strongly, and we're going to continue on with this to hold negotiations with a strategic partner in the coming months.

Regarding our working capital, our greatest priority is to reduce inventories, as I mentioned, and we're working in a more intelligent way to manage our capital. You can observe this through the reduction of indebtedness. These are the priorities we have set forth, operational enhancement, our commitment with deleveraging and a reduction of inventory. This is work that is being carried out consistently with great seriousness, bringing about immediate results as of March. And I'm convinced that they will greatly contribute so that this year we can see positive results.

We have opportunities in the non-operational field. We're trying to proceed with speed, and this will enable us to have a special year when it comes to our capital structure. We're also very optimistic regarding these changes and regarding the results.

Prices are being ascertained. The mining price, $111 spot, is much higher than we had foreseen. Of course, there's also the cost of transportation and the increase in the price of oil. We're dealing with that, but the margins have been maintained and have been improved.

From the viewpoint of price in mining, in steel that we began to see in March because of the antidumping measures put in place, this will favor the second quarter going forward. We can reduce the amount, improve price, perhaps minimally, but this will enable us to better perform and have better margins.

All of the other sectors, logistics and energy, working with a very good outlook. We're quite enthusiastic. I'm not trying to push non-existent optimism on anybody. Quite the contrary, we're living through a highly realistic period in the company so that we can move away from that situation that we have because of an excess of assets and excess of inventory. We want to go into a more balanced situation in terms of capital structure to continue on with our business.

I would like to thank everybody. I especially thank our own employees for the herculean efforts that they're deploying. We're working together, working strongly with a very clear goal in mind. Thank you very much for your participation.

[Interpreted] [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Daniel Sasson from Itaú BBA.

[Interpreted] My first question goes to Martinez for the operations in steel.

Martinez, if you could help us by commenting on the use of capacity presently. You are importing BQ, if there has been an increase in capacity, something that could help you in the dilution of fixed cost and if there's room to increase your volumes and which has been the impact of the antidumping measures, if you could comment on the internal surveys of volumes that are being rerouted to other regions such as South Korea.

A more direct question referring to prices. Martinez, you're trying to increase the price 5% again. How is this working? How is the demand reacting to this? This would help us to understand the gradual recovery of margins in steel.

[Interpreted] Daniel, once again, thank you for the question. Very broad question indeed. As always, I will give you an overview of what we see in the market. I will speak a little about the first quarter and try to speak about what we see for the rest of the year.

In the first quarter, we had an important mission to reduce our inventory. We did this in a relevant way. Production delivered less products added value than we needed. So, with this, we got to the edge in the strategy we had of value over volume. We had to keep the prices in line, which is when we stopped and volume and price were highly aligned, which was very possible.

But we also fostered a greater reduction in inventory, which also happened in the international market. We took advantage of what was happening in Europe to export 20,000, 25,000 tons of tinplate to Europe. This could be good news because of the geopolitical scenario in the coming months for the continuance of operations.

We've spoken about March. January and February were very difficult months because of the beginning of the year. That in truth began in March. We focused on the sales of March, and we were able to increase volumes considerably as well as prices. Without a doubt, in the second quarter, we will have better results. And I'll give you the reasons for this.

Regarding the international market, which is an important variable in China, the prices that were at $450, $430 of BQ, we now see prices of $500, the highest price for the last year and a half in China. This is a very positive piece of information.

In Europe, in the Lusosider operation, we were able to increase the price by EUR 100. They're benefiting from the reduction of quotas in Europe, reducing supply and offering opportunities for products that were not feasible in the past and now are.

In the U.S.A., there's a great deal of discussion, a great deal of complaint, but the fact is that the price has increased. There is a problem of inflation, a problem of affordability, $200, $300 of increase. And we don't need to be different from the rest of the world. We're going to quickly catch up on what is happening in other regions of the world.

Now to speak about American steel plants, their margins are good. U.S steel, for example, besides the flat streams, they're producing 16% in flat steel, 12% and 13%, which is what we want for the second quarter.

I'm going to speak about how we can go back to a two-digit EBITDA margin. Well, when it comes to cost, cost with operational excellence, Benjamin mentioned this, our teams are trying to reduce that cost despite our blast furnace number two that is on shutdown. We continue to observe interesting opportunities for the purchase of BQ deal and slabs. We use less iron plate, 2,000 slabs as well.

And our goal for the second quarter is to work so that cost that is at BRL 3,200 throughout the second and third quarters can reach BRL 3,000 per ton. This would be a very expressive result. And of course, we could have the issue of the dollar that will benefit us.

On the supply and demand pillar, in general, the sectors have shown stable demand, some incursions of the Brazilian government to offer funding in the tool sector, implement sector with funding of 8% interest rates a year for the businesses that have come to a standstill because of agribusiness. We also have the inventories of the National Institute of Steel. These are inventories for domestic steel, and the automotive and white line products are continuing on with a positive trend.

When it comes to imports, the second quarter the drop in imports is given is a given. You wrote a report at Itaú BBA that clearly shows what the exports of Korea to Brazil would represent. And we see that the lineups of 600,000 tons, the lineups now are of two ships. I imagine that in the second and third quarters, we will have interesting demand because of this incredible drop in imports. China no longer gets to Brazil with the measures correctly applied by the government for commercial defense -- well, it's impossible to get to China.

What we're avoiding today -- and with the new Minister of Trade and Industry taking on his position, we have spoken further on trade defense, on circumvention, and changes to be able to classify some items and not bring them in with the tariff besides Manaus free zone, which is also a place that has increased imports through Manaus.

So, this is the scenario. It is a given. It will take place, and CSN will be highly privileged because up to present, we have had more imports of coated material, we have suffered more than any other company in Brazil. And in my order book, I see a positive trend that tends to continue for the second and third quarters.

The premium of Chinese material today, there's very little of this, but the premium is 10% or perhaps lower in terms of the coated product. It's no longer worthwhile importing anything from China. And we're using our value-added strategy in the main downstream lines, increasing the production of tinplate, the jewel of the crown in Brazil, with the oil crisis, we have seen increases of 30%, 40%, making it possible to use tinplate packaging in several industries.

My expectation for steel for the second quarter is a return of 2-digit margins. At the last call, I said we would increase prices 3% to 4%. We have caught up on prices, but they were influenced by mix and inventory. We're going to work with prices of BRL 350 and BRL 380 for the second quarter. And the price in April saw an increase of 5%. We have another price increase in May with higher resistance from the market, but we should end the second quarter with an increase of 5% to 8% for coated material, mainly.

In the second quarter, we're going to continue to work with inventory. I have tinplate inventories. Obviously, we're going to try to reduce the inventory without compromising margins, and this will help us in deleveraging and debt reduction. I think that is all, Daniel. I don't know if I forgot everything -- anything? I think I have fully covered your question.

The scenario for steel is quite positive. It's based on facts and data in the reports that you have prepared, and I have read them all especially the one that you prepared, they show us clearly that this is the trend for the second and third quarters. If demand is as usual, we will recover our margins, and this is associated with the reduction of discounts. And this should increase, and perhaps we can even have a price increase.

That is all, Daniel. If you have another question, please post it.

[Interpreted] Our next question comes from Mr. Rafael Barcellos from Bradesco BBI.

[Interpreted] A follow-up, Martinez, on your answer and overview. Simply to check if we understood properly, 5% increase in April, 2% carryover from the movement in March, 7% for the second quarter, simply to confirm this fact.

Now, based on what you said of the global movements and domestic movements of trade defense, and to better understand your vision, there's a global side that we have seen since the beginning of the conflict in the Middle East, the cost of steel increased as it did in Brazil. In your vision, with this quota tariff with antidumping, will this help to change the sector in a more structural way? And which is the information or expectation you have for the renewal of the quota tariff in May or June?

My second question is an update on the divestiture process of the company announced at the beginning of the year. If there is a more relevant update or additional detail that you can share for the cement operation. It's been broadly spoken about, and if you have assessed any additional structure in the meantime.

[Interpreted] Thank you for the possibility of reinforcing some points about the steel segment, Rafael.

At the close of April, our price had already increased in April, and this comes from a stronger March. The increase was 5% to 6.5%, depending on the product line. In May, we have a scheduled increase for the second fortnight of May, and I'm being quite surgical and very cautious because I don't want to ruin a positive equation that we have at present, which is the recovery of the volume of coated material.

As an example, 7,000, 8,000 done at Galvasul for the United States, which we're no longer doing. We're bringing these volumes in Brazil and tinplate 10,000, 15,000, 20,000. We're already at 17,000, reducing inventories in Europe as well. So, we're working strongly so that this scenario can materialize between 5% and 7% for the second quarter.

I'm not concerned about volumes. For some time already, we haven't had such an interesting order book. I have two months and 13 days of portfolio. This allows me a certain comfort for planning. We don't put all of the eggs in the same basket. We're very divided among sectors. We're definitely increasing the number of clients. We have doubled our fragmentation in the market, and we will attain the results expected, both in price and in volumes.

Regarding the global movement for trade defense, an important piece of information. It took us two years to adopt measures. Those antidumping activities for tinplate for cold laminated products and others certainly have put China outside of Brazil when it comes to competitiveness. There's no doubt about that.

What we're expecting now until July is that the antidumping be put in for hot-rolled products and to put dumping on tinplate against Germany, Netherlands and India that is appearing as a possible importer from Brazil. Without speaking of those countries like Egypt that have a bilateral agreement with Brazil. So, we're working strongly on this.

Another important point, and I would like to stress the word strong with the internal revenue, we're holding conversations so they can supervise imports from Vietnam and other countries to ensure that there is a B form that has to be filled up so that the origin can be preserved. We're trying to combat illegal activity and imports as convention or derailing of trade.

And in the higher added value material, we're working with Inmetro to see if they can create a technical barrier also to help us in this. If this will be sufficient or not, this is what we have at present. The renewal of the quota tariff could happen. At present, what would be more effective would be for the government to put a tariff for all products because Rafael, there is another movement that is more serious than we imagine.

It's interesting because several associations were criticizing steel, blaming steel and the imports of steel. Associations have said there was no import of steel whatsoever. What is happening besides the well-known case of automobiles is that there are other products like machines or white line that are coming ready made to Brazil. The finished products are coming to Brazil. Something that normally happens in these processes of invasion of China in other markets.

So, in terms of industry and in terms of clients at present, because of the pain and more than the love, we can try to join together to work on the industrial chain more fully, more wholly. We're going to do what we have to do in the second quarter but continue to work with other countries. The geopolitical scenario is highly relevant. It is changing, and we will follow-up on those changes.

Rafael, you spoke about the cement operation, M&A operations or the industrial production of cement. I'm speaking of the divestiture process, if you have additional information besides what you said at the beginning of the call. As I mentioned and as Benjamin reinforced, the process is on track. Based on our original schedule, we continue to believe that we will sign an SPA at the beginning of the year.

We have received a high number of proposals, non-binding offers for the acquisition of this asset. It surprised us. We know the quality of CSN cement. It's the best platform of growth in Brazil. We know the quality of the assets, high generation of energy, the best margin of EBITDA in the sector. The first quarter simply is proof of that.

The coming week, we begin the phase of the binding offers and among the group of players that have made proposals in the last few days, we're going to call upon a small number of players that will go on to the second phase. We will then go on to doing the due diligence, technical visits and presentations.

Two or three months from now, we will get to the end of this phase and with a binding offer presented to the company and the SPA fully discussed. So, in the second half of the year, the sale of this asset should be signed. We're speaking of a migration to a second phase because we have highly qualified proposals, not only from the viewpoint of players, but also the valuation.

Rafael, I'm not going to refer to the full strategy of cement. You always know that we have been able to sell more for less, having operational excellence. In the first quarter of this year vis-a-vis the first quarter of 2025, we had a price recovery of 18%. So I'm stating that in the second quarter, besides the volume that will continue the best possible, we will have a price increase as part of our results in the second quarter and the margins that we expect for the cement sector in the second quarter are better than the ones we presented in the first quarter.

The scenario for cement is highly positive. All of the programs, Minha Casa, Minha Vida projects for new buildings, all of these are proceeding strongly. This is a sector that is very resilient to interest rates, and we have several launches in Brazil. In states, for example, that previously had not become important. Even with the price increase, and we're suffering with this in petcoke, we will observe a price increase with the price realignment in the market. This is a very interesting moment in this business, a business that we worked so strongly in, in the last few years.

[Interpreted] Our third question comes from Mr. Guilherme from XP.

[Interpreted] I have two questions. My first question referring to deleveraging. You have remarked broadly on the working capital management, flexibility in holding back CapEx and some investments and much more. If you could speak about the sale of the cement segment, but which are the other alternatives that you have? And in the part of infrastructure and divestment, is there any update that you could share with us?

My second question, once again, in the line of cement, you have just spoken about the performance of results. And initially, you spoke about a normalized EBITDA way above multiplying the EBITDA of the first quarter by four. Now, how do you expect the performance in volume for the second quarter, price evolution and the cost evolution for the increase of petcoke that you have just mentioned? These are my questions.

[Interpreted] Guilherme, I'll begin with the first part of the question. Regarding cement, I think we've already remarked on this. For this year, cash will also depend on the antitrust agency, CADE, but this is the first relevant movement for the deleveraging of the company. And of course, there's everything we announced on January 15, much better qualitatively than we had expected in the call.

As part of working capital, the company created a company that we discussed in March and began in April to improve the debt of the company and in terms of working capital of the company to eliminate material volumes that could represent some billions of BRLs and whose main focus is the reduction of inventory, MRO, intermediate products, finished products from all segments that have a higher contribution. This is a mass of BRL 12 billion.

So, all of this would contribute to the company cash. And this asset is very relevant and undergoes the weekly follow-up of the company and will contribute to our cash flow for the year. Now of course, we're working on the company CapEx. We're holding back the CapEx level similar to 2025.

Now of course, there is growth because of P15 that will have to be concluded until the end of 2027. When we compare this quarter with the same quarter last year, investments were similar, with a reduction in steel and an increase in mining because of the speed-up in P15. These are a few billion BRLs. Now if the free cash flow of the year is not what we want, we can continue managing this.

In other calls, the commitment of the company is a material deleveraging. Benjamin mentioned this, as we did ourselves in our call. We have the cement process, the infrastructure process that is doing very well. In the last few months, we have devoted a great deal of time to long-term contracts, ports and customers, tariffs and other conditions so that the potential buyer can receive a full package of information that is highly detailed. In the second quarter, we will speed up the infrastructure process. And in the next call, we should be offering you very good news.

Besides these two topics in deleveraging, the company has non-core assets that can also be used to complement or increase the deleveraging pace of the company. We have real estate. They're not operational. We have several billion BRLs of assets that could be monetized in the short and medium term besides other activities, of course, that are not core for the company.

The focus, therefore, is on speeding up as much as possible. What we see this year besides cement and infrastructure, we're working on working capital that will provide positive results and other sales initiatives of assets of the company that we will announce further ahead. In the next call, we should have good news on that front.

[Interpreted] Guilherme, this is Edvaldo. To try to answer your question on supply, I believe it's important to highlight that we have a resilient market. Last year, Brazil was at 3.7%. In this quarter, we are above 2%, a positive outlook in that sense. As was mentioned here, we have significant cost pressure at present on the entire sector, not only in our company because of the international geopolitical scenario.

And all of this brings about a price increase in raw material. In Brazil, we have diesel, minimum freight increases. And of course, this leads to a cost increase. As Martinez mentioned, in the trade strategy and profitability strategy, we're working towards offsetting that cost increase. In the market, we're using our plants at above 70%. And of course, this will facilitate the recovery of prices. The use of capacity of companies in Brazil is quite low. And this will be one of the main drivers for cement during the year.

In the first quarter, we had a historical record for the company. It was a record in a quarter that normally was low. But without making projections, we have the expectation that in coming quarters, these figures will be even stronger. All of this based on our internal competencies, differentials, our competitive edge. The fragmentation of sales, as Martinez mentioned, a very assertive quest for productivity, a focus on better quality.

We are the greatest user of railroad for the distribution of cement in Brazil. This, of course, is very important. We have streamlined plants on average compared to the rest of the sector with low energy consumption and an optimized people structure with great competency, a strong cost management in the company. So, we have all of those in-house elements that allow us to have a positive and resilient market to deliver the levels mentioned by Marco and Benjamin in the coming quarters.

[Interpreted] Our next question comes from Ricardo Monegaglia from Banco Safra.

[Interpreted] Two questions, perhaps more geared to Marco Rabello. First, the bridge loan. You said that there is a potential expansion of the initial BRL 1.2 billion to BRL 1.4 billion. What are the conditions for this expansion?

You also mentioned that the cash of the loan will be earmarked for short-term amortization. What are the priorities in this sense to reduce your debt? If you could give us more color in the gains we can see here in NPG for the reduction of debt, if there is a positive impact in terms of your financial expenses that are being paid.

The second question, a follow-up on the cement M&A. What is the company mindset? Does it make more sense for the company to sell to a strategic partner, a financial partner? How much of the company will be sold, 50% or 100%? And the brownfield, because part of the equipment has already been purchased, how much is included in the valuation that you're working with these different stakeholders at present?

[Interpreted] Ricardo, thank you for the questions. Let's begin with the bridge loan here. The bridge loan is a bridge loan. It's in the format of a committed loan. We're withdrawing what we need. We don't want to pay unnecessary interest rates. We withdraw the money as we use it in refunding. The expansion to BRL 1.4 billion will be based on the company decision.

This operation was important for some reasons. One, to show the bankability of CSN and how it is supported by the financial market. We have several banks that have joined here, and there are four more banks that want to be part of this syndicate for the BRL 1.4 billion. I'm not going to use all of the resources to pay more commitment fees and use the company resources.

Once again, the decision depends on us. If the decision to sell cement proceeds rapidly and efficiently, I won't have to use that funding line. The cement will do its job. We don't want financial inefficiency, but we will take the decision in terms of what to do. And if we could do away with the debt of '27, '28 and going forward, we could refinance that resource.

Now our decision will take into account the less efficient debt that have a structure we don't want to remain in or where the cost is undue for the company. And of course, the best negotiations at banks where to roll the debt, we can pay the lowest installment of the debt and roll it under better conditions of other banks.

Now, the banks that will offer the best conditions will be a priority in the use of that cash. We want the longest debt at the lowest cost. Those that offer the more efficient conditions will be in a privileged position. We have the bond for 2028, $1.3 billion with maturity in 2028. We want to decrease that as soon as possible and use part of the cash and the refunding of this bond. And whatever we do will be relevant.

It's important as part of the company plan to do this as soon as possible. We don't want to get to 2027 to deal with this. We want to do this in the next month of the year 2026. The NPV of that line -- we haven't carried out a financial exchange. We don't know the condition of the debt. We haven't worked on a calculation of NPV.

For cement, we should receive a very large volume of binding offers in some days. All of the players on the table are strategic in any M&A program. They always have the best acquisition proposal for the assets, the sales percentage. We're selling the control. We're selling the control of the company. But the sales percentage will be defined by the buyer. They will define if they want to acquire 70%, 80% or 100%, we're selling the control. The goal is to raise sufficient funds to deleverage the group as a whole.

Regarding the greenfield projects, I will allow Edvaldo to comment on this.

[Interpreted] I think the question was if the greenfields are included in the transaction. Yes, they are. Of course, these are very interesting mature projects. We have worked strongly on them in the last few years. We have mines, land, environmental licenses that have already been approved or under approval. This increases the value. Now, we have to see what we're truly expecting as part of this process.

[Interpreted] Excellent. Besides the greenfields that Edvaldo remarked on, the property does belong to CSNA. We have two power plants that are generating energy and other important assets, a huge volume of mining rights and others that transforms CSN on the best growth platform in the entire country.

[Interpreted] Our next question comes from Mr. Pedro Mello from Citi.

[Interpreted] First of all, congratulations for the results in cement. My question, once again, will be about some points on the verticals that have not been explored, variables that will better help us understand the transaction.

Does it help to think about the evolution of BRL 1.6 billion to BRL 2 billion valuation and you're reviewing your expectations for the year for this vertical. Well, is the valuation closer to 1.6 or 2.6? This is my question.

If you can confirm the net debt of this vertical expected for the end of the year, this could help us to analyze the sales multiples. Third of all, how long lasting can this cement movement be in your opinion, given the expectation of drop of interest rates at some point of time?

[Interpreted] Pedro, well, let's answer the questions between Martinez, Edvaldo and myself. Yes, the sector as a whole is recognizing that the year 2026 is a good year and the valuation of the EBITDA varies from quarter-to-quarter. Perhaps Martinez can reinforce this. It's connected to finally having a price recovery in the cement sector. In Brazil, it was almost $100 in Brazil and the U.S., our price was 1/3. So, there's enormous room for recovery in the price of cement.

And before handing over the floor, the question on net debt at the end of the year in cement, BRL 2.8 billion of net debt. We're not leveraging the company anymore. We're holding back on this, BRL 2.8 billion if we use the assumption of the EBITDA last year. Well, you can look at the difference and take this away from our net debt. The rest will be transferred into cash generation, BRL 618 million in working capital, and this could go up to BRL 2 billion. This is not company guidance. You would have to do this exercise.

[Interpreted] Pedro, regarding the question about the market Edvaldo can complement this. He clearly mentioned that the level of utilization of the industry is 75% to 80%, which is very relevant. You can say it's far from 100%, but it is not. Above that capacity the cost does not make it feasible to compete. And all of this underscored by the issue of freight.

Now cement, the result is a net FOB. You want to sell as close as possible to have the best margins. And all of this has an influence and leverages us a great deal as we are positioned in locations we selected to service the market as a whole. A clear example, 2013-2014, World Cup and Olympic Games. Consumption was 71 million, 72 million tons a year. After that, there was a drop in 2015. It dropped to a low level of BRL 53 million. We're now back at BRL 65 million or BRL 66 million, still not at the level of BRL 71 million, BRL 72 million.

From the market viewpoint, this year, we don't see any reversal in this. If we look at projections of Sinduscon and other entities, people from IBRACON, from concrete, industrialized construction. The projections are all positive. The GDP for civil construction is 2% to 2.5% for coming years. Funding, which is somewhat expensive, is still strong and resilient, especially in Minha Casa, Minha Vida. Sale of new buildings from some ranges continues to be normal regionalized with different demands among states. So, from the viewpoint of the market, I do believe we have a robust equation at least for this year.

And to speak about price recovery in the second quarter, at the end of April. We're going to have an EBITDA of BRL 380 million every quarter, much more expressive than what we had in the first quarter. We're going to have an EBITDA of BRL 380 million every quarter, much more expressive than what we had in the first quarter.

I'll give the floor to Edvaldo to add to this quickly.

[Interpreted] The drivers of the sector are, first of all, volume. We said the market is growing. We're going to follow up on the market growth with a focus on profitability, of course.

Another point that is under pressure is costs. And through a strong management of costs in-house of whatever it is that we can control and operational efficiency, we hope to mitigate those impacts. And of course, the price issue that is necessary. The price of cement in Brazil is one of the lowest in the world. And there is no more streamlined industry operating at 75%, 80% of its capacity.

So, there is significant space for price recovery, which is happening now, and I hope it will continue to take place and offset the cost increases. These three drivers will lead us to the figures that we mentioned here with better results in the first quarter.

[Interpreted] Our next question comes from Mr. Henrique Braga from Morgan Stanley.

[Interpreted] A question to Martinez referring to the quota tariff is about to expire this month. If you could give us some color in terms of the discussions with the government, if the idea is to renew it based on the same parameters, expand it to other products. What is it that you see regarding that system, if it will be canceled, if it will be renewed? How are the discussions proceeding?

[Interpreted] Thank you for the question, Henrique. The system of commercial defense is still under discussion. The government has several levers, and they have a broader outlook that they had in the past. They're looking at the length of the production chain as a whole to avoid the deindustrialization of the company because import impacts all other industrial chains. And this will help us make decisions.

They're analyzing expanding this system even further. And there's a possibility that we're working with putting a tariff for other products that are still on the outside to neutralize imports that have an enormous dumping margins from other countries other than China. The cold-rolled process against Korea clearly shows that there are margins that are equal or higher than in China and that it needs to be combated. The more important part is that the government is more receptive and more interested in continuing to have a growing industry and the entire sector in the country.

[Interpreted] Our next question comes from Mr. Nicolas from Jefferies.

[Interpreted] Two quick questions. First, about the cement bridge loan, if you could confirm how much of the loan has already been withdrawn? How much that you expect to disburse on that line?

Second, conversations on the refunding of the bond 2028 proposal for an exchange offer. If you could update us on that process for the refunding of the 2028 bond loan.

[Interpreted] Nicolas, thank you for the question. Regarding the bridge loan, we have already withdrawn for use about 1/3. So, there's quite a bit of space for further discussion. There is still important space to work on good refunding for the company. And it depends on whether we will expand it or not. If we expand it to BRL 1.6 billion.

Now for the 2028 bond, we still have not made a refunding proposal. We're discussing this in-house, interacting with people who are always looking for with analysts, but we have not made a formal proposal, and we don't know which will be the format of the proposal, whether it is an exchange or not. We would like to do that in the short term, nevertheless.

[Interpreted] Our next question comes from Mr. Julian Lautersztain from Oaktree. Which is your amortization schedule per quarter? We know that you paid a great deal for 2026. What will happen for the -- in the rest of the year?

[Interpreted] Julian, thank you for the question. For the maturity of the year, as we have in the presentation and in the release, we have BRL 6 billion that will have to be renegotiated to be paid for and renegotiated. The amortization is stable during the quarter. There is no concentration on a specific quarter. The highest installment was the bond 2026 paid last month in April. So now we have bank debt paid throughout the year. No enormous concentration on any quarter.

To answer part of Nicolas' question that will be of health here. Our idea is to use the BRL 1.2 billion bridge loan fully in the coming four months. Now the anatomy of the amortization in 2026, 2027 could change in the coming four months. We're going to be very active in refunding our debt.

[Interpreted] Our next question comes from Mr. Charles Walters from Sandglass. Could you please explain the status of the bank rolling for 2026, 2027?

[Interpreted] Charles, thank you for the question. Aligned with what we remarked here recently, the debt schedule is what we presented with our debt maturity chart. We're negotiating simultaneously with several creditors. Now we'll see how this graph will change.

We're actively speaking with several different players. Some bank debts have already been rescheduled without counterparts or partial payments. They're being fully rescheduled. And we're speaking with banks that work very closely with us. We're doing this in a very natural way, lengthening the debt, new debts are being contracted with other players without partial payment. So, we will have a better vision in three or four months, as I answered in the previous question made by Julian.

[Interpreted] [Operator Instructions] As we have no further questions, we will return the floor to Mr. Marco Rabello, Executive Director for the closing remarks.

[Interpreted] Well, to make the most of the end of the presentation and by reinforcing the gratitude that Benjamin expressed for all of the employees. We would like to thank all of you who attended this conference. Thus, we conclude our earnings call for the first quarter '26. Thank you very much.

[Interpreted] Thank you. The CSN earnings call ends here. Have a very good day.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. At this time, we would like to welcome everyone to CSN's Earnings Conference Call for the Fourth Quarter '25 and full year. Today, we have with us the company's executive officers. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded.

[Operator Instructions]

The event can be accessed at ri.csn.com.br, where the presentation is also available. There will be a replay service for this call on the website. Before proceeding, we would like to state that some of the forward-looking statements or trends are based on current assumptions. and opinions of the company's management. They may differ materially from those expressed herein, which do not constitute projections. In fact, actual results, performances or events may differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements as a result of several factors, such as general and economic conditions in Brazil and other countries, interest rates and exchange rate levels, future rescheduling or prepayment of debt denominated in foreign currencies, protectionist measures in the U.S., Brazil and other countries, changes in laws and regulations and general competitive factors at a global, regional and national basis.

We would now like to turn the floor over to Marco Rabello, Investor Relations Executive Officer, who will present the company's operating and financial highlights for the period. You may proceed, Mr. Rabello.

Good morning, everybody, and thank you for participating in another earnings call for CSN. We're here to speak about the results for the fourth quarter '25 and full year, a very special period for the company where we achieved important goals. The third quarter had been very good, and the fourth quarter was not different. We begin with the highlights on Slide 2. We have a quarter marked by negative seasonality of the rain period and weaker rains and CSN was able to present a stronger results for the year. We have enormous operational resiliency and with cement and logistics presenting consistent results. The Mining was impacted by nonrecurring events. We had 15% increase in our EBITDA. All of this because of record volumes in mining and logistics, lower cost in steel and the price environment that began to recover in the cement market.

Now despite our operational resiliency, we saw our leverage increasing for the first time of the year only in this exercise because of an increase in investments and other expenses. On January 15, CSN announced a strategic movement that was necessary to improve the capital structure of the group. We are working with assets that will enable us to raise until BRL 18 billion to reduce leverage and to open the path for the growth of the group, and this should continue on until the end of the year. So the leverage is a onetime effect that is being addressed definitely in the group.

We now go on to the highlights of mining. In the fourth quarter of '25, we had the second largest volume of production and sales in the company's history despite a weaker seasonality and the weaker rainfall period. This reflects the efficiency of the company in terms of its production capacity and its logistic model. In 2025, the sales volume for the first time went beyond 45 million tons going beyond the guidance in 5%. Since the IPO in 2021, the volume has had a growth of 8.4% every year without investments in capacity during the period, showing the capacity of our logistics structure and the efficiency of the production. The combination of record results and maintaining the prices at a high level allowed us to grow 9% in EBITDA for the year.

In mining -- I'm sorry, in steel, we had a new drop in the production cost, reaching the lowest level since 2021. We had significant strides in operational production, of course, an optimization in the use of raw material. This continuous reduction of cost reinforces the structural complexity of the operation and contributes towards maintaining margins in a period of a difficult commercial structure. We are trying to support the antidumping measures being put in place in the last few months, and this is important for local producers. This is reflected in the results of 2026, allowing steel to be an important growth vector for this year. In the cement market, we continue to observe strong performance and the company is able to pass through prices even in a period of weaker commercial operations. This shows the resiliency in the market, and we have a more positive commercial environment due to the capacity of local producers.

We also have a new strategy and the priority is results in detriment of volume with a strict control of costs, the company had another year with an EBITDA margin reaching 30% for the fourth quarter '25.

And finally, looking at the right of the slide, we have the highlights of logistics and energy. We had record EBITDA for the year 2025. In energy and logistics, this is one of the main pillars for the verticalization of CSN and one of the vectors for greatest growth in the group. Now we have a new logistics subsegment in the railroad area, adding freight of trucks to dry ports and [ STK ] presented record cargo volumes during the year with impeccable operations. In the fourth quarter of '25, we were positively impacted by the excellent operational performance for the year, enabling the company to maintain an EBITDA margin stable vis-a-vis last year of 42% in energy. This is another year of strengthening with growth of 79% in EBITDA impacted by an improvement in prices.

Now let's go on to the next slide. We show you our EBITDA margin and adjusted EBITDA for 2025. This was the best result of the year with an EBITDA of BRL 3.3 billion and a margin of almost 28%. This performance shows a strong resiliency in mining, logistics and cement and nonrecurrent events that we observed in steel. To the right, you can see the positive evolution that almost all segments enabled us to have with EBITDA with the only exception in cement, where there was price pressure with raw material in the first half of the year. In the other segments, the growth of EBITDA and profitability are the result of the extraordinary efforts put forth by the company, especially in mining and logistics.

Besides the assertive strategy that we applied in steel, we stopped one of our furnaces to enhance the efficiency of the operation. The EBITDA of BRL 11.8 billion during the year represents a sound growth of 15% vis-a-vis the previous year, pointing to the potential of the company to further advance capturing results. For 2026, cement and steel, of course, will increase, while mining and logistics will benefit from the operational efficiency, maintaining the iron ore cost at very high levels.

In the following slide, we share with you our investments during the period. You can observe a growth of 42.4% of CapEx vis-a-vis the previous quarter. This is a seasonal concentration of disbursements during the year besides strategic projects such as P15 in mining, the recovery of the UHE in Jacuí and the renovation of our fleet in the logistics multimodal. We had a higher disbursement of investments at the end of the year. When compared with the same period 2024, the figure in truth was not altered. The total investments for the year added up to BRL 5.9 billion, in line with the advance in the infrastructure of P15 and as part of the guidance set forth for the year.

We go on to Slide #5. Here, we have our working capital where we can observe an important release during this quarter, once again, because of seasonality with lower commercial activity in steel and cement impacting receivable accounts. We had a growth of 8.5% in the quarter, reflecting a higher volume of purchase of iron ore from third parties.

In the next slide, we share with you our adjusted cash flow that was negative in BRL 261 million, a significant improvement vis-a-vis the results of the previous quarter because of a slowdown in investments for the period. This shows the resiliency of the operation and the release of working capital. The company has been able to reduce the impact of cash burn throughout 2025. Now the outlook for the future of cash is more favorable as we expect a very good evolution in 2026. Besides the reduction in inventory levels and the gradual decrease in the interest rate levels.

In the next slide, we share with you the situation of our indebtedness and leverage. and the behavior of our debt during the quarter. To the left, the main message here is that we have increased indebtedness because of the concentrated investments at the end of the year and the cash flow during the period. Now the leverage indicator for the last 12 months reached 3.47x with the first increase after 3 consecutive quarters of drop. Despite this onetime increase in leverage, the company is committed to reducing its debt and shows its commitment towards social capital. On January 15, 2026, we presented to the market a strategic plan to speak about liquidity and leverage of the group using the cement asset and assessing routes and other strategic movements for the development of our steel plant. All of this will contribute to strengthening the company and significantly reduce the leverage.

To the right, you see the main vendors during the period, the extraordinary impact of the steel mill, amortization of prepayment contracts for steel, the renewal of new operations of prepayment during the period and the effects of the exchange rate.

Let's go on to Slide #8. We present to you our indebtedness profile. We have a very high level. And in the short term, we have banking debt, and we will be able to honor these without difficulties. We have been working actively towards lengthening a significant part of the curve. And presently, we're speaking with banking institutions to anticipate the payment and to reduce our gross debt that will be achieved through the sale of our assets.

With this, we end the presentation of consolidated results, and we can go on to Slide 10 to speak about the highlights of the steel plan. In this first slide, we see the results of our commercial activity with a reduction of 6% in the quarter sales because of the typical seasonality of the period. This retraction is also due to the high level of inventory among local distributors, increasing the volume of imported material in the domestic market. Now it's important to note that most of the reduction of commercial activity mainly came from the foreign market. There's a reduction of 7.5% in the pace of sales vis-a-vis the previous year due to the foreign pressure mentioned and the strategies adopted by the company during the year where we are prioritizing profitability instead of volume.

In the following slide, for production, we see that the result of the fourth quarter is the highest quarterly volume for 2025. We have been able to obtain greater efficiency at our production center. The strong drop in annual comparison is due to a stop for maintenance of our furnace without further consequences for the products of produced and the price per tonne. To the right of the slide, you can see that the cost of production dropped once again in this quarter, reaching the lowest level in the last 4 years, reflecting an increase of efficiency in our production process with a better use of raw material. Now the performance per ton also had a significant improvement because of the positive dynamic of cost and the positive effects recorded in the period. A lower level of use of our installed capacity also helped.

We go on to the financial performance of the steel mill on Slide 12. That strategy of prioritizing profitability instead of volume during part of the year 2025 was assertive. We had consolidated growth of 2.6% in the annual average price despite the difficulties with imported material. On the other hand, we're still being pressured by the struggle of the company against imports and the stop of the furnace #2. To the right, the story is different. We had an increase in profitability in the quarter and for the year. You see the operational efficiency and the commercial discipline that is very consistent with prices despite the highly competitive environment. We also had the positive impact of the extraordinary effect that I mentioned previously. Now also because the profitability is the result of a very assertive productive efficiency that we have adopted for the local market. Now to address that pressure of imported material with the competitive measures being adopted, the steel mill will be an important vector of growth for the results of 2026.

Let's now go on to the Mining segment. On Slide #14, we have the results of production and sales. 2025 was a special year for CSN with records in purchases and production. For the first time, we went beyond 45 million tons produced in the period. This performance shows the high efficiency in production and our logistic efficiency. Now we reached the guidance and went beyond it for the year. This was the second best quarter in the history of the company, only behind the previous quarter because of the beginning of rainfall. For the year, we had a volume of 45.9 million tons sold, which represents the best results in the company's results, showing the strengthening of our logistics platform and our capacity per shipment. With the 2025 results, the company was able to record an average growth of 8.4% since the IPO with extraordinary operational efficiency.

Now regarding the financial performance on Slide 15, the reduction of net revenue during the quarter reflects a combination of a lower volume of shipment with a slight reduction in price. Nevertheless, the results of the year shows some growth of 18% with operational records and maintaining the iron ore prices at high levels. In EBITDA, we also had a strong performance with an increase of 9% for the period with an adjusted margin of 41%. The annual result is due to the sales volume and a better performance here in the efficiency and the cost efficiency. This shows the structural robustness of the sector of mining.

Here, we have adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter compared to the previous quarter. In this case, we can see the impact of seasonality of the period with lower volumes because of the beginning of rainfall. Now additionally, the performance was also impacted by a worsening in the cost of freight, more purchases from third parties and because of the effect of cargoes exposed to future periods.

Let's go on to analyzing cement. On Slide 18, we see the sales volume for the quarter and for the year. In cement, seasonality is even more marked at the end of the year. Because of the rainfall, we have a lower number of working days. We also have the holidays at the end of the year. This justifies the impact on sales for the year. Now in the yearly performance, we see stability despite the price increase in the second half of the year. This shows a good level of consumption of cement in the Brazilian market despite the high interest rates in the country. This also proves the resiliency of the demand and the commitment of the company of preserving volumes in a highly competitive environment.

In the next slide, we see the financial performance of the segment with a drop of 6% in net revenue because of the seasonality offsetting the price increase for the period. On the other hand, the results for the year shows the highest level of revenue recorded for the company. Now we have scale, logistic efficiency and operational discipline, enabling us to capture opportunities associated to additional demand. As regards to EBITDA, we had a slight drop because of the increase of raw material observed in the first half of the year that were normalized throughout 2025. This allowed us to have profitability close to 30% in the second half of the year, the highest margin in the entire sector, reinforcing the competitive edge of our operation because we're working with newer plants and a fully verticalized system.

We go on to analyzing the Logistics segment on Slide 21. Here, we see new records attained during the year 2025. Net revenue and EBITDA were increased through efficiency that ended up in the highest EBITDA ever recorded. This also was helped by the Grupo Tora working with railroad and because we now have control over the entire logistics chain. We have railroad logistics, this is the main driver of the results, sustained by a strong movement of cargo, especially sustained by MRS. EBITDA reached almost BRL 2 billion with a margin of 44%, a level slightly below 2024 because of the lower contribution of the port model and lower margins from the Tora Group.

Finally, we go on to Slide 23 to speak about energy, another segment presenting historical records. Here, the financial performance was driven by the operational robustness and the price of the sale of energy during the year. We had a growth of 79% in '25 with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 54%.

With this, I would like to end the presentation of the segment, and I invite Helena Guerra to present our ESG highlights.

Well, good morning, everybody. When we speak about the strides in our ESG agenda, I think the main point is very simple. We're not dealing with a simple agenda. All of the achievements are in the operational area, in the financial area and others. Now we have increased the security of our dams. We began 2025 with our dams being fully certified besides the advances in our schedule of decharacterization of the dams. This, of course, is fundamental in mining to reduce our environmental liabilities. Despite that heavy volume of rains that we have recorded, our operations maintain their conditions stable and secure with all of the company operating under safety. This shows the robustness of our platform.

In terms of operational security, the rate of accidents stands at 1.9%, stable during the year. We had a reduction of more than 10% in events with the potential of being lethal, serious consequences with a reduction of 67%. This means more secure operations and less operational losses. In environmental management, we continue to advance in our investments -- what is important is to streamline everything we have. We have BRL 750 million invested with relevant impacts in the quality of Volta Redonda and in areas surrounding our operations. And this also reduces our regulatory risk of our main assets. Now we have advanced in the reduction of CO2 in our cement operation. We are the best company when it comes to the price of carbon among global companies. And we had a relevant evolution in the main ESG indicators in 2025, of course, we have improved our position in all of the global entities. We are among the best assessed worldwide. And we have joined the CDP for climate in terms of risk management.

Another important point, I'm almost concluding here. We have reached our goal and diversity goal set forth in 2020. Now we have reached 28%. This is an important achievement, but it also helps us to retain our employees, especially in a sector that is so labor intensive. And it also generates operational gains. In 2025, our program for continuous improvement -- well, invested more than BRL 120 million per year. All of this reinforces what we have always wanted. Our ESG agenda does not happen in isolation from our operations. We have worked to have less regulatory risk, less environmental risk, and this means better stability and competitiveness for the company as a whole.

Thank you very much. I will return the floor to Marco.

Thank you. We will now give the floor to our CEO, Benjamin Steinbruch for his remarks.

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the CSN earnings results. I will begin by the segments, beginning with mining. We had a very good year in 2025 with all of the records achieved in terms of production, purchases, shipment, working arduously on cost. We were able to maintain a lower guidance in cost that was set forth for the year 2025 and month after month, attaining the necessary production with an important follow-up of the shipments at the port. Now the forecast with investments, especially regarding P15 are materializing according to the schedule. We're following on the evolution closely of this project is one of the main projects for mining. The prices are higher than the market expected. This contributed to our results as well as contributing for our performance in 2026.

We had that outlook of a price increase because of the war, because of China. We had significant increases in prices very recently. And of course, we have our commitment with cost. This is part of the lower range of the guidance, a commitment that we have made and we are following up on the increase of production at the ports month after month with good results. Therefore, I think the results are better than we had expected, not only in terms of production, but also in terms of shipments, purchases and reducing costs. I would say that we're doing the same this year. We're challenging ourselves ever more in production, in mining and the shipments at the port with a constant cost reduction. In terms of steel, we began important work in the second half of last year to reduce costs, to have more predictable production.

And quarter-on-quarter, we work to obtain these results. We have already reached the lower cost -- lowest cost in the steel mill in the last few years, and we're working on this to make it something constant so that we can ever more have a cost reduction with the measures adopted by the government in terms of antidumping that had an enormous impact on our value-added products on our coated products that were coming in, in volumes higher than 60% to 70% in the market. And with the present day measures, we believe the Brazilian market can go back to normalcy working without these aggressive measures and the turbulence due to the excessive imports we were facing. We believe that prices will slow down, and this will lead to an improvement.

We're also strongly working towards reducing our inventories. With this, we're going to harness an enormous amount of cash. We have BRL 12 billion in inventory. We hope to be able to reduce this soon through the sale of finished products of all types of products and also in terms of raw material and products that are under production. All of this, of course, will enhance our values in terms of parts and equipment. Well, there will be an increase because of the P15 project. As you know, all of the parts are coming in. They have had an increase, but we're also working with what we have from other sectors that -- well, do not refer to the P15. We believe that the steel mill will continue to deliver very good results. We're working with furnace 3, producing the same amount we produce with furnace 2 or producing practically the same amount. And of course, this has a significant cost reduction. And this is something that we want to put in place.

This is what all of our workers at Volta Redonda would like to achieve. We hope that the steel plant will continue on with this evolution of reducing cost, but maintaining production with a price improvement in the domestic market because with the antidumping measures, we believe that the market will begin -- will become, I'm sorry, ever efficient. Now we are working quarter-on-quarter in terms of good production with prices under evolution. We had a timely problem with raw material for energy. The price had increased considerably.

Well, this had an impact on our cost line item, but we do believe that the margin evolution that we are practicing can perhaps become annualized, and you will have a view of which would be our results for this year for cement and the results will be much higher than those we had in 2025. We had a very strong price evolution in the Northeast, more specifically and a positive price increase in the Southeastern market, especially for bulk products. So this will reiterate the good performance in 2025.

In logistics, this is the segment that has the greatest potential of valuation for CSN. We have created a company of logistics, which will enable us to have all of our assets properly priced for mining and steel. Now the price is practically 50% less than you normally see in logistics companies. We believe that the contribution of this will be enormous for the company once our investments in logistics become fully operational, which we believe will happen in the third quarter of this year.

Now regarding energy, there's another important pillar for us for growth, of course. We had the positive growth of last year with very good margins. We have an asset that will strongly contribute to the results of CSN for the year 2026. We had an EBITDA that was higher than that of last year, 15% higher, reaching almost BRL 2 billion. This is an expressive figure 2 billion in EBITDA is a significant amount. We had a timely problem of an increase in debt. Marco can perhaps clarify this subsequently. But it was a onetime effect due to the nonrenewal of the prepayments for mining, the exchange issue that favored mining considerably. And of course, Marco can give you further explanation on this.

Now that -- this is simply a onetime effect, and we will recover this with the exchange rate without a doubt in the first quarter and the renewal of the prepayment for the export of iron ore that we carry out in large volumes. This is not something we do every month or every 2 months because we need to have the necessary volumes to obtain the prepayment, but Marco subsequently can fully explain to you what happened regarding our debt in the fourth quarter.

Speaking very generously, I can say that CSN is doing very well in all of its production sector, logistics, mining, steel and others. And the steel segment is also converging towards this with the efforts that we are doing. And what we want is not to have significant cash burn. We see this in 2025 vis-a-vis 2024. We're going to put a halt to this in 2026. Along with the deleveraging measures we have announced, we believe that in the second quarter, we will begin to show very good results. This is what I wanted to share with you, and I return the floor to Marco Rabello. Thank you very much for your attention.

Thank you, Benjamin. Let us now go on to the Q&A session. Thank you. We will now begin the Q&A session for market analysts and investors.

[Operator Instructions]

The first question is from Rafael Barcellos from Bradesco BBI.

The first question regarding your disinvestment plan presented about a month ago. If you could share with us the details of the negotiation and which is the timing for seeing to begin the operations?

My second question regarding the steel plant. We have observed some price initiatives. I believe there is a 5% increase set forth for April. So which is your view of the dynamic of demand, inventory price and the efficacy of the recent measures adopted for the market protection measures announced recently.

Thank you for the question. This is Marco Rabello. I will address your first point. As you heard on January 15, we're highly focused. As Benjamin mentioned in his comments, we want to have the signing of all of these processes in the third quarter of this year. Now in the case of the sale of the control of cement, this is a very healthy process. We have received several proposals after the presentation of January. We have potential buyers from different geographies, several from Asia, from Europe as well as Brazilian ones. So we believe we will have a highly healthy and competitive process for the sale of cement.

We have Morgan Stanley with a mandate to head this operation. We have been working with them for some time. The entire process for the preparation of material BDR information package is well advanced. We believe we will have a speedy process in the coming months. And to give you more color, the signing will be in the third quarter. In 2 months, we will have several proposals and everything is quite feasible.

Regarding the infrastructure, the process is advancing positively. As support, we have Bradesco and Citibank. We have advanced in a different way. We spoke with the potential buyers before the transaction. In 2025, we were testing the potential of this vehicle and the results were positive. The appetite of the market for this infrastructure platform that we have created with these 7 assets is important. The dynamic has been very strong from the viewpoint of discussion with the buyers, but it does have a structural complexity that is different from cement. We're creating something new using different assets of the group for something novel. And of course, we have regulatory institutions involved in the process such as the CADE and others. For the third quarter, the commitment continues to be valid, and we will get there.

Rafael, this is Martinez to speak specifically about prices. Let's give you a more complete scenario that we have imagined for steel for the first half of the year and the second as well. If we analyze what happened in those pillars that I mentioned, cost, operational excellence, imports premiums, competitiveness, value price in the last 2 years, CSN was hit very strongly. We had higher costs. We were bombarded by imports. There still are some imports, and we have to follow the market to be able to compete. Now the opportunity is to change this curve completely.

In the first quarter, we should have stable volumes in steel. And in the second quarter we're already foreseeing an expressive increase in our portfolio in added value materials that represent 50% of our output. Still in the first quarter of 2026, our forecast is that the price presented will be between 4.5% and 6% for the first quarter, keeping in mind the other initiatives that we have for the higher added value products.

We have reduced the discount. We still have not begun that stage of price increases. I think the reduction of discounts is more important. And to reinforce what Benjamin said about antidumping measures regarding China and coated products, the initiative of CSN against antidumping is important because it will extend for 5 years. The entire antidumping process will extend for 5 years. Against China, I think those problems have been resolved. We now have the attention of the entire industry, not only of steel, but upstream industries as well. We have the issue of circumvention and the impact on trade. If you look at the exports of China to Vietnam, they ended the year with 7 million that could be also derailed to Brazil, Korea with -- so we have to be attentive to this.

Another initiative is supervision of the IRS and INMETRO to guarantee that the products reaching Brazil have the proper specifications for Brazil. ensuring this will not compromise work or the performance of equipment. In this first half of the year, this is our forecast for price between 4.5% and 6%. Other factors can also help us to increase prices because of the events in China, the finance, the spike in iron ore, coal that went from 200 to 250. Now -- if we put this together with operational excellence, the cost of slab dropping from [ BRL 3,300 to BRL 3,100 ] with those initiatives, our margin will end up with a positive 2-digit figure. So these are the opportunities we foresee in the market for the first and second quarters.

Martinez, a follow-up at the end of last year, when we were speaking with market participants, I understood that there was a slowdown in demand along with a higher inventory level in the market, along with the ports. Now which is the evolution of that dynamic, especially when we're at the end of the first quarter and looking at the second quarter.

An excellent question, Rafael. Allow me to mention a third point. Last year, the apparent consumption of flat steel in Brazil that ended at 16,500 was a record an absolute record. The only problem was that the internal sales of plant was BRL 12.2 million compared with BRL 14 million in 2013. We still have not gone back to that level. I have made some calculations to see what the year will be like. Imports closed last year around 25%. It's worthwhile remembering that CSN was hit by a storm, 50% aluminum, 60% metals, [ steel ] 43% if we are able to reduce this and go back to a level of 30 million in the domestic market. Now there will be coming into the market, 1.5 million to 2 million. And I think this is what will happen in the domestic market. Steel will also have a strong growth, the steel consumption in Brazil, that is at a very interesting level.

At the end of last year, the beginning of this year, what happened was an anticipation of the import purchases so much so that in February, according to government data double the amount was imported. So I'm saying that the opportunities are there to recover margin through the reduction of discounts and a slight price increase. This will allow us in the first and second quarters to have the inventories in Brazil to be consumed a part of them at least. What is more important is that the figure for demand continues to be strong, very healthy. And the main goal is to recover the purchase of imports for the domestic market and to have CSN recover everything in terms of the coated products.

The next question comes from Daniel Sasson from Itau.

My first question is for Marco. I know you gave us more color in terms of your strategies that we will have novelties in the coming 3 months with a signing for operation in the third quarter, but some things are perhaps outside of the control of the company, market conditions, for example, which are the alternatives -- strategic alternatives you have in mind as your B or C plan? If you will have a bridge loan, a temporary financial structure to calm down the market and buy you some time to analyze that competitive process that seems to be very healthy for the cement assets, especially. It would be interesting to understand your mindset regarding those alternatives.

A follow-up for Martinez about the previous question. Martinez referred to the volumes coming from China. They are now more protected, the 5-year extension of the antidumping law. Are you concerned with volume coming from other places, for example, volumes coming in from Korea. And are you going to request that investigation be begun for products coming in from other countries? Is this something we can see happening in the short term? In May, you have the maturity of that second year of that hybrid system of quotas and tariffs. Will this system be replaced a 25% import tariff for everybody? Or would this not happen simply so that we can better understand your mindset?

Daniel, this is Marco. Thank you for the question. Well, first of all, you know how all companies work, especially companies of the size of CSN. Financial management has a myriad of options, alternatives and strategies, not only to address the liquidity of the company, but also the debt of the company. And we have an entire hallmark at our disposal that we are building to be able to use. And because of our company profile, we will only bring to the market something when the operation has been signed, closed and has become fully formal. We will disclose this to the market with great isonomy. We avoid bringing in intermediate operations about financial operations that the company is considering.

Now to answer your question, and because of media, there is a great deal of information on media about the operations the company is working on. Yes, as you mentioned, and I said during the presentation, we do believe on the sale of assets of the company. This has been very healthy. Cement stands out. Cement has a higher check involved in the operation. It's more emblematic and it draws more attention of the market. They mentioned in the market that we were carrying out an operation with that asset. Now our priority is a structure where the sale of cement is a collateral to the operation. We were very close to concluding that operation a few weeks ago. We had negative events, including other companies that were not CSN. And this generated a great deal of noise in the credit market. private credit funds, banks as well.

Now if we speak about the war, we're all following up on this. We ended up not signing at that moment. We have waited a few more days waiting for the dust to settle. We are now back with this operation in the market. The same group of banks that was with us is presently working with us again. And the operation at this point is very mature. In a matter of days, very few days, this operation should be signed and fully closed. Once it is closed, the company will formally disclose this to the market to inform all the stakeholders directly. Of course, we have other options. I focus more on this one because of its media presence. I prefer to give you more color on that operation that is very close to the closing. And it will be a highly healthy operation, bringing about qualitative and financial benefits for CSN for the sale process and for our creditors as well.

Daniel, that's an important question. There's a piece of data that I would like to reinforce here. The participation of the government has been decisive at this point in time. We need to thank the participation of Minister Alckmin and Mr. Rosa. After a long time, we were able to convince them that we cannot compete with China. Secondly, there's an issue of the industrialization that could happen faster than we imagined and that measures have to be put in place with a greater speed. In the last 4 or 5 months, we were able to achieve this. Regarding the antidumping, when we began the process, we worked on antidumping because this is a system that will extend for 5 years. In metal sheet. First of all, we worked with China, and I'm referring to margins simply to give you an idea, margins of $300 to $500 in dumping margins in Brazil.

And a month ago, the government also approved the antidumping project for prepainted and galvanized with very high margins of $300 to $700 in the case of galvanized products in metal sheets and the end of the investigation will be in 4, 5 months against Germany, Holland and Japan. It's not only China working with dumping in Brazil.

In tinplate, we found margins of $500 to $800 per ton of tinplate. Now regarding the derailing circumvention, route of escape for trade, it's important to highlight that in coal roles, the main problem here is Korea. We're working with the government to observe in those countries and with other products, what could be done. Another country that entered Brazil in tinplate without a background is India. So there are some countries we have our eyes on so that we can lead to a fore encompassing discussion regarding antidumping. We have India, Korea and more.

Another important matter, we have to be careful with this, and it comes from Paraguay. There are some companies that could bring the products to Paraguay and bring them to Brazil without tariffs. We're closing up this operation to be fully competitive in this sense. Regarding China, nowadays, the premiums with imported material nationalized coming from China are already negative. So as I mentioned, we began to carry out some reductions in discounts. They are very timely for coated products. And throughout this quarter, beginning of next quarter, we will begin to recover a more equal level of imports and premiums.

Thank you very much, Martinez. Regarding the possibility that the government will abandon that system of tariffs and quotes in May, well, what was simpler was to put a 25 import levy for everything. It's not long lasting like the antidumping. So the great victory was to put for the main products of CSN, the antidumping mechanism. the government has 14 systems under the quota and tariff system. And there is pressure from the steel companies that this should become 25% for all.

Now finally, there are 7 million of steel coming to Brazil through direct imports. Of the 6 million that comes into Brazil, there's an additional BRL 7 million coming in indirectly. And in the stream changes. The government sees an increase in imports, home appliances, machines, equipment. Last year, there were 500,000 cars imported into Brazil. So the industry as a whole has understood that this is not a problem for steel. It refers to competitive isonomy for the industry as a whole.

The next question comes from [indiscernible] from JPMorgan.

First of all, a follow-up. You're speaking a great deal about investments. I would also like to hear a follow-up on partners in steel. We saw that the result of this quarter, independent of the adjustments show that this is a very challenging industry. What is happening to these partnerships in the steel sector? And if you have news of a potential sale, is this part of the pipeline and which is the partnership? The second question for steel again refers to imports. What do you foresee as being different vis-a-vis what has been approved in antidumping compared to tinplates. Is there a different protection for tinplates? Do you have to speak to the government? Is this the only path open to you?

Tatiana, this is Marco. I will answer the first part of the question. First, referring to the steel plant. We had a significant cost reduction during the year. In the fourth quarter, we had the lowest cost of production for slab in the last 4 years. So everything referring to the competency capacity of the company, well, we're delivering this. Now with the antidumping measures approved and with the prices, we do have this new equation of price recovery, and this will enable the steel plant to continue growing its EBITDA to appropriate levels. Regarding strategic alternatives and plans, we have a plan from January 15, we're carrying out an in-depth assessment process in-house that will take some more months to discuss the type of partnership we want, the projects we will work with, with those partners to reach an EBITDA margin that is even higher already aided and updated by the prices. This is the assessment we're carrying out at present. Regarding your question about the company's sale, there is no definition in the company until we are able to assess investment routes, possible partnerships to support a better profitability in the steel plant. As soon as we have something, of course, we will broadly disclose this to the market. regarding imports. What I am forecasting for the year is a drop of BRL 1.5 million to BRL 2 million in imports. What happened in January and February was simply an anticipation of purchases. For the first point, we're going to be directly impacted because this volume of imports coming to the domestic market will further benefit CSN. We have more added value products. We're focused on construction compared to other companies that have spot prices. This is important. Let's think of a prepainted product that we obviously produce in Brazil. There's a new line that is ready to be assembled that is in Porto Real. We're going to work with that line as well. There will be a demand for this. If we look at a prepainted product, our margin presently is BRL 900 per ton with a slight cost reduction, nothing expressive of BRL 200 per ton and a correction in our discounts, we could increase that margin to $300 per ton.

So the issue of profitability will bring us interesting surprises when it comes to the drop of imports that will impact us directly. When it comes to tinplate, for example, what is coming here will no longer come from China. And in the countries where we have antidumping Germany, Holland and Japan, there will be an increase in imports. Now the growth in the domestic market will be stronger in tinplate in the first market. So we should increase sales by 20% in Brazil in a product where we have a very high margin. So the scenario is very positive, very different from what we have faced in the last 2 years. I think this situation is here to stay. There are other situations we have no control over, but we can recover margins because of the prices.

The next question comes from Marcelo Arazi from BTG Pactual.

We have 2 questions. The first, I would like to discuss that increase in net debt in the company. You published a negative cash flow of almost BRL 300 million, but net debt increased close to BRL 4 billion. If we could better understand this gap, there are BRL 900 million in prepayment, monetary variation. We also have business combinations, something that is not very clear to me. If you could give us more clarity here regarding these 2 points.

If you allow me a second question, there's a relevant impact in the EBITDA of the steel mill this quarter. If you could give us more clarity in terms of those impacts and if this should continue going forward?

Marcelo, thank you for the question. This is Marco once again. Regarding the slide of net debt, I'm looking at it here. The 2 main impacts -- we have a discussion of exchange variation, BRL 900 million, the payment of iron ore, BRL 900 million. And of course, the exchange variation. We had a devaluation of exchange at the end of the year. Now we had the valuation of the real as a strong currency at the beginning of the year and the prepayment of iron ore, Benjamin explained this very clearly. As always, these are operations of $300 million, $400 million, $500 million at a single time, and we do this in midyear. We did this in the third quarter of '25. We didn't do it in the fourth quarter. We're going to do it between the first, second or third quarter. We're looking for the best market moment to carry out this assessment. But our cash position will vary during the year.

And as we didn't do it then, this amortize the operation, the amortization goes throughout the year, and we have that drop in our cash. So these 2 events are events that come back very clearly for the beginning of 2026. You speak about BRL 1.2 billion. We do have some events with a very clear impact. If we add them up among them, we have variation in the MRS accounts. If we consolidate those figures, we had an increase in the debt of MRS, a reduction in cash of MRS, the impact of BRL 200 million to BRL 300 million that you mentioned. There was an event for operational performance. and that will explain the BRL 1.2 billion and a carrying out of a large number of surveys in the company for a monetization plan for our inventory, something we have already remarked on at the end of last year, amounting to BRL 1.2 billion as a whole. We reassessed, restated this amount for inventories, this had to be adjusted. It's a second-line inventory and this brought about a significant impact on our indicators at the end of last year. Now for the inventories, we have begun to amortize in 2026, we will have positive results. Now another impact on steel also comes from the BRL 1.2 billion. It's an adjustment of factors that are from outside of the company, an adjustment of onetime effects based on the costing and external factors for the company. This is a factor referring to other operations. It's part of the net revenue of the company. Now some of this was generated by the shutdown of furnace 2 as well, quite extensive. And now this is put in the line item other operations, something done in the fourth quarter. It wasn't done during the other quarters. We do this at the end of the year. And we ended up having the total impact of the year only on the fourth quarter. To answer your question, this is not a factor that will be repeated in 2026 because this type of classification of event only happens with temporary factors for factors that will remain in place for longer periods. They are not part of that accounting law CP 16. I hope this has been explained clearly.

The next question comes from Guilherme from XP.

I also have 2 questions. The first question in terms of cash generation and all of the topics we discussed here. Is there the opportunity of reducing or making CapEx more flexible for the project B15 in mining? Could we see lower figures in your business plan going forward? And my second question refers to steel and the antidumping them. Is there any update in terms of the antidumping of BQ, any timing referring to the products that have already come in, the prepainted and galvanized products. When will we see this scenario of volumes being reduced from China and a better context of supply and demand in the domestic market so that you can pass through better prices in these product lines impacted by the antidumping here.

I will address the first part. We have a company with 5 segments of the size of CSN. It's obvious that we're quite flexible in holding that CapEx to manage the company or in moments of difficult liquidity. We do have that possibility when we define strategic route for the steel mill and bringing in partners, we want to improve that discussion of reducing CapEx for the steel mill. Now the space we have in midyear should be for investments of 45% to 50% of investment or still that was contemplated in the plan of 15th of January. Now all of this should bring a benefit in the use of cash of the company and CapEx as a whole. And the sale of the cement segment that will also bring about a reduction in CapEx to answer with -- in shorter terms, yes, we do have that flexibility.

The discussion in the company does have that focus on CapEx. And the -- at the end of the year, we should have a better situation in CapEx. Guilherme in tinplate galvanized and cold-rolled lamination, The discussion is over in hot-rolled products, the government came to a preliminary determination, but has not applied provisional rights that have opted to do this because of the red tape referring to control. There are margins that vary from $230 to $300 in BQ.

Now the legal term of 18 months will be in December. Based on the conversations we have with the government, the final determination should be implemented until June or July at the most. And this is positive regarding China, another important case that could be used as tour prudence for the other antidumping problems we're looking at for tinplate for Germany, Japan and Holland, the legal term is December of 2026. But the government has already set forth a preliminary of $315, but this has not been enforced yet. It should be enforced in the next 2 or 3 months. This is the portfolio that we have for trade defense and competitive isonomy. We're always looking at the damage, the cause and the antidumping proven in these cases.

Now the tariff program has helped us. It could be more effective if we increase the number of items. Now what we're going to do during the year in the first quarter, there were no reductions of imports, quite the contrary. There was a strong increase in February. So a more expressive reduction should come about in the second half of the year. My expectation is that we will have a reduction during the year of 1.5 million to 2 million tons of the products that impact CSN. There's a question that Marcelo Arazi posed that was not answered. The CSN margin and what will happen going forward. We had a very difficult scenario despite this and comparisons are hateful but necessary. If we take away the nonrecurrent effect, of the idle capacity explained by Marco, we would have an EBITDA margin of 7.6% to 8% higher than the average of the sector.

And it was a huge challenge for us. Imagine competing with products that have 50% imports. We had to be very creative to capture and bring in those results, although these are not the final results we imagine in the second quarter and until the end of the year, we should recover margins, bring them close to 2 digits or somewhat above 2 digits, depending on the incoming imports, they should drop expressively in my understanding.

The next question comes from Henrique Marques from Goldman Sachs.

Simply a quick follow-up regarding steel. For the first quarter, you will have an increase of 4% to 6%. That wasn't very clear for me. Or is it simply a reduction of discounts for the first quarter. Now given that outlook of a potential improvement in volume and a drop in imports, is there any planning? Are you thinking of potentially reconnecting your furnace 2? Is this part of your short-term planning? Or are you going to wait for the Volta Redonda furnace? Now regarding the prepayment -- this fourth quarter, was this a onetime effect? Are you having a difficulty in rolling the prepayment contracts? Is there any type of concern that you have or not? You mentioned that it should come back in the first or second quarter. But once again, as these are large contracts with a relevant impact in cash generation, I would better like to understand the timing of the rollover of these contracts.

In truth, Henrique, in the first quarter, between the improvement in mix and reduction of discounts, we should stand between 4.5% and 6%. This is not the impact of a price increase, but this will positively impact our results in the first quarter. Regarding the top furnace 2, I would like to underscore this. We have a strategy to complement our production with the purchase of slabs. If we look at the track record in 2023, we brought down 400,000 in '24 -- almost 700,000 tons. And in 2025, we were more creative as we stop the top furnace 2, we brought in more BQD. That had a cost performance ratio that was more interesting. We ended the year with 500,000, BRL 200,000 in slabs, the rest in PDQ. And this strategy proved to be successful. We are following up to see what will happen with the situation of slabs.

There has been an increase in price vis-a-vis Europe. But I believe we will still during 2026, live with the purchase of imported raw material and perhaps from the domestic market if the conditions are correct to be able to compete.

Henrique, about the prepayment question. As I mentioned during the call, there is no link with a difficulty in funding in the issuance of new prepayments. Quite the contrary, we have a large number of trading companies interested in carrying out the prepayment. Last year, we had 2 additional companies looking out for the company to do this with better prices than that we have now. companies wanting to work with a prepayment line with CSN. There is no concern. It's simply due to the amount of iron ore involved in those transactions that makes sense for them. Sometimes it's not justified to carry out operations below BRL 800,000 for the fourth quarter, maybe have operations of BRL 2.5 billion to BRL 3 billion. And that is why we do this operation twice a year, not more than twice. We could do this 3 times, but not more than twice a year. This is what we did last year and in previous years. Of course, no difficulty in this case.

The next question comes from Pedro Melo from Citi.

Several questions have already been answered. I would like to go back to deleveraging plans among the alternatives that you mentioned, the sale of assets, cement, steel, perhaps there's another relevant cash source. This is important for the market when we think about amortization of BRL 1.4 billion in 2026. Would you have another plan besides the one we have already discussed?

Pedro, thank you for the question. Now to attempt to answer your question in a very clear way. Proposals for strategic deleveraging in the company goes through the sale of assets, generating capital within the company. And based on that, of course, we're going to incentivize the entire market to reduce net debt and continue on with the refunding in the company. Now deleveraging of $14 million, $15 million, $16 million as we have been mentioning, we have title securities that are easily discounted in the market. But the strategy when it comes to using the capital that will be raised with this financial activity is to do things in the most friendly way possible. This is the company mindset.

Now simply to add to this, it's a strategy, the sale of assets and monetization of assets the company has. Besides these assets, as everybody knows, this is in our balance. There are several other assets the company has that could be also sold further ahead that could be used for deleveraging, but these 2 assets show that because of the size of the check, they will be sufficient to comply with the intended deleveraging.

The next question comes from [indiscernible].

I simply have a follow-up on the liquidity of the holding specifically. If you could give us more color on your present day cash for the entire holding and how you look upon liquidity for the maturity of the bond in 2026, rolling of the other debt in 2026 and the draw risk that we saw during the quarter simply to comfort the market that is a bit under stress because of liquidity.

Thank you for the question, Nicolas. The cash -- to speak very clearly, we spoke of BRL 16 billion consolidated. If we take away the cash of mining, cement and other smaller companies, if we focus on the holding cash, BRL 5.5 billion a comfortable cash for the company indeed. Now to answer to the bond for 2026, BRL 1 billion maturing in a little more than 1 month at the end of April. The 2028 bond, of course, is our main goal. We're focusing on this. We want to reduce this with cash and with liability management with refunding as is normal for an amount of this size.

And as some have asked, it will be very important because of this strategy that we have now, even the bond for 2028, we will have sufficient material, a good base and we will work in a friendly and intelligent way with the market to reduce the 2028 bond. There is an important increase of suppliers at the end of the year, but this is linked to the purchase of iron ore from third parties for mining. This is not draw risk. I don't know if this has answered your question.

[Operator Instructions]

As we have no further questions, we will return the floor to Mr. Marco Rabello, CFO and Executive IRO for the closing remarks.

Thank you all for your questions. Of course, we are at your entire disposal to clarify any doubts that you may have in the coming days and weeks. And of course, we will always meet at these call earnings. I will now return the floor to our CEO, Mr. Benjamin Steinbruch, for the closing remarks.

I would like to thank all of you for your attendance at the CSN earnings call. We do hope that the government will continue to support Brazilian industry as a whole, especially the steel plant, which was the most impacted. And I would like to add that we are going to do our homework. We have been delivering what we have promised. We're working arduously in the steel plant. We have obtained good results, and we will continue to work in this way. As regards supplies, this part has been fully mobilized. We're purchasing in a better way at a lower cost. In terms of our commercial part, this has been very well set up.

We're reducing our inventories. Beginning in March, we think there will be a significant improvement in the market. January and February perhaps was not very good, but March has already shown very strong results in terms of sales commercially. Now our greatest commitment, deleveraging, we reaffirm our commitment here as we have been doing, we have committed the company to doing this in the shortest term possible.

There was a question from Guilherme from XP regarding CapEx. We're working not only on CapEx, but also focusing on OpEx. We do have sufficient flexibility in terms of investments. We're scanning all of our contracts, and we will have good results. Regarding all of this, we should not be working with a high inventory of 2 million, but regarding investments and maintenance, we have to be very determined to have an efficient and rapid reduction so that this can also help us in the part of deleveraging, not only through the sale of assets, but enhancing the capital structure. Of course, we have short, medium and long-term alternatives, alternatives for deleveraging and negotiation of different ways of deleveraging, not only the structure that was mentioned by Marco, the one that is best known in the market. We do have other alternatives that can be put into action as soon as we conclude with this one, then we have a second one, a third alternative that has already been contracted.

So it is our obligation to have alternatives, and we do have them and the increase of debt that timely increase of debt, this is a onetime effect, and there will be a reversion in the first half. Now the issue of the prepayment, perhaps this will extend to the second quarter. Now we have been favored by the exchange rate. We already see an improvement in that direction as well as everything else that was explained to you by Marco. I would like to thank all of our employees for their work, and I invite them to do even more. I invite them to be ever more determined so that we comply with what we have committed to do, the deleveraging and in other areas. We have very good assets. We're going to do our utmost to get the most out of them.

I thank all of you for your attendance, and we're at your entire disposal for any questions that you may have. I will return the floor to Marco for the closing.

Thank you all for attending this conference call. We will now conclude our earnings call for the fourth quarter full year 2025. Have a very good week. The CSN earnings call ends here. Have a very good afternoon.

Good morning, and thank you for holding. Welcome to the CSN conference call to present Strategic Update for the year 2026. Joining us today are the company's executive officers.

We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded [Operator Instructions]. This event can be accessed at the site for CSN where the presentation is also available. The replay will be available soon after closing.

Before proceeding, we would like to state that some of the forward-looking statements herein are mere expectations or trends and are based on current assumptions and opinions of the company management. Future results, performance and events may differ materially from those expressed herein as they do not constitute projection. In fact, actual results, performance or events may differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements as a result of several factors, such as general and economic conditions in Brazil and other countries, interest rate and exchange rate levels, future rescheduling or prepayment of debt denominated in foreign currencies, protectionist measures in the U.S., Brazil and other countries or changes in regulation and competitive factors at global, regional or national basis.

We will now turn the floor over to Mr. Marco Rabello, Investor Relations Executive Officer, who will begin the presentation. You may begin, sir.

Good morning, everybody. It is a pleasure to be with you at the Strategic Update Call. This is a very important day for all of us, we have shared reflections with the Board and the company would like to announce a strategic plan. We have already presented our strategies in the last CSN Day with a focus on deleveraging, speaking about our infrastructure and, of course, unlocking our value potential.

Now to make the most of the improvement of prices in partially all of our segments, operating evolutions. And as a consequence of cash evolution, the Board has approved some necessary movements to be able to work properly with the company's cash. The main goal, of course, is to unlock the enormous value potential of the CSN Group through the development of mining and infrastructure projects that are already under the CSN control and offer high return.

In this strategy, CSN is going to pursue the divestment of certain assets in 2026 to reduce leverage by approximately BRL 16 billion (sic) [ BRL 15 billion ] and BRL 18 billion. And by this step up deleveraging, the company can enter a new cycle of growth of 8 years while maintaining leverage around 1.8x.

We now go on to the next slide, where we will give you an overview of our segments and the strategic actions that are part of this plan. And this important movement carried out by CSN.

CSN Mining, a high-performance group and the main growth avenue of the group. It is the seventh largest iron ore exporter worldwide with a strong EBITDA generation and high profitability and we will have new record ensuing 2026. It's an extended mine life, supported by 3 billion tonnes of reserves. There is an accelerated expansion of P15 and the EBITDA will have an uplift of approximately BRL 4 billion per year.

We have robust mature and highly profitable projects focused on high-grade products that will take CMIN to a completely new level. Now in the graph below to the left, you see our background of margin, stable and relevant results. Contribution margins between 40% and 50% showing you the full capacity of the company. To the right, we have the ramp-up curve of production of the company backed by all of our Phase 1 projects that more than sustain the growth that we show you in this graph to the right, where the company will very quickly obtain approximately BRL 10 billion in EBITDA.

CSN Infrastructure, we have world-class assets with a clear and scalable growth pattern line with the market demand, integrated and with a complementary portfolio with seven best-in-class railway port and multimodal asset. We have a unique infrastructure that cannot be replicated. We have been comparable edge here.

Now balanced growth and profitability, supported by mature assets and brownfield project. This is a highlight. The expansion projects will have an impact on EBITDA and profitability underpinned by proven execution capabilities. If we look at the graph to the left below, we have a breakdown of our results, our growing result with EBITDA margins between 40% and 50%. And to the right, our growth of EBITDA graph sustained by vehicles that are already part of the CSN Group, some of which are in the final stage of execution, several of which are undergoing expansion.

All together, they will allow the CSN infrastructure to reach more than BRL 60 billion in the near future. Now for CSN infrastructure, what is part of our plan is to sell a relevant share of some assets still in 2026. We have a vehicle that will become the best enterprise in the entire group.

Now CSN Cement is the main player in the cement production in Brazil. We have a leadership in this integrated cement production at a competitive cost and the highest margins. We have unique growth potential with a greenfield project and brownfield project at advanced stages.

We have differentiated access to mining reserves and rights, energy benefits and a highly efficient logistics, thus consolidating CSN cement as the best platform in the sector.

The market growth, while we have seen the price recovery already in 2025. And this, of course, will for the new results that we will have throughout 2026.

If we look at the graph at the bottom of the slide, we see highly interesting, very resilient result with EBITDA margins reaching 30%, which is the best in the sector. The short-term strategy for CSN cement is to seek the sale of [control] steel in 2026.

Now along with the infrastructure and other potential projects in a very calm way this will allow us to deleverage between BRL 16 billion (sic) [ BRL 15 billion ] to BRL 18 billion.

CSN Steel, it is clearly, recovering its profitability, one of Brazil's largest integrated flat steel producer in Brazil, a replicable asset with very strategic positioning. It is diversified and has high value-added products and integrated solution. It is present in key markets in Europe as well as in the United States.

At the bottom, we can see the recovery of the EBITDA margin that has taken place in past quarters. If we look at the short-term strategy, according to the CSN plan, we're going to assess strategic alternatives and partnerships aimed at maximizing short-term cash generation for CSN Steel.

Now this initiative will allow us to deleverage and, of course, make feasible investments in infrastructure and other assets as mentioned previously.

In CSN Energy, one of the largest and most competitive renewable energy platforms in Brazil, high-return, low-risk business profile self-sufficiency since 2023, we have a significant reduction in energy costs. It delivers resilient results with strong cash generation. And since 2024, we have a gas segment with industrial competitive and full commitment with energy transition.

At the bottom in the graph, you will see EBITDA margins between 30% and 40%, and of course, growing profitability results during the years.

Now on the road map towards deleveraging, the focus is on execution. The main strategy identified our CSN infrastructure. We will be selling a relevant CSN stake in Newco CSN infrastructure. This will begin in January on this date. So we're beginning this project today, and the signing should take place between the third and fourth quarter of this year.

CSN cement sale of control of CSN cement, once again, this begins today and the signing will be in the third and fourth quarters of this year. We already have partners engaged for all of these projects.

Now let's speak about an important topic when we speak about deleveraging to the left, we have the pro forma leverage based on our latest result deleveraging of BRL 15 billion to BRL 18 billion, we could get to 1x net debt or below 2x per 2026, better operational results that we foresee for this year and this effect could be even higher. If we look to the right, we have our indebtedness profile that is well known.

Now we will raise funds to allow us to reduce BRL 1.5 billion to BRL 2 billion per year and amortization and others will take place recurrently with this entry of resources with a focus on the first 2 or 3 years. And this will redesign our stock structure in the company.

Now based on the strategic line of the company, CSN reinforces its focus on profitability across core businesses to maximize cash flow generation, material reduction in the CSN's Group gross debt and leverage and, of course, efficient and disciplined capital allocation with a strict leverage target.

Now with this, we end a very short presentation of the Strategic Update for CSN. And I would like to give the floor to our Chairman, Mr. Benjamin Steinbruch.

Good morning, everybody and welcome to the presentation of our strategic update for the CSN Group. We wanted to do this in a very transparent objective and transparent fashion. And I would like to add that we find ourselves at the most important moment of CSN.

Our priority, of course, is to resolve the problem of leverage and the capital structure. And we have carried out work throughout the last 32 years in this. We have accrued excellent assets. We have increased what we had originally. We were making the most of the verticalization that we see within the group. We have created truly fantastic companies. We do not have any poor companies. And presently, we have a significant moment in our economy, this challenge of the truly extremely high interest rates competition from imported products something that comes into the country in an unnecessary and chaotic fashion, compromising the growth and the investment of companies.

The companies are true entrepreneurs, and they have to continue forward. So this is a crucial moment and the benefit will be for those who will make commitment towards investment and growth of their companies. And we have been highly insistent, perhaps for longer, that was necessary believing that the interest rates would fall to a reality that would favor the companies that are producing better offering employment not favoring those that take advantage of the moment of exaggerated mining of capital without looking at the risks entailed here. And we have finally decided that it would not be recommendable to continue to insist on this expectation for a drop in interest rates and an improvement in the general economic environment for those who are working in Brazil.

It's not because this is not a good business or that the business is not profitable, quite the contrary, we truly believe firmly that all of our assets will be better in 2026 because of the work we carried out in 2025, especially in terms of profitability. We're managing very closely everything that is connected to production cost and market. But despite having a certainty of an improvement in 2026 as we witnessed in the last quarters of 2025, a more positive price trend in the domestic market. And enhancements, improvements in the cost situation when it comes to internal production, but we believe that waiting for more time no longer makes sense, and we have, therefore, taken on these decisions to deleverage approximately BRL 16 million (sic) [ BRL 15 million ] to BRL 18 billion, equivalent to 50% of our debt. We have already begun with BRL 3,350 million which is the sale of shares to MRS that will of course, be complemented with the sale of other assets, assets that will prove to be interesting for this specific period of time.

Our intention is to move quickly during 2026. And we're doing this with an enormous flexibility of options of how to work on this deleveraging as this represents less than 20% of what we have in terms of assets that we accumulated in our very long existence.

We believe that with this deleveraging, almost immediate deleveraging, we will have an enhancement in our equity as well as in our indebtedness, bringing about value and new ways of funding of raising funds at a lower cost for the investments that we deem to be a priority. We are thinking of having high margins in our logistic business. We already have this high margins. We work with the railway transportation at levels of 50%, 60%. And this, of course, will extend to the new infrastructure and logistics projects we have in the Northeast.

In mining, despite the investment, we do have truly fantastic projects that will be carried out as part of that potential of reserves that we have and the products that we have at Casa de Pedra in the energy segment. As you are aware, we were not active in this, we have entered more aggressively just recently. Our vision is that the future will be excellent in terms of growth and margins. We work with clean energy and an enormous potential to continue growing.

As part of this scenario, we still have the steel mine. We require equipment, technological support, and we will have to seek out the best way to update our productivity to enhance our production in general. And as part of this process, and as part of our deleveraging and as part of our new goals, we're going to have a certain balance of value that will enable us to attain that deleverage and will enable us to continue generating resources to grow in the priority sectors that we have carefully pointed out. And all of this will make more sense at the opportune time.

I'm addressing you specifically to explain what we're going to do, that we're going to deliver this deleveraging. We are going to enhance the future capital of CSN. We're fully convinced that with this minor part that we are deleveraging, we are disposing of, we will have gains in terms of value expressive gains and a drop in cost in the resources that we require for our priority investments.

All of this will enable us to invest in the long term in a more appropriate fashion without having to be blunted by these truly extortive interest rates we see in the market. This is our commitment of what we're going to be doing. This commitment has never been as pragmatic and transparent. We're going to ensure that this will happen. We have an enormous portfolio of assets that will enable us to grow, to add value and to carry out the work that we have committed to the generation of employment, the generation of wealth for our employees and for the population at large. So we're going to adjust to the reality enabling all entrepreneurs who still exist in Brazil to continue to work in a less risky fashion and perhaps with a little more comfort to have a return on their investment that are so necessary for the country. This is what I wanted to share with you. Thank you so much for your attendance, and we are at your disposal.

Thank you. With this, we end the presentation. We will now move on to the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] The first question is for Rodolfo Angele from JPMorgan.

Well, good morning, and thank you for taking my question and to be able to converse about this initiative that is under execution. Which was the rationale that you used to define that sale of control for cement, for example, and infrastructure that will still have a situation of control, but where you will sell a minority shares in terms of steel, which is my second question. If you could explain in greater detail, which are the opportunities you have Benjamin spoke about strategic partnerships. If we could have more details of what you are imagining for this segment.

Rodolfo, thank you very much. This is Marco thank you for the question. Well, let's speak about cement and infrastructure assets that are very important. Infrastructure is an important segment for the group. It allows us to have more resiliency. We, of course, have other commodities in the group, steel and mining but infrastructure has more stable results and is well acknowledged by the market, and this brings us a balance in the CSN group portfolio.

Now these are assets from among the seven, where we have invested in throughout the years. And we would now like to begin to extract value from them in the case of infrastructure. What is being done now is only the first cluster. We have four potential clusters. And well, the results will be very high.

The sale that minority sale complies with our goals of raising significant capital and complies with control in such an important segment and such an important platform and will allow a more harmonious result for the group.

Now cement on the other hand, we're going to begin the M&A process. We're beginning now moving away from that inertia. If we look at recent transactions in other markets, we will see that the multiple of transactions in cement is quite high. And we will have the sale of control. Now this multiple compared to the deleveraging and what we could lose in EBITDA, of course, is very high. So this will be an efficient transaction geared towards further deleveraging the company.

When it comes to steel, our quest is very simple. We're seeking a partner. We're seeking more investments, more technology, helping the steel plant to have a more adequate cash generation. If we compare the investment on the number of assets we have in that sector. Now, I don't have a clear date for steel as we have for cement and infrastructure. This is an assessment we're going to begin with other advisers that are supporting us. And very soon, we will share that result with you.

Marcos, you said that in infrastructure, you're going to sell us a stake in the asset itself. And of course, we know that these are strategic stakes. You don't seem to have this for energy. I understand you want to maintain the status quo, maintain your balance.

Well, energy is a sector we're keeping and in infrastructure as well, it enables us to have fixed income, fixed results with a very low risk and allows us to obtain better results. So it will bring a better balance to the other commodity businesses we have. So energy will remain in the portfolio. And in infrastructure, yet, it is a sale of a share in the holding.

We have received several proposals during the last years. But we do want to create that important platform for a logistic infrastructure for the country as a whole. So yes, we are selling an important stake at the holding, but it is a minor stake, as you can see. And very pragmatically and to respond to your question Rodolfo, I would say that in energy, besides thinking that this is a highly important and positive business for us with a huge growth potential. Clean energy in Brazil, we also use this in self-production and as producers, we benefit from costs that can be shared with production. We believe, therefore, that there is enormous potential of growth for third parties as well. As we grow with investments in the production sector, it also helps us bringing about significant benefits, a reduction of costs for the production.

In the case of infrastructure, we're selling a minority stake. Because this is highly connected to mining and truly cannot be completely severed or separated, mining has huge benefits in terms of the ports and the railway system. And of course, because of the growth we have set forth for mining, it has that need of still being connected to this asset.

This for the Southeast, in the Northeast, which is another project we will have in 2027, we have the same value, the same potential, and we have been working on this for some time. Hearing on the investments that we're truly not a priority for CSN, we were able to bear incredible pressure for the last 15 years.

Today, everything has become more stable. We have more than BRL 1.5 billion in cash and all of the works will be concluded properly. So this is an enormous value for us. We're going to make the most of it, in 2027. Although this is not linked or is something strategic for us. It will bring us a great deal of value because we're working with margins that are 60% for Brazil.

I think this makes sense therefore, to speak about cement, the majority stake we're attempting to maximize value here. In my opinion, the problem is our indebtedness. So we're seeking this potential. And we know there is a surplus. We have that obligation of maximizing value. And based on the surpluses, we will see what we do. We're going to seek out different partners each with different characteristics and attempt to resolve these movements with a silver bullet, a single shot.

I didn't mention this in the presentation, but we're also working not only on the issue of deleveraging, we're also focusing on operations and inventories.

We have BRL 12 billion in terms of inventory with finished products and others, and we're focusing to reduce this capital. We're also working towards enhancing the cost to improve our image. And wherever we are burning cash, we're going to devote special attention to resolve this problem. So in-house, we're working wherever we deem that we have to work to achieve the deleveraging of assets to once and for all result, that problem of capital balance and the reduction of leverage.

When it comes to the steel plant, it's not a problem for CSN. It's a problem of the steel plant in the Southeast. This is not a problem in the Northeast. All of the steel plants need to become updated in terms of equipment of technology. They need to ramp this up. These are still plants that were made in the last century, and there is that need and the obligation if one wants to be competitive to invest in equipment and technology, and to become updated when it comes to the environment.

So all of these steel plants need to grow through intensive growth, and we have to find a way to do this outside of Brazil. We're going to seek this in Asia or Europe, find the possibility to streamline everything in a fashion that will be competitive with the survival of the business. That is my answer.

The next question comes from Rafael Barcellos from Bradesco BBI.

Good morning, everybody. Thank you for taking my question. We have two questions. First, when you speak about those amounts of BRL 15 billion to BRL 18 billion, what is included there? You have included MRS, cements and infrastructure, are there any other initiatives that would be included in this deleveraging? And if you would give us an idea of the magnitude that infrastructure represents in that amount?

The second question in mining, If there is the possibility of another sale of a stake in mining?

Thank you for the question. In those BRL 15 billion to BRL 18 billion that we mentioned, MRS is outside of that. We already have an amount of BRL 3,350 that have already been realized in 2025. They were additional to those BRL 15 billion, BRL 18 billion. Those BRL 15 million to BRL 18 billion include a movement from cement and another from infrastructure. One a majority sale of stake, the other a minority as mentioned in the presentation.

In our accounts, these two movements will be sufficient to get to this value perhaps more than what was estimated. We're taking all of the necessary moves to resolve this in 2026. And instead of doing this in steps, step by step, we would like to do this simultaneously as we have just mentioned.

Nowadays, we don't have the approval of the Board for an additional sale of stake in mining. And these are investments that the company needs. The value is enormous. We are making new investments. So the sale of stake in mining will be left for a future discussion. This is not part of the debate today. Thank you.

The next question comes from Daniel Sasson from Itau BBA.

Good morning, everybody. Thank you for taking my questions and for discussing deleveraging once again. It is an important point for investors. If you could share your rationale on the IPO or a sale to a strategic player, especially in the case of cement. And if you could share with us how much debt has been allocated specifically in CSN cement. If you sell this 60%, 70%, if you don't sell control, this would enable us to better calculate how much deleverage you will have.

The second point, moving away from the initiatives referring to this investment, if you could speak about your CapEx flexibility because of that focus on deleveraging, you have an important pipeline of investments for the long term of the company, 65 million tonnes of production at the end of the decade, how much of this has already been contracted and which will be the diversement vis-a-vis the need to keep the business growing that short-term pressure for deleveraging vis-a-vis the need to make investment. Will these investments be further postponed or not. And if you could give us a figure for CapEx in 2026, this would be very helpful.

Daniel. Thank you for the question. Regarding cement, Well, the company some years ago waited to carry out the IPO. Unfortunately, way back then, we could not ensure success. Well, now we have to have an open window with the right valuation to carry out an IPO. And as a counterpart, we received the important signals for a private purchase companies interested in the vehicle with important multiples. However, this private sale will bring the company the valuation that we expect, even though it will not be an IPO. The debt in cement, BRL 3 billion, the gross debt.

Now regarding the CapEx, we are working with CapEx, we work in a very assertive way. And because of the strategic plan that has been announced today, we're going to have to review our CapEx estimate, our CapEx allocation during the year.

And regarding CapEx for mining, this will be part of that new review we're going to carry out. Speaking strategically, of course, we have a diversity of projects that will take part in the coming months and in-house. Once we move forward in terms of deleveraging, if we are successful in the sale of some assets, well in mining, we have significant growth. We will accelerate some projects such as the P15, for example, BRL 4 billion as soon as possible that will be offered by the CSN Group.

The next question is from UBS.

Good morning, everybody. Thank you for taking my question. I would like to speak about the evolution of the strategic plan, long-term plan per CSN. It began with the IPO for CMIN and that strategic plan had a holding that was delisted with all of the subsidiaries being listed. This should bring about value. And as Marco mentioned the infrastructure segment has very high multiples as well as cement and perhaps now the multiples will be more similar to mining and others. Well, this plan evidently did not evolve the leverage increase, the market is close for IPOs and it seems to be a moment to increase the pace to proceed with this.

My question is this still an ambition for you, partnerships in the steel plant, a listed steel plant or is this ambition no longer part of your desire. I'm attempting to understand how we should think about strategically about CSN in the mid and long term.

The second question once again, a very practical one. Are there more assets that you will divest from presently. Is there any specific aspects that could help you accelerate the deleveraging process. We were speaking about some assets in Europe, perhaps there are other assets that we have not foreseen.

Caio, thank you for the question. Well, yes, with the IPO and what happened in the past, the company, of course, continues with a great deal of flexibility. It has no objection, when it comes to listed companies, but nowadays to raise capital, you have to have that window that will justify carrying out an IPO for one of the assets.

In these two movements that we have mentioned and to speak more specifically about infrastructure, if a private partner leaves, we could go on to an IPO in the future. We're going to see how to do this, but it is a way out for somebody who enters the company as a partner, they will want to withdraw at the right time and with the right conditions. So that ambition continues to exist.

Now what CSN will be like in the future mining, infrastructure and energy offer high margins 30%, 40%, 50% in the case of infrastructure, sometimes above 50%. So there's a focus on the growth of these three segment, infrastructure, mining and others, this will help the consolidated vision of the company. And in steel, I think we're going to have to await the assessment that is underway. It will take us some months to conclude this before we can give you a more objective answer. It is an alternative to have a partner that will help us making the investments in technology for this segment to have a better, slower cash, something that is more adequate and not have to compete in terms of capital with our other segments.

If we have other assets for sale, obviously, the company has very valuable assets, those in Europe, as you mentioned, a handful of them in Brazil. Those assets presently are not for sale. What we have is more than sufficient for the deleveraging we would like to achieve. Of course, it could happen, if anything changes. As the Chairman has mentioned, we will do whatever is necessary to definitely and once at for all make adjustments in our capital. What we have presented here, have proven to be more than sufficient.

The next question is from Marcio Farid from Goldman Sachs.

Good morning, everybody. Thank you for taking our questions and for the details. I would like to close the gap here, Marco, you just mentioned, that what is on the table at present is more than sufficient to reach the deleveraging you want. But in Slide 8, you have a pro forma -- Slide 10, I'm sorry. And you said that you want to get to 1.5x net debt EBITDA. So perhaps your need for cash generation will be higher and obviously, you have a plan for growth of EBITDA through mining and other businesses, that gap of 1.8x to 1x is this to materialize in a much longer horizon depending on market condition.

It seems that those BRL 18 billion are not necessary to get to where you want to go. It's half of your need. The other half will have to be closed to get to the 1.5x. So how did you get to that onetime net debt EBITDA, which seems to be your target in the coming years? And if all of this will truly depend on the growth that you're going to deliver?

Marcio, thank you very much for the question. 1.8x in the simulation that we carried out can be better based on the figures of 2026. This is for the short term with a direct impact on our deleveraging accidents now, 1.5x is something that pertains to the long term -- 8 years for the long term. So everything will be impacted by the enhancement in EBITDA and the investments in mining and infrastructure, as we presented in the Slide 3 segment.

That's excellent. But simply to confirm that onetime net debt EBITDA will not be achieved with the sale of assets, but instead through the growth throughout the years. These are additional investments we're already making in-house. They're enhancing performance already part of that CapEx is part of the company's debt already. It's not a greenfield project or an acquisition. All of these actions are being carried out and the company carries this in its CapEx and as part of its debt. We're going to unharness this amount through the sale of the vehicles we mentioned. What have you used in terms of the long-term cost of iron or to specify the potential of mining or other segments? In the very long term, we're using a metric between 85% and 88%. Thank you very much.

The next question comes from Mr. Correa from BTG Pactual.

Good morning, everybody. Good morning, Benjamin, Marco. Basically, two remaining points as we're getting to the end of the call, I'll be as brief as possible. The first point to insist on CMIN, in the past, it was the tool of the crown, very clearly and it was a silver bullet, the asset that would resolve the capital structure. Well, you haven't focused very much on this effort.

If I understand correctly, Marco, this would be a key plan. If cement and infrastructure don't materialize, you could go back to mining to resolve this issue. I simply wanted to confirm my understanding. It's somewhat different from what the market imagined. Mining is always above expectations, the price scenario is excellent and it would be perhaps easier to make movements with this.

Along those lines in the CSN, in the past, CSN carried out prepayments in iron ore to raise financial resources. I think you have more than BRL 10 billion in your payment balance. Is there anything else about to come? Are you still contemplating this? Or are you not thinking about prepayment?

Secondly, and very quickly, Marco, which is the engagement of investor and which is the rationale of this soft guidance for the third and fourth quarters. I would like to see the enthusiasm and engagement of investors going forward.

Thank you for the questions. Now regarding mining, we want to be able to invest more and very quickly in mining to increase the pace of some of the projects we have. We have the P15. We have smaller projects for fines and others, we can carry out through time, a second P15 that we could carry out.

Well, it's not only the volume important in this ramp up, but a migration to high grade, minor ore enhancing the quality, and this is very probable for the company and mining, therefore, is not an asset where we would like to further reduce our stake, we're at 69%, 70%, an important stake and to justify the development, we're going to continue to invest in this asset besides cement that helps us a dividend as a cash generation for the group. And we're not going to dispose of additional stake here. The focus for this asset is growth.

And in CSN infrastructure where we have several assets, we still have a relevant stake and it makes sense to do this now given the characteristics, the anatomy of the infrastructure segment. And we will be able to raise relevant values because this asset has the potential of having returns higher than mining, it's the most efficient sale for us at present. We're going to maintain the level of preparedness we have. We have nothing additional for this year, but the company is working on other fronts of liquidity that are important. We're going through our balance, our inventory and other line items in our inventory to maximize our balance as much as possible.

Now regarding the appetite of investors, the answer will come in the coming months, coming weeks. What the company is doing now is not only what the company thinks it correct, we have aligned this with the shareholders and investors have come to us requesting to join us in the last few months. We will discover how this will play out in the coming weeks. Thank you.

The next question is from Henrique Braga from Morgan Stanley.

Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I would like to speak about your vision of cement and the sale of a majority stake. It's very clear why you're attempting to sell a majority stake to absorb higher multiples. In my understanding, the company has a preference for the operation of it's assets.

My question, therefore, is if you're considering a full sale of cement, and why are you maintaining a minority stake? If you could give us more details on that sale, if there's a local player that is interested, which would be the reaction of the antitrust agency, CADE or if you could sell the totality of your assets through a single sale? Or are you going to work through different deals? And to speak about the division of infrastructure as Marco mentioned, you have four assets that you're going to sell off now if you could tell us which these assets are. There's a total of seven assets in that division, which are the assets that are available now? What would be left outside? And you spoke about the clusters, one will be sold now, the other subsequently. If we could have more details, that would be very helpful.

Thank you for the questions. In cement, the discussion on the percentage, which is your question. That's something we will see going forward. It will depend on the engagement of the potential acquirer and the valuation we will hold.

Now with the buyer, the valuation, when we see the strategy of the buyer, we will see the percentage of the company that we will be keeping and the one that we will monetize. Yes, based on multiples and interest, we will see what will happen going forward. Based on valuation and the interest of the proposal of the buyer, the reaction of the antitrust agency, it's difficult to foresee. Some have sought us out with an interest in this asset in the last few months. We don't know how CADE will react if we're speaking about a consumption, the decision of the antitrust company may be longer. We truly don't know which will be their reaction. When it comes to infrastructure, as mentioned, we have two clusters, one in the Southeast, one in the Northeast.

In the Southeast, this represents more than 60% of the GDP of Brazil, iron ore, steel. There are four assets. They have railway transportation, Tecon that works with container. AK, they work with iron ore, carbon and MRS. That a full stack we have on those four assets.

In the Northeast, we have two railways and they're very important. Now the discussion on the sales in the Southeast have a reason. In the Northeast, we have two assets in the final stage of construction, we're going to have a more extended schedule in the Northeast. And for a buyer to do a technical due diligence and seven assets will take much longer than doing this and for assets.

Now withstanding this in the future, CSN wants to have a single holding that second cluster will be offered to the market, but we're going to converse about this with a majority owner of the first cluster now and the premise of the valuation of the second cluster will depend on the present day process.

The next question comes from Alexandre from PNBC. Alexandre we have unmuted your microphone.

The next question is from Julian from Oaktree. It came in writing.

Which are the taxation impact of the sale? Are those 18 million separate from the taxes associated?

Julian, thank you for the question. We have estimated that, yes, this will be net of taxation. And as in the last two years, we have a significant amount of expenses in the company, financial expenses linked to the debts that we will be deleveraging now and they generate an important tax shield for the sale of these assets. The operation of MRS at the end of the year also made the most of that tax shield and that decreased the impact. We also had a sale of 10% of CMIN at the end of 2024. So the answer is yes.

The next question by tax comes from Olga from Evli Fund Management.

Can you explain based on how you will pay the debt? Which are the sources?

The sources to pay the debts will be the resources that we raised in the operations that we have mentioned, the part of cement and infrastructure. The debts that will be paid and I don't know if this is your question, are there short-term debts? And we will have a mixture of debt amortization and liability management, and the rolling of the debt as well. Of course, we're going to focus on the less efficient debts and those that have shorter terms. We showed you a graph, after the third year our maturity rates are quite low, and they're very efficient.

The next question comes from Isidoro from the [indiscernible] company.

For the sale of assets, do you need some regulatory authorization. If everything works well, you should receive these funds in the third and fourth quarter of this year. And the final share will be around 40%? Or will it be less.

Well, the regulatory authorization, yes, for the entire process. And we have other approvals for the creation of the future CSN. Depending on the sale, you will need the approval of these agencies. Besides, of course, the authorization of the antitrust agency, this is what our in-house and external attorneys have advised us on, but there is no red light in terms of approvals. It's simply a procedural issue.

Another question regarding the percentage for cement. It will depend on the valuation of the buyer, the interest of the buyer in the cement operation to see which will be the final percentage for each party for CSN and for the buyer. I believe that answers the question.

[Operator Instructions] As we have no further questions, I will return the floor to Mr. Marco Rabello, the Executive Director of the IR Group for the closing remarks.

Thank you all for attending this very important call for CSN, our company and IR teams are at your entire disposal to clarify any doubts you may have about the call today. And we will meet once again in the call to speak about the company trajectory. We're going to be giving you updates on each of the movements, of course, that we mentioned here at the calls. I would like to thank all of you. Have a very good week and have a good end of the day.

Now the call for strategic updates for CSN ends here. Have a very good day.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]

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" Citigroup Inc., Research Division

" Banco Bradesco BBI S.A., Research Division

" Itaú Corretora de Valores S.A., Research Division

" XP Investimentos Corretora de Câmbio, Títulos e Valores Mobiliários S.A., Research Division

[Interpreted] Good morning, and thank you for waiting. Welcome to CSN's conference call to present the results for the third quarter of 2025. Today with us are the company's executive officers. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] Today's event is also available on CSN's Investor Relations website at ri.csn.com.br, where the presentation can be found. A replay of this call will be available shortly after its conclusion.

Before moving on, we would like to clarify that any forward-looking statements made during this conference call are based on the beliefs and assumptions of CSN's management and on information currently available to the company. Such statements involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions as they relate to future events and depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Actual events may differ due to factors such as general economic conditions in Brazil and other countries, interest and exchange rate levels, future renegotiations or prepayment of obligations of foreign currency-denominated credits, tariffs in the U.S., Brazil and other countries, changes in laws and regulations and general competitive factors on a global, regional or national level.

Now we'll turn the floor to Mr. Marco Rabello, Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relations Officer, who will present CSN's operational and financial highlights for the period. Mr. Rabello, you may go on.

[Interpreted] Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us at another conference call of CSN. Today, we are here to talk about the performance of the third quarter '25, a very special quarter, where we can see a better performance of the company in the whole of the year with historical operational records being hit, showing the CSN's continued strong in terms of efficiency, operational efficiency, but as committed to operational financial strictness and reaching results.

In a movement that had credit as the main topic, the company continued with a diversified operation able to extract results from different sectors of the economy, ensuring resilience and showing the strength of the group. As we see in the highlights of Slide #2, CSN was able to expand sales volume in all its segments of operation, and it had an accurate strategy commercially in the period and strong cost controls that drove results in this quarter. Therefore, CSN reached growth of 26% in EBITDA with BRL 3.3 billion and EBITDA margin of 27%, a quarter-on-quarter growth of 330 bps points.

That was also the third consecutive quarter where the company showed a drop in its leverage ratio, reaching 3.1x in the period compared to the 3.5x in the end of last year. That shows the financial discipline and the group's strong capital structure.

Going to mining, another period of historical record, showing that the company is extracting more efficiency in logistics and its production capacity. That was the first time in history that CSN was able to ship more than 12 million tons with sales volume 5% above that of the previous quarter. In a quarter, we had growth showing the improvements in efficiency.

In terms of costs and expenses, performance was equally positive with dilution of fixed costs and a better freight strategy, optimizing the operations results. we control things, everything is running as smooth as possible. But it's also true in the site that we don't control, price dynamics. The third quarter had an increase in iron ore prices, which led us to a growth of 57% in EBITDA in the quarter with more than BRL 1.9 billion generated and gross margin of 44%. And still, we had a change in commercial strategy that led to an expansion in 4.4% of sales in the period. We've been very accurate in our commercial strategy and the market is very much pressured by the coming of imported material and the disputes in the local market.

Last quarter, CSN stood out as the only company that was able to show growth of freight and EBITDA in a very adverse scenario. This strategy has a temporary effect, and therefore, we redirected routes to increase our sales channels. Therefore, the expansion of volume in still pressured market with record penetration of imported materials show the group's commercial strength and that steel consumption is still resilient in the country.

The best highlight in the period with regards to steel comes from costs. We had the lowest cost of steel production in the last 4 years, showing that the company is extracting better results in its industrial strategy, operating at full capacity, and optimizing its inputs. It's still early to say that the worst has passed, but it's the first time in a long while that we are seeing a better prospect for the steel industry as a whole. We are seeing a recovery of prices exported from China, then a lower import in the Brazilian spot market, and the first antidumping measure approved most recently. That favors the price dynamics for the future, enabling the necessary margin recovery for local producers.

In the cement market, the quarter was also of historical results. The market has been very resilient, especially considering the high interest rates of the country. You can see that cement consumption grew this year, and the company was able to capture the favorable dynamics with a very right commercial strategy. And this quarter is a growth in sales and price increase. With that, we had the second largest sales volume in CSN's history with more than 3.6 million tons sold and an operation increasingly efficient in terms of cost. These are the competitive advantages of the business, combining verticalization, fantastic mineral reserves, logistic network, low energy consumption and a good portfolio of products.

All this performance led to the highest EBITDA in cement in CSN's history. BRL 388 million this quarter, with EBITDA margin of 29%, way above the average of the sector. Finally, but not less important, we have the bottom part of the slide, another record reached in the quarter in the Logistics segment that showed an important driver for the group. This quarter, we had the highest volume of freight and cargo on our highway network -- railway network with record EBITDA of BRL 550 million and an EBITDA margin above the 35%. That shows that this will unlock the value of assets with a new vehicle that concentrates the strategy for infrastructure, monetizing part of this amount.

On the right, we have the segment of energy that continues to benefit from the favorable market. This year, we had a low energy availability to be traded, but still the segment generated BRL 54 million EBITDA with a margin of 35%. In short, we can see on the slide all the operational excellence experience with record production sales in mining, lower production costs in steel, and the best EBITDA in history in both cement and logistics. So stronger operation positioning CSN at a different level in terms of management and efficiency.

Going on to the next slide. Here, we show our EBITDA and EBITDA margin for the third quarter '25. Here, we can see the best result for the year with BRL 3.3 billion in EBITDA with a margin of almost 27%. On the right, it shows the contribution of mining this quarter with stronger volumes and better prices. In addition, we can see the contributions that were important in cement and logistics. So it's important to have a diverse operation that can show more resilience and also offset some one-time pressures in some markets.

On the next slide, we show our activities in terms of investments. Here, we can see growth of 7.8% compared to the previous quarter, reflecting our efforts to maintain a high level of execution in our operations and operational records observed in the period, particularly the projects for the modernization of the company and better efficiency in our projects such as the P15 project.

Going to the next slide, Slide #5. Here, we show our net working capital. So here, we can see an increase of 13% this quarter compared to the previous quarter, reflecting more accuracy commercially speaking, in the period with an impact in accounts receivable. In addition to a reduction in the supplier line, due to the settlement of the forfeiting operations.

On the next slide, we show our adjusted cash flow that was negative at BRL 815 million in third quarter '25, which was better than the BRL 1.4 billion negative of the previous period, but still a result that reflects the negative effect of financial expenses due to high interest rates and investment activities, and consumption of working capital. On the next slide, we show our net debt and leverage, and also the behavior of our net debt along the quarter.

As we can see on the left, the main message here is a reduction of leverage in the period with 10 basis points negative, going from 3.4% in the previous quarter to the 3.1x that we have this quarter, showing that the company has been able to align cash efficiency to record results, maximizing sales volumes, controlling costs, and increasing efficiency. In addition, it's important to show the efforts that management has been engaging to reduce indebtedness with leverage descending quarter-on-quarter towards the guidance that we provided at the end of last year for this year, even with all the adverse scenario in terms of interest rate, financial expenses, and exchange rate fluctuation.

Also important to highlight is that deleveraging is organic without considering capital recycling projects that we are going to have for the future and that have the potential to reduce our leverage even faster. On the right, we see that net debt was impacted this quarter by negative cash flow, as I mentioned before, and the impact of the dividend payout.

Going to the next slide, Slide #8, we show our indebtedness profile. So we can see that we continue at a very comfortable position vis-a-vis our short- and midterm obligations with BRL 18.8 billion, an amount practically stable compared to the previous quarter and efficiency to cover our debt in the next 3 years. In addition, we continue to have active management to elongate amortization flows, working with the local capital market. In the quarter, the company had new funding and renegotiated bilateral contracts, extending amortization flows until 2030.

With that, we conclude our consolidated results, and we are going to move on now to Slide #10. Here, we show the highlights for the steel segment. On the first slide, we have the results of our commercial activity. So you see an increase of 4.4% in sales in the quarter, showing the change in the commercial strategy for the period, with the company implementing a more competitive attitude to return to competitive levels. The strategy that we had before a prioritized results and not volumes generated expected results, but it has a limited effect. So now it's important to resume volumes that shows that the market continues resilient and with a good level of steel consumption and especially in the domestic market. However, the market continues with high competition and a record of penetration of imported material.

So how difficult it is to compete without the protection? As for the foreign market, we see a recovery of sales in the period, but still below historical results, given the difficulties to export in the context of tariff disputes and application of antidumping measures. On the next slide, when we talk about steel production, we show that the drop quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year is a consequence of the shutdown for the maintenance of blast furnace 2. It has not really hurt the performance of the company, quite the opposite. If you go to the right of the slide, you see that the production costs decreased this quarter, reaching the lowest level of the 4 years, which reflects an increased efficiency in the production process, better optimization of raw materials, and better combustion process.

Performance per ton had a drop this quarter, basically because of the lower prices in the period, which offset the production dynamic of costs and volumes. When you look at the annual comparison, we see solid growth of 22% in performance per ton.

Now we are going to go to financial performance of Steel works on Slide 12, and we can see the impact of the price reduction had on revenues for the period. Even with the drop in prices below average price, it is hard to compete in a very hostile environment with record penetration of imported materials with prices that are subsidized and get to the Brazilian market. That shows the importance of having protective measures to have a better economy for local producers. But in addition to a pressure in prices, all the indicators controlled by the company are getting better.

CSN are having better efficiency in the production process, an operation that is increasing efficiency and that shows operational improvements when we compare to the results of 2024. In this context, important to mention all the adverse scenario, CSN is delivering EBITDA better than '24 and still is an important driver for growth this year. Now going to mining. On Slide 14, we show production and sales this quarter. So here, we can see 2 extraordinary results. The first is record production, the highest volume ever in the history of the company, which shows operational efficiency that the company is reaching in recent months, both in mines but also in the logistics chain as a whole. Then we have record sales with the highest volume in history and the first time that the company exceeded 12 million tons in a single quarter, which highlights the significant efficiency in production with the company with a tear of 4 million tons shipped in a single month for the first time.

As for financial performance on Slide 15, we can see that the growth in net revenue is a result of the combination of record volumes in shipments, better realized prices in line with the favorable demand trends seen in the quarter, in addition to the positive effect of the future quotation periods. In EBITDA, we have an even stronger performance with 57% increase in the period, profitability gains of 7.8 percentage points. This increase in profitability shows resumption of iron ore prices above $100 per ton and operating performance in the company, and effective cost management.

On the next slide, we have the bridge reconciling the EBITDA this quarter compared to the previous quarter. The main factors that contributed to the strong evolution of results were better iron ore prices and future quotation periods that more than offset the increase in freight costs and third-party purchases.

Now we are going to talk about cement on Slide 18. Here, we have an analysis of sales volume. Once again, the sector continues very dynamic, even with all the effects of interest rates with the Minha Casa Minha Vida program, the high level of employment in the real estate segment, driving cement consumption. So we have been able to use the whole logistics network to capture new markets with growth of 5% on sales, showing this trend. The 3.6 million tons sold this quarter was the second result ever in the company, but now with a price dynamics that is more favorable, reinforcing the sustainability of our performance.

On the next slide, we have the financial performance. We see an important increase quarter-on-quarter in terms of revenue and EBITDA. And the result was driven by competitive advantages in operations, an accurate commercial strategy, and a favorable demand in the cement sector. With that, we had the highest EBITDA in history, EBITDA margin going back to the level of 30%, which is significantly above the average in the sector. That shows that no matter how hard the scenario is in terms of competition or interest rates, CSN continues to show favorable results and robust profitability.

Finally, the Logistics segment and another record in terms of performance in revenue and EBITDA. with a growing dynamic of cargo handling and efficiency, with the highest EBITDA ever recorded by CSM with a total of BRL 500 million and margin above 45%. The performance shows that the segment is reaching a higher level of efficiency in cargo handling and shipment showing the potential of the operation.

With that, I close the presentation of the segments, and I'm going to ask Helena to talk about our ESG highlights. ESG highlights, I'm sorry.

[Interpreted] Hello, everyone. Before going to details this quarter, I would like to highlight the performance of our ESG agenda connected to sustainable value to our company. In this quarter, we advanced consistently in 3 pillars that are part of our strategy and that are connected to financial performance and risk reduction, governance, social and [indiscernible]. In safety, we continue our stability in terms of number of accidents, very close to '24, 30% below '21, 33% decrease in the number of high-potential severe incidents that has been our focus for '25, reaching the best results in our historical spirit. Safety advances were our strategy, focusing on our greatest value and reduction to risks, operational, legal, it avoids costs related to interruptions and et cetera. So the result shows an important advancement in the company and how we are best in terms of leadership.

In environmental, we had the report that talks about our agenda targets and et cetera. At CSN, we had the plan of climate adaptation to improve the resilience of our assets, decrease physical risks related to climate and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in the main segments of operation, driven by projects related to operational efficiency, energy efficiency, clean energy and better processes. And that has direct impact on mitigating climate transition risks, reduces our future exposure to regulatory costs, and also strengthens our competitiveness and extends access to capital connected to ESG, and shows that decarbonization is a strategy for the company and for the future. And in diversity and inclusion, we continue to have a more inclusive environment with more representativity with an 80% increase of female representation at the group. Diversity is a clear mechanism to reduce risks. We know that diverse teams have better results and strengthen the company in terms of productivity and long-term results.

As a result of all these KPIs and others, we once again, we were recognized as a benchmark by important ESG agencies in the world with better credibility, transparency, and consistency in our trajectory. We were considered one of the best companies in terms of the score in ESG and a silver medal in EcoVadis. That shows to the market that we are building a robust company with real impact and reducing risks. And that is not separate from the business. It is part of our strategy, part of risk management. So what we are bringing shows that we are having less operational risks, less financial risk, and it generates value to our -- all our stakeholders, including our shareholders.

Thank you very much. Now we are going to hear our CEO, Benjamin Steinbruch.

[Interpreted] Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining our conference call. As it was mentioned by Marcos before and by Elena, we had a quarter that we can call exceptional in terms of operational activity. We were able in all our sectors to record improvements and best production levels ever, also cost reductions. I think that we are working the right way. We are working hard to try and maximize our production with good results. That is seeking the optimal production level for each one of our sectors so that we can, regardless of better productivity and costs, also have the right price for each one of our activities.

Starting with mining, we had excellent news in terms of production, shipment with record in 3 corridors price stabilities in iron ore, which gave us the EBITDA margin of 1.9%, which we consider excellent comparing to past forecast. In sales, we were able to lower costs, working at an optimal level in terms of results. And we continue to work very hard to reduce costs, which is something that is in our control using what is best and also using our working capital as well as possible, always having an eye on prices. In terms of production, had a higher percentage and, as a consequence, a drop in prices due to the mix, but still margins were kept at very good levels. And as you all know, we have this very aggressive uncontrolled competition of product -- imported products, which makes it very difficult for us to mirror what is going on in the world in terms of protective measures against imported goods and incentives to domestic production.

In Brazil, we are a bit behind all this despite the efforts of the government, the Ministry of Commerce, and others, but we have to have a more active position with regards to the disorganized coming of imported products that really affect Brazilian products. We are almost prevented from exporting to other countries. And in addition to not exporting, we have imported products coming in strongly in the country. So we believe the Brazilian government has to act on that because we have to do what others are doing in the world and really copy some of the protectionist measures that we have abroad. We have to protect our industry.

In cement, we had very good results, BRL 368 million, BRL 378 million. The activity is strong, civil construction for the lower income population, also higher income, with strong demand and the sector amongst all the sectors is really heated in terms of demand. So more and more, we expect improvements in the cement sector. And logistics in terms of volumes transported, verticalization that we have also showed a very good performance. So operationally speaking, I would say that certainly, we are on the right path. We are doing what we have to do. Everyone engaged to reduce costs, working capital, improving prices, diversifying the market, doing whatever possible to work with better margins that will help us in the near future to deleverage the company together with other actions that we are paying attention to and discussing.

So I would say that the quarter was better than expected. We are improving quarter-on-quarter. And I hope that this will go on. And we are doing whatever we can, whatever is possible, and almost whatever is impossible from the market's perspective to be able to reflect better performance into numbers that meet our priorities. that is to decrease the company's leverage levels. This is what I had to tell you.

Once again, I would like to thank you all, and I'm going to turn the call back to Marco.

[Interpreted] Thanks, Benjamin. We are going to start the Q&A session. We have all the company officers, our CEO, and we are here to take your questions.

[Interpreted] [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Gabriel Barra from Citi.

[Interpreted] Perhaps the first point specifically when talking about leverage. Gjamin did mention some of this with regards to costs and how we can make this leverage go down. I think this is an important point for the company. But I would like to perhaps take a new perspective. This is something that I mentioned in the last call, which is divestment. Perhaps you could talk a bit about that. You have a very rich portfolio today, and you can deleverage very fast with your assets. What would be the priorities of the company today? What would be the steps in this strategy of perhaps shuffling portfolio? I would like to understand your mindset on that, considering the different businesses of the company, mining, cement, logistics. So if you could share your view on that, it would really help us on that.

Another thing is that we've seen the gains in volume, but margins were not as good this quarter. So I would like to hear from you the idea of value over volume, the commercial strategy of the company, particularly in steel, and also an outlook of your strategy for the fourth quarter that seems to be tougher in terms of margins. So what should we expect for the fourth quarter and next year? These are my points.

[Interpreted] Gabriel, thanks for your question, for attending the call. I'm going to answer the first part of your question, and then I'm going to turn to Martinez. Leverage. I think it's important to remind you that we are into a deleveraging process along the year. We went from 3.5x to 3.1x. Our guidance was 3 until the end of the year. So we are following this target of the company's guidance. Nothing extraordinary on the company's EBITDA or cash helped us come here, just organic operational results of the company. So that alone show how the company is focused on deleveraging the company.

For -- from now on, and we did mention that before and even in the presentation today, -- in addition to the continuous improvement of our operational results that we really believe we're going to continue improving in all segments. Cement and still are going to continue operational results. Mining is going to continue at a very high level of performance. And we also have strategic projects, the most important of which being the CSN infrastructure project. The group today has 7 assets in infrastructure and logistics that will migrate to this new company. We are very much advanced in this operation. And this operation alone will bring in terms of additional liquidity to the group. The company is listed, we cannot give you the hard numbers, but we are going to have some important BRL billion to deleverage the company is still in '26.

And talking about that, the project is well advanced. In the next few weeks, we are going to give new announcements of the process, formal announcements for you to have a better knowledge of where we are at, and also the timeline that we have for the CSN infrastructure for the year of 2026. Obviously, the company has a very important number of assets energy participation, we already talked about that before. It is a subject that is on the table, but we have to have a proposal to make it effective. Discussions in energy continue to advance. It may come to reality, but it depends on negotiations moving on.

And these are the central priority projects that we have in terms of recycling capital. Of course, as you mentioned, and I think that this is one of the strengths of the group, the group has values in its assets in mining in steel in Brazil and abroad, the value of CSN cement, which is a delevered company, and it is the best platform for the growth of cement in Brazil, CSN infrastructure. So assets that are very valuable. And if the company decides to divest, it will certainly be a high priority in the market, even if it's a minority sale. Even then, the focus of the company and what has been approved so far is CSN infrastructure that will bring an important amount to reduce leverage and energy that we are still discussion and at some point in time can become more mature. I'm going to turn to Martinez to answer your second question.

[Interpreted] Thanks for your question. Going back to strategy in the second quarter, we are very much focused on value. We had a portfolio that was more adjusted. We still had the possibility of exporting to the U.S. in coated materials. And because of an operational issue, we could maximize results. Obviously, in the third quarter, and that is a curiosity. We generally read in analyst reports that import penetration is between 15% to 30%, which is out of the ordinary anywhere in the world. It's a very high number. But when you stop and observe CSN's portfolio, and this is very important. You see in metal sheets, 45% of the market today is imported. In zinc, 40%valum, 55% prepainted 63%. So you see the situation that we had in the third quarter, a huge volume of imports.

CSN is known as the coated materials, and we had to compete. It could not just feed the market to imported materials. So what we did was to have a more of a fighting strategy to recover markets that we needed in coated materials, and that was the strategy adopted. In terms of results, I think that this is a winning strategy because in the first quarter, we had 8% margin. In the second quarter, we were the only company that increased price in the Brazilian market, getting to 11%. And in the third quarter, we grew sales, which was our objective. We could no longer export. We had to direct 25,000 tons of coated material to the domestic market, which was good. I think it was the right move with the possibility of correcting our portfolio for the coming months.

Another important matter, Rafael, Gabriel, sorry, is the matter of demand in Brazil. This is very important. This year, Brazil should hit a historical record of apparent consumption. The market could be showing a drop, and this is not happening. We have robust demand. What happens is that domestic sales in '25 should get to BRL 12 million against BRL 13,400 in 2023. So the room that we have to occupy the import space is very important. In the third quarter, we implemented something very important. We had price readjustments in distribution, civil construction, and in some segments of the industry. In October, I could say that almost 5% of our prices were adjusted, considering the whole revenues for October, which is very important data. Another data we have been working on is antidumping measures. And here, we do thank the government in terms of direction is taken, but the intensity is still very low. The government should have been a lot more emphatic on antidumping.

CSN had a definite right of imports for metal sheets. And what's working now is that we are working on metal sheets as if it were a jurisprudence for the other materials. So what we think that's going to happen now different than what many people are saying, all in verifications of plants have been performed for all products with the exception of hot laminate. The technical note is practically completed in all markets as well. And we are very much sure that in the meeting of the G7 on November 27, we should be able to succeed on the antidumping of galvanized and prepainted products, which will give us more comfort in terms of competitivity.

For the next quarter, Jin did talk about costs. We lowered costs for amounts close to BRL 300. Our emphasis in costs continues very strong. And I think that we are going to levels in the amount of BRL 3,000 per ton, obviously, optimizing production. So in blast furnace 3 -- we are working with less pellets, less coke, and maximizing the purchase of plates in a market that we have very favorable prices. So in terms of costs, we are at a very good trend. Prices were captured in October. We no longer have exports. The production has to come to the domestic market in products. And our belief is that the dumping, although slow, the dumping antidumping measures will implement partially in November, another in December, and perhaps the last products, which is less pragmatic in February. With this scenario for the fourth quarter, I believe that we are going to go back to double digits in terms of margin. So this is more of an overall scenario. And if you want, we can talk a bit more about other markets and also cement.

[Interpreted] Our next question comes from Rafael Barcellos from Bradesco BBI.

My first question is the company has showing cash burn in recent quarters. Can you talk a bit about what would be the normalized number for the company? And what initiatives can be taken to reverse the scenario? You talked about interest rates, financial expenses a bit higher. What kind of initiative can you have to reverse this position in the short term? And second question, I would like to go back to what Martinez mentioned. Talking a bit more about cement and other markets. So a follow-up. You mentioned that on November 27, you're going to have the G7 meeting, and we can have a favorable decision for galvanized. So is that correct? And if you have any information of cold and hot laminates, when the date would be? And Martinez, if you could talk about the markets. We are seeing the market some attempt of improving prices in plain sheets. Could you talk about the market appetite in terms of prices?

[Interpreted] Rafael, thanks for your question. I think that first, when you talk about cash burn, -- the company was able to show in recent quarters a reduction in cash burn, as you mentioned, from BRL 4 billion to 800 million in this last quarter. There is a series of initiatives in line for us to have a positive cash, which is what is expected. The new is better operational results as we are showing quarter after quarter, improving our operational results is the most sustainable way of turning negative cash to positive cash. This quarter, we delivered a better cash position and the pillars to improve results for the coming quarters in all segments are given. We talked about the cost control in mining, cement, and now in steel, where we reached the lowest cost of steel production of the last 4 years, and that remains for the future in our main core segments. We talked about price recoveries in cement and also signs of better prices in steel as well.

And in mining, we continue going well in terms of profitability, generation of EBITDA, and we are going to carry on like this. So the part of operational results that will contribute to cash burn is happening and will continue for future periods, obviously, considering the seasonality issues that we have in some parts of the year. financial expenses, I did mention that, and you mentioned that too. We already saw this quarter a reduction of financial expenses compared to previous quarters. Here, you have a focus of the company in managing debt that are a bit more burdensome in our indebtedness profile. We are making investments -- a part of the investments that we have in our cash burn, have efficient credit lines. And we are also settling some funds that are a bit more expensive for the company, which has an impact on financial expenses, and that will happen on a reduction of cash burn compared to previous quarters.

And investments, which is also an important lever in '26, you're talking about the CapEx that is very close or the same -- sorry, the CapEx of '25 is very close to the CapEx we had in '24. Still with the same CapEx, we had a huge development of P15, and in the company's structuring process, notably that led to better steel prices. So we are focusing on investments in projects that have better profitability for the group. And we are having actual results in our numbers based on the strategy. So organically, we are improving our cash position for the coming quarters. In addition to that, I did talk about the CSN infra project together with other projects that the company can engage in the future will help the company deleverage faster than just based on operational results. And that will certainly have a direct impact in the volume of financial expenses and interest rates paid by the company. So we are very confident for the next quarters to be able to reverse this position.

The better operational results that we are showing alone without strategic movements should already bring enough credit for the company for everyone to understand that this is going to happen in the short period of time. Martinez can you answer the second question?

[Interpreted] Another data they would talk about antidumping measures, very interesting. Only 45% of the volume exported in China has positive margin, 7% to 8%. So imagine the problem that we have with the closing of Europe. We became the yard of the road for Chinese material to come in. So just for you to have an idea, Asian markets that were relatively control, you get enough China is sending 4 million; Korea, 3 million, and Brazil, 2 million. So the a of products continue. So we do have to take some measures. Another important point that is very positive is that the industry as a whole woke up to understand that still import is just one problem. You get machinery, equipment, cars, consumer goods. What's happening is not steel that is coming at 30%. You have an import of machinery getting to 30% to 35%. So dumping starts to be a more structural problem as it has always been. But now with the reinforcement of value chains, we are probably going to have a better condition for the government to be a bit faster in the process.

As for process, I'm absolutely convinced that we will certainly have repainted and Galvalum approved because we have all data, the technical is approved. Everything is working, all the verifications. And along the pipeline, hot laminates is going to be the last one because the process started in June '25 and the forecast is more to the middle of the year. In the other products, up to January '25, we can have this implemented. It's important to highlight that the government can optimize time, shorten time. In metal sheets, we had a very bad experience. We started in March '24, and we only had the process approved in August '25. I believe that the government has overcome now, and that's a lesson learned for us to use the metal sheet as a jurisdiction and approve to other materials.

So I'm very much confident in terms of dumping. And we are not learning out of love. We are learning out of pain. And this is for the whole of the industry. There's no other way. As for markets, I'll say that again. Although we have lots of imports, we also have a very high demand for you to replace part of what was imported, or better yet. If we had used the criteria that the United States have imports of 2021 multiplied by 0.7 and not 1.3, we would have a penetration that would be quite decent, being able to compete, assuring the government that there was competition with no problems. But import is still something that is going to consume us for some time because new players are coming to the market. Just for you to have an idea, we have another antidumping measures in metal sheet against Germany, Japan, and Netherlands. And today, probably in terms of circumvention, we also have materials from India coming to Brazil.

So this scenario is becoming more complex, more difficult to be faced if we are not faster in our moves. As for markets, what I can say is the following. The market as a whole has very interesting signs. The agribusiness, and here I'm talking about farming equipment, silos, road equipment has suffered a bit, but we have signs of recovery. Of course, it's connected to interest rates, financing could be stronger, but this is not a market in which we see very strong drop. OEMs, although there is an import of vehicles, the market continues strong. We are selling a lot to the sector. And part of the volume that I lost to the U.S., I'm selling domestically instead of exporting, which is reasonable in terms of margin. Other markets are stable, like electronic appliances, packaging with a slight increase. And as the mix, this is going to improve.

Overall, we believe the penetration rate in the domestic market this year will go down to 24%, 25% after a peak of 28, and we are working precisely on the conversion of what was imported to CSN. Prices, Rafael, as you asked, we implemented in October in our price portfolio an adjustment of 5%. I believe that nothing prevents us from keeping these prices until the end of the year. Obviously, we still have some things to do in the industry and to prepare to negotiate with OEMs in the beginning of next year. Preparation starts at the end of this year. But the scenario is more positive in my opinion, considering that in the case of coated materials, we are going to have antidumping measures, which will give me better conditions to compete in the market.

For cement, I would say that this is a dream because cement, we had a recovery in the third quarter to margins of 30%. And I think in the fourth quarter, margins can be even better because the market should close at BRL 66 million, BRL 67 million a year. The market capacity is with competitive cost of BRL 85 million, BRL 87 million, and we are getting close to years of Olympic Games and the World Cup at BRL 72 per ton. And we did that with a strategy of selling less to more clients, and that has been very successful. we are using our distribution network and logistics with the acquisition of [indiscernible] and our assets in railway. So cement to me is going to show this year and beginning of next year, something that has not been priced yet in civil construction. We have projects as the renovation project from the federal government that can be a catalyzer of growth, Minha Casa Minha Vida that's not new where we have a bit of a sector that is more still I would say, is middle-class properties.

And here, this is based on financing. Now the government is increasing financing levels that can improve a lot. And in infrastructure that there is a lot to be done. We always say that, but we do believe that that can be a good lever. Civil construction in a virtuous cycle can carry along all other sectors. So our prospect for the fourth quarter is to continue reducing costs -- we are going to capture prices, imports, and implement antidumping measures. Doing all that and having all actions in place, and still, we are going to go to double digits in 4Q and implement margins above 30%.

[Interpreted] Just a follow-up, Marco. Thank you for the breakdown in terms of cash generation. Just a small follow-up. In terms of working capital, could you say something in the short term? And Martinez, in your case, you talked about some products and what you expect in terms of antidumping. How about galvanized and cold limited products?

[Interpreted] Well, working capital I don't think we are not going to have major fluctuations. We had an impact because of accounts receivable this quarter because of a higher volume of commercial activity. If you keep the volume of activity in the coming quarters in accounts receivable, you're not going to have another impact. So you're going to keep the same pace. And a good part of the good EBITDA that we had this quarter will turn into cash keeping this same level of operation, accounts receivable, you will not have fluctuation. So there is a line the company is focusing a lot, which is inventories.

And here, you might have some benefit in terms of working capital for the future. But we have an important work team to focusing on that. We see some impact in the third quarter, and that's why we have a larger volume of steel sold in this period, but we are doing that with all inventories of the company. Now metal sheet, we have the definitive right to antidumping. And fortunately, in this case, the government took 18 months too much. Prepainted is going to be approved in CMC meeting on November 27, coated end of December or the first meeting of CME in January, cold laminate the same, metal sheets for Japan, Netherlands, and others, April 26, and hot laminate March 26. These are the times we are working with. The government always has a cushion to expand. I am in Brazil today in meetings with and to talk about Brazil antidumping and also sanctions of the United States on Brazil, the tariffs. So I'm very optimistic because I see a new position of the government that can accelerate decisions.

[Interpreted] Our next question comes from Daniel Sasson from Itaú BBA.

[Interpreted] My first question is to Marco. Marco, could you talk about the level of flexibility that you can see in your CapEx for next year, important projects in expansion in mining. What has been already contracted? And where do you have room to postpone if that's the case, if you are considering that? And along the same line, if you get maturities of bank debt between the end of this year, '26, '27, you have about BRL 14 billion, BRL 15 billion. And have you already started renegotiating or rolling out these debts with banks as usual?

And my second question goes back to deleveraging alternatives. Could you be a bit more specific in terms of the CE generation. You have been talking about having a strategic partner to this business, particularly, and also the monetization of infrastructure logistics assets, the pool of operational assets already, but also projects at what stage we are today. That's it.

[Interpreted] Daniel, thanks for your questions. Well, first, CapEx. As we mentioned, the company is managing its CapEx very efficiently. We compare '25 to '25, same level of CapEx, but all levels of segments, bringing more volume, better operations, and reducing costs. So this clearly shows how CapEx is important for the company. As for '26, which is our short-term Obviously, we do have some flexibility on CapEx. This is always true. The priority is P15. We are going to deliver on time as agreed. So that is our top priority in terms of CapEx.

And the room that we have in terms of cash generation and others is going to be managed as ideally as possible. We do have the flexibility. It should be anything extremely material because our main focus is to continue improving the company's operational higher cash generation, more EBITDA, I'm sorry, as we are doing, and we delivered the best EBITDA ever of the year this quarter. So we have to take care in CapEx management because sometimes you remove it from somewhere and you have a drop in EBITDA. So to answer your question, we do have the flexibility, but it's not super material and our priority is P15.

In terms of maturities, basically, the maturities for '26 and '27 are bank credits with more of bilateral credits as we did this year. We are already renegotiating some maturities of the first half of '26. So far, negotiations have been very smooth. We are able to roll out maturities for the beginning of '26. We haven't started working with '27 yet. But in '26, we are very comfortable that we are going to be able to roll out the debt of '26. Some of for instance, we have a bond of '26. A small part of the bond for '26 is in the month of April. And we are still analyzing if we are going to use the company's cash to pay it out. We have 2 operations to happen, the one in infrastructure and others, and part of the cash can be used to pay debt along the year of '26.

Well, I talked about '26, '27, and in terms of other deleveraging alternatives. C3E, we wanted to close it before -- but last year, we had the floods in May that postponed the discussion. We had to have a new engineering in all assets show to the market with an independent engineering that all assets were in perfect condition for the continuation of the operation to work with the assets that needed it. So we repowered some of the products with higher power, generating more cash and EBITDA for the company. So the process was a bit delayed.

In the beginning, we had a new infrastructure debenture at C3E. And that also consumes some months because of the complexity of this kind of structured finance. After everything completed, we are discussing with partners. We are very much focused. We believe we can be successful, but it's hard to say when, if it's going to be the next 4 or 5 months, but the operation itself does not really change the leverage position of the group. But it's important. We are focusing on everything that adds value, and we are pursuing this operation.

With CSN infrastructure, we are very careful as a listed company, but we do expect the next few months to have a bit more formal announcement showing the advances that we had in this area. And what we can say is that it's very much connected to the plan for '26. We see a potential closing of this operation by mid next year. This is an operation that has been attracting several investors to the company. We have weekly meetings with stakeholders interested in the transaction, and we are very confident we are going to have a very successful transaction.

[Interpreted] Our next question comes from Guilherme Nippes from XP.

[Interpreted] My question has to do with the antidumping measures in steel. We are getting lots of questions. The market seems to be a bit more optimistic because many problems in terms of antidumping are being settled. And we are getting lots of questions about potential effect on prices. So I'd like to ask you this question, if you can help us out a rationale for potential impact because we see antidumping discussions in prevented about 300 laminates about 500. But we understand that because antidumping is against China, we can have part of this product changing routes. We saw that limits to South Korea and a part is going to be absorbed by the local industry. So my question is specifically about this point, and this discussion is how much do you think we could consider in terms of better prices and profitability of the products in the domestic industry? And when should we expect the antidumping on better prices? And with regards to the increases of 5%, what has to do with a better domestic environment, a better domestic market, or if it is related to antidumping.

Martinez, I think the question is yours.

Yes. Guilherme. Okay. In terms of antidumping, first, I'm going to say what I always mentioned, which is the issue of premiums. So if you're thinking of BQ, $470, and you think of our product in the domestic market, which is $3,600, $3,700 the premium considering you have the quotas, right? So if it's outside the quota, the premium is already about 2%. And inside the quotas, it is about 10% to 12% that for B. when we go to antidumping measures for coated materials, and those that are affected in the market is, well, we have 50% of the coated market in Brazil.

And our products are connected to civil construction with a small percentage to automotive. So whatever happens in antidumping measures, if it's going to take another 2, 3 days is very positive because certainly, it gives us a cushion to adjust prices. The best adjustment, obviously, is to sell even if I sold at the same price, more volume in terms of coated material. This is what we want because today, we have capacities that came from other competitors.

So restricting imports is very positive in terms of competition, and it is still healthy for the Brazilian market. Just for you to have an idea, I don't have the number by heart. But I would say that in the first quarter, imports were close to 1 million tons. In the second, 1.3 million. And in the third quarter, it went down to 970. So this is a clear sign that those that are importing have realized that the market can change. And the government is giving signs of that, the last one to the metal sheet with a definite decision. In terms of models, which I think is what you want, I believe that we could recover 5% to 7.25% in quoted materials still keeping competitiveness in the domestic market. In terms of metal sheets, and we had a huge pressure of the market because we are the only producer, we almost did not adjust prices. This is the fact that I placed in the portfolio 7,000, 8,000 tons a month already leveraged our results. So the main lever is to make import levels a bit more civilized, 10% to 13%.

Once again, this scenario is more positive to CSN because it is the pipeline of our products. B is the list of our problems, I would say. But I would say that if the government wants to be fast, it would do it in February and March. And we would have the completion of verifications in local that haven't done yet and the technical note as well, which is based on the regulations of the road trade organization. So this is what we are considering. In terms of volume, we can always think of the fourth quarter, December. We don't see that some industries, for instance, electronic appliances, have a positive sign for the end of the year. We might have a higher capacity of consumers to consume within their wallet share, but the best segment is civil construction. And that shows in our cement results because CSN is almost the one-stop shop of the market in civil construction. We have a scanning that is very complete of the Brazilian market. I don't know if I missed any point, but just let me know.

[Interpreted] Our next question is in writing by Nicolas from Bal, U.K. He says congratulations on the results. What is the marginal cost of debt for rollovers and on new money in 3Q '25?

[Interpreted] Nicolas, thanks for your question. The cost of the debt for rollovers this quarter was the same as the historical levels in the company. It has not changed our average leverage, which is at 10% of CDI and close or the same as the first and second quarters this year. What we saw and that may raise the curiosity of some investors is a fluctuation of some of our papers in debentures and others, but that is not related to rollovers that we have been executing this period. So the effect on the papers is related to effects related to Brazil, large Brazilian companies, as we have seen in the news, and that brings some loss of confidence on stock of several Brazilian companies, but the cost of rollover has not changed compared to previous quarters.

[Interpreted] Our next question also in writing comes from Santander. Could you talk about the drivers for 4Q '25, and that leads you to reach the consolidated net leverage target of 3x by the end of the year? Secondly, market concerns continue about the imbalance in the steel business. Leverage indicators are high, and the mining business where most cash is located, consider that a problem for the management of liabilities for the future? And if so, what are the plans to address it?

I believe that crystallizing value in the logistics business is a possibility, I suppose. Can you update us on this and other capital structure strategies that are seriously being considered now?

[Interpreted] Thanks for your question. As for the fourth quarter of the year, the main drivers of the good results that we expect for the end of the year are the operational basis that we considered during this call. Mining, steel, and cement are operating at a very efficient level with a high production volume and a strictly controlled cost, which already brings a high expectation for the fourth quarter. And also, Martinez very clearly put it, the prices in the steel segment, we are finally seeing a positive trend in terms of steel prices. and also cement that is recovering now as of the third quarter this year.

So all these operational assumptions make us believe that despite the seasonality we have in the fourth quarter this year, that the fourth quarter will continue to be a quarter of excellent performance for the company as we had in the fourth quarter '24. If you remember, 4Q '24 was very good in terms of results, and it didn't have the same foundations that we have today for the year of '25. As for leverage and mining, as you mentioned, continue very good. Leverage is not a problem to mining. It continues with more cash than debt. And in still, which is the holding that in a way, consolidates the company's debt and cash -- the way to rebalance or adjust the capital structure, that perhaps what you're asking is focusing on deleveraging, which is what we have been doing in the last 2 years and most notably in 2025. And in '26, in addition to operational results, some operational results will be geared to deleveraging, but we have some nonorganic operations with CS Infra that will help us to bring the capital structure in still to a better point of balance.

And remember, in addition to all these initiatives in the year of '25, for the first time in many, many years, CSN did not pay dividends in May as usual, and it is not going to pay dividends in November. It's also usual. So this is a show of the commitment of the company and the company's shareholders to deleverage the company. And when you talk about logistics, it is what I mentioned in the previous question. So I think I already detailed what is to come and when the operation is going to happen, which will certainly be a good lever for '26.

[Interpreted] Our next question in writing comes from Alvaro Rodrigue, he says, you extended amortizations to 2030. What is the weighted average cost of this new debt compared to the previous one? How much incremental interest burden should investors expect and refinancing? What portion of '26, '27 maturities has been already refinanced or prefunded? How much remains exposed to market conditions?

[Interpreted] Alvaro, thanks for your question. Cost of refinancing. I just answered that 1 or 2 questions ago. No changes, the same costs that we had in previous quarters. '27 maturities. In '26, we have an important portion of the first quarter already refinanced. I don't have the numbers, but it's a relevant portion, almost the whole first half of '26 already addressed. '27, not yet. When you talk about how much that remains exposed to market condition in the short term, no exposure because in '26, we have already addressed in different ways, even with the CSN Infra operations that can pay out debt.

So the next operation that we still have a discussion in terms of market conditions is the bond for '28 that we are going to need to refinance. And I understand this is very important for you. This is something that we want to start addressing, although maturity is only in 2 years' time, but we want to start addressing as fast as possible to have a window of efficiency until the end of this year or the beginning of next year to start addressing this bond of '28.

[Interpreted] Our next question comes from Charles Waters from Sunglass Capital. What is the cost of debt rate of the new debt incurred in '25 to refinance maturing debt?

[Interpreted] Charles, thanks for your question. I already answered, I think, that question. But if you have any more questions, just let me know.

[Interpreted] Next question, Constanta from. This says you mentioned you've been actively refinancing debt and that in the next 2 years, the majority of the refinancing are bank loans. Could you give us some color on what this refinancing has been like so far, covenants, if they are unsecured, do they have the same seniority as the bonds?

[Interpreted] Constanta, thanks for your question. I think that refinancing is something that we already covered. I would just add that the market, in addition to the usual banks that we are still refinancing operations and continuing to lower the company -- lending to the company, we are having other banks that are interested in working with banks we haven't worked with before. So this is not a problem for '25, and it's not a problem for '26. As for the rollover, that is being rolled over with the same conditions before and with the same bond guarantees. So we don't have anything that was rolled for '26 that is senior to company bonds, all have the same level of guarantee.

[Operator Instructions] There are no further questions. I want to turn the call back to Antonio Marco, CFO and IR Officer, for his final remarks.

Well, thanks, everyone. Thanks of all the members of CSN that contributed to a very special quarter, record results. And also thank you for attending this conference call. We are closing our conference call for the results of the 3Q '25, and we wish you all a very good week.

[Interpreted] CSN's conference call is now closed. Have a very good day.

Good morning, and thank you for holding. At this time, we would like to welcome everyone to CSN's earnings conference for the second quarter of 2025. Today, we have with us the company's executive officers. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] We have simultaneous webcast that may be accessed at ri.csn.com.br, where the presentation is also available. The replay of the event will be available after closing.

Before proceeding, we would like to state that some of the forward-looking statements made herein are mere expectations or trends based on current assumptions and opinions of the company's management. Future results, performance and events may differ materially from those expressed herein, which do not constitute projections. In fact, actual results, performance or events may differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements due to several factors such as general and economic conditions in Brazil and other countries, interest rates and exchange rate levels or prepayment of debt pegged in foreign currencies, protectionist measures in the U.S., Brazil and other countries, changes in laws and regulations and general competitive factors at a national and international level.

We will now turn the conference over to Mr. Marco Rabello, who will begin the company presentation. You may proceed, Mr. Rabello.

Good morning, everybody. It is very satisfying to present the results of CSN for the second quarter 2024. We begin on Page 2, where we show you the highlights for the quarter, showing our strong resiliency. The company had an EBITDA growth in all segments, except for mining impacted exclusively by a drop in the iron ore prices. This performance shows the excellent management of cost and expenses and diversification of investments with synergy and a very assertive commercial strategy. We have had significant increases in competition with imported material. And of course, we have the reflection of the tariffs increased by the United States.

CSN reached an EBITDA of BRL 2.6 million (sic) [ BRL 2.6 billion ] with a margin of 23.5%, an expansion of 5% and 1.4 percentage points vis-a-vis the first quarter '25. Additionally, we're moving ahead in our deleveraging with a very active management of cash and reducing the gross debt. Only this quarter, the company reduced gross debt by BRL 5.7 billion, even with the incorporation of new assets like Tora, taking leverage below 7 points vis-a-vis last year, making CSN ever closer to its goals for the year.

We go for the highlights of mining company had volumes that were the second highest sales in history, which shows not only that even in the dry period, we had enormous operational excellence throughout the last few months in the mine and throughout the logistic chain. Now this increase in production and the diversification of fixed costs had an impact on cash, reaching less than $21 per ton this quarter, putting CSN in a very important position vis-a-vis world mining companies. Despite the improvement in volume, the EBITDA of mining dropped because of a correction of iron ore prices during the quarter. We go on to steel, and we're very proud to show you the performance for this quarter. Perhaps this was one of the most difficult periods in terms of competition in the last few years with a flood of imported material coming into Brazil.

Despite this, we had a very conservative position prioritizing value over volume. We want to offer a higher return for the operation. This was a very assertive strategy contrary to the local producers that went into that war of prices and volumes, we were able to present a very strong performance, 4.5% higher prices vis-a-vis the second quarter '24 and a stronger cost control during the period allowed us to have a cost control result in a 79% increase year-on-year for EBITDA, and we reached 10.8% margin for the quarter.

If we look at cement, we can observe that the favorable seasonality in the period points to the incredible resiliency with growing volumes in new launches with a quarterly growth of 8% in our sales volume. If we follow this dynamic, we also had a favorable reaction in prices with an expansion of 10% net revenue vis-a-vis the first quarter '25. Now this situation offset the cost pressure in raw material, allowing us a 2.3 percentage point increase in profitability with an EBITDA margin for cement of 24% for the period.

Finally, and not less important, at the bottom of the slide, we have 2 great achievements for our business in logistics a new EBITDA record because of 2 factors: a very strong performance in the rail model. And of course, we have incorporated the Tora numbers, a recent acquisition. Now the EBITDA reached BRL 519 million in the first quarter with an EBITDA margin of 41.4% (sic) [ 44.1% ]. In terms of energy, the results were extraordinary because of the increase of prices in the period with an EBITDA fivefold higher than in the same period 2024.

Now let's go on to the next slide, where we show you our EBITDA margins and EBITDA for the second quarter. There's a quarterly increase of 5% for the period and a drop of EBITDA in mining offset with a sound growth in all of the other segments of the group. Once again, it's important to have a diversified operation, granting us greater resiliency and withstanding the pressures in some markets. As a result, the adjusted margin reached 23.5% for the second quarter, an increase of 1.4 percentage points for the quarter.

On the next slide, we show you our investment activities for the period. You can see a growth of 18.2% in CapEx vis-a-vis the previous quarter because of the seasonality of the period and the advance of the P15 infrastructure for the mining sector. Compared to the same period in 2024, CapEx remained stable with advances in mining offsetting the lower investment in the steel industry. This shows you a higher concentration since 2025 in expansion and productivity, offset with the reductions that we have in some areas.

Let's go on to Slide #5, where we show you our net working capital. There has been an increase of 25% in the quarter vis-a-vis the first -- the same quarter last year, and we're trying to offset accounts receivable drop. On the following slide, we show you the adjusted cash flow that was negative by BRL 1.4 million, BRL 1.73 million previously. Despite the growth during the period, this shows an increase in the volume of investments to accelerate expansion projects and the negative impact of financial expenses, especially the impact of the blast furnaces. Additionally, the higher consumption of working capital also had a pressure on the cash flow for the period.

In the next slide, we show you the net debt and leverage for the company and the debt during the quarter. In the graph to the left, the message is the new reduction of leverage that we have during the period, going from 3.33x in the first quarter to 3.24x this quarter. The company has been able to ally an efficient cash management with sound results, maximizing volumes with a cost control and of course, an increase in efficiency. This is a continuous effort of the management during this year, reducing its gross debt. Only in this quarter, we had the reduction of BRL 2.1 billion for the quarter. For the year, it is BRL 5.7 billion less.

Now the company will comply with its guidance projected for the end of the year. And of course, this despite the moments of uncertainty and the lack of forecastability, but we continue on reducing our debt. We're working with recycling capital in the group as an alternative to liquidity and for our cash. The main project presently is that of CSN infrastructure, which is in its concluding stages. It will lead our negotiations until we have a more formal response at the end of the year. When we consider the debt of CEEE our debt will drop to 3.2x. And this will represent a reduction of 29 basis points for the period.

We now go on to Slide #8 with our indebtedness profile. You can see that we're still in a rather comfortable position with our short- and medium-term obligations. We have sufficient money to comply with our commitments for the next 3 years. We also have a very active management in terms of lengthening the debt, extending the amortization term, focusing on long-term operations and the local capital market. We have begun bilateral contracts, primarily concentrating on amortization flows between 2027 and 2030.

With this, we can go on to Slide #10, where we show you the highlights of the steel segment. In this first slide, you see the results of our commercial activity with a reduction of 11.5% in the sales or 10% when compared to the first quarter of '25. This is because of the strategy adopted during the period of prioritizing results and margins over volume. The market has intense competition and literally a flooding of imported material. We did not enter the price war. We have lost a bit of market share, but we see that the market is being highly pressured. And in a consistent way, there is no adequate protection to guarantee a good protection.

In the foreign market, it was somewhat lower due to seasonality and the impact of tariff disputes on foreign trade and antidumping measures throughout the world. When we look at the following slide, steel production, we see that the drop in production is due to the maintenance shutdown of blast furnace 2. It begins to show the positive results for the cost of slab and performance per ton. To the right, we can see that the cost of production dropped during the quarter, while the reforms per ton create a performance, which is almost double than what we saw in the last quarter. This efficiency can only be shown after we improved the operations of our steel product.

Now let's go on to the financial performance of the steel mill, and we see a different anatomy in our results because of the strategy. We have revenues dropping because of the lower volumes sold, but offset with an improvement of prices during the period. We have a sound recovery of EBITDA, 79% (sic) [ 7.9% ] higher than the same period in 2024 and with an EBITDA margin of 2 digits, reaching 10.8%. This increase in profitability is because of the strategy followed by the company, avoiding the prices and focusing on products with a higher profitability. All of this is even more impressive when we consider what is happening in the market, the flooding of imported material and the measures implemented by other countries, especially the United States. In this context, CSN has been able to deliver stronger EBITDA in 2025, and steel is an important vector of growth for this year.

We now go on to the mining segment. On Slide 14, you see the results of production and sales for the last quarter. There are 2 extraordinary results here, a record of production, the highest volume produced in the history of the company, but we also have the operational efficiency that the company has been able to achieve in the last few months in the mine and in the chain of logistics. This is the second highest volume of sales in our history with 11.8 million tons sold, reflecting the operations that are excellent and the level of efficiency reaching very close to its capacity limits.

Regarding the financial performance on Slide 15, even with the operational efficiency that we saw in the previous slide, we are charging $10 less than what we had in the previous quarter. Well, the price of iron ore has dropped during the quarter. In the case of EBITDA, the situation was not different with a strong volume of sales, the EBITDA in mining had a drop of 36% vis-a-vis the first quarter of '25. This related to a drop in the price of iron ore because of the demand in China and the strong impact of the tariff disputes in the United States. In the following slide, we have the EBITDA reconciliation with the previous quarter. We can see that the decline in EBITDA occurs despite the increase in volume, improvement in mix and cost reduction due to a drop in prices.

Let's go on to analyze cement on Slide 18, we have the sales volume for the quarter. Once again, we see a very dynamic segment despite the interest rate with the program, My House, My Life (sic) [ My Home, My Life ] and because of the robust volume of launches, keeping up the consumption of cement. We have been able to make the most of our logistics network to capture new markets. We had a growth of 8% in the sales. That is proof of this trend. When we compare this with the same period of last year, there's a minor drop of 4% on a very strong comparison base.

On the following slide, we have the financial performance of the segment. This year, we have a quarterly increase in net revenue and EBITDA. This result was [indiscernible] because of the positive seasonality in the period. We had drier weather, and we also had a sound launch activity. EBITDA an increase of 21% showing that although the circumstances surrounding us are very difficult, especially because of the interest rates, the sector continues to show strong new launch activity and a robust profitability.

Finally, we will go on to our logistics segment. And the main highlight is the incorporation of Tora. We have done this to strengthen our logistics sector and to enhance the synergy with the other businesses of the group. Nowadays, Tora has 75 branch offices, 7 enterprises, 5 multimodal terminals and 3 owned and third-party vehicles and a dry port. The company invoiced BRL 319 million with an EBITDA of BRL 86 million and a very interesting margin of 27%.

We go on to Slide 22 with the financial performance of all of our logistics assets. During the quarter, we had an extraordinary performance with a record in results, attaining higher levels of efficiency in the cargo handling and shipments. We had an evolution in net revenue, and we attained BRL 519 million for EBITDA and an EBITDA margin of 44.1%. Well, the drop in EBITDA is due exclusively to the acquisition of Tora. This model, rail model, of course, has one that is somewhat lower than railroad in general.

Now with this, I would like to end the presentation for the segment, and I give the floor to Helena Guerra to speak about ESG highlights.

Good morning, everybody. Well, the results of the last quarter continue to show the strides in our ESG journey. In terms of occupational health and safety, we have consistency. They are 30% lower than the results we had a few years ago in 2020. We are now in another level. We continue to present a lower number of high potential severity events, which has been the focus of our actions in 2025. In the environmental agenda, we have very positive indicators. We have a reduction in water intensity in steel production and in our decarbonization journey. We had a slight increase in the emissions from the steel plant because of the increase in volumes, but we reached a reduction of 11% in GHG emissions compared to the baseline year 2020 and 3% of GHG emissions compared to the baseline year 2020.

Now we want to cost difference and projects that will increase our operational efficiency. All of our tailing dams are stable and decharacterization in line with the project we have set forth. In the social and DEI agenda, we have made steps. We have more than 520 women that have been added when compared to 2024. This is an increase of almost 80% of female representation since we began this goal in 2020, we also have a 5% increase in the number of women in leadership. We have received the Hugo Werneck award for environmental and sustainability and we're working with Garoto Cidadão project that for 25 years has been changing the life of youngsters.

And finally, we have a protocol reinforcing the quality and transparency of our information. The permanence of the company in FTSE4Good, we're also part of FTSE Russell because we have consistent practices and a constant evolution when it comes to social and governance indicators.

Thank you, Helena. I will now give the floor to our Chairman, Benjamin Steinbruch.

Good morning, everybody. Once again, the presentation of results of CSN, I would like to mention some points specifically that were conveyed and presented by Marco.

First of all, I would like to underscore the operational results that we have been able to achieve in all of our activities, the improvement of industrial performance, a reduction of costs and an enhancement in productivity. This, of course, is our #1 priority at present. We had already presented good results in mining as well as in cement from the viewpoint of cost and productivity. And we have had significant evolution in steel, in the steel mill, as we have been mentioning through time. And we now see the results of this. We're working with less equipment. We're attempting to increase production and of course, to improve our costs.

This is our main priority at present. And we are undergoing evolution in terms of the steel mill and the results have begun to appear from the viewpoint of all of our other activities. We have had very good performance. And of course, we have had challenges because of the imported products. In the case of the steel mill, everything is coming in, in a highly disorganized and exaggerated fashion. We are the only country that has allowed this literal flood of imported products. And this has a negative impact on the market, of course, as we're offering them our domestic demand, domestic demand for imported products. And this has completely disorganized the sector. The import levels are much higher than the CSN production per se and brings about a hostile environment, a disorganized and aggressive environment which hampers -- overly hampers everything that is produced in Brazil.

Now that issue of imported products, something we have been fighting against. We have been negotiating to the government with. And although our conversations are heard by the Ministry of Industry and Development, we have not made any strides. We have been involved in this conversation for quite some time without any concrete measure being taken. Now we're waiting for the manifestation of the Brazilian government. All other countries have set forth protectionist measures. Now without mentioning the U.S. to export there, we would have a tariff increase of 50%, which makes any attempt or idea to export there unfeasible for the moment. I hope that at some point in time, these measures will come because the sector is suffering much -- too much because of imported products.

Cement has had a good performance, good growth and good demand. We have significant internal competitiveness among the producers of Brazil. The market is there. Our price is half of the foreign price for local cement producers. But -- this has been going on for some time and will undergo adjustments.

In the case of mining, we had exceptional performance. We had a drop in the Platts. Of course, we are competitive. We have a low cost, and we do believe that this market will end up at $100, $110 as part of a technical outlook for the price of Platts. But I do think better results will come.

As for the rest, we have a very stringent strategy when it comes to our cash. We're adopting all possible measures to be able to work with a lower working capital, and we have obtained results in this field. Our deleveraging commitment is ongoing. We're going to work very strongly to comply with our commitments. And we do expect an improvement in the market as everything has been set up, is operational. The strategy is the right one. And we hope that with the price improvement in the market at some point in time, there will be a reaction. And -- we will see this in our numbers.

The company as a whole is deploying enormous efforts to produce well at a lower cost and to make the most of the strategy and the market potential. We're working in all segments. We're working in niches and diversification of products. We're doing everything within our reach to get to the market with very good offers with good products with high quality. And within what is in our hands, we're doing everything. Now progressively, we have had an improvement quarter-on-quarter, and we continue to believe that the coming quarter will be even better than the second quarter of this year.

I would like to thank all of you once again for your attendance in the earnings call, and our team is at your entire disposal for questions and answers. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Mr. Yuri Pereira from Santander Bank.

If possible, I would like to have more details on your eventual partner in infrastructure. How much could you reduce your leverage because of this and your sale of stake in Usiminas, will you reduce your stake to 0? Or will you comply with the CADE antitrust company of 5%.

Yuri, thank you very much. Thank you for the question. Regarding the first question about infrastructure. I'm sorry, I was looking at the second question. We have 2 different compositions. We have 7 logistics assets in logistics and infrastructure, 2 of which are in the final stage of construction, the Transnordestina. And I take advantage to tell you that they are hiring the last 2 stretches of construction. They will be completely concluded in 2027. In 70 days, these pieces of construction will be concluded. The entire part is available to conclude construction. There are no problems with licensing, no bottlenecks. So until 2027, they will begin commercial production. And in 2025, they will begin working with commissioning.

So we have 7 assets, 2 under construction and the discussion with the potential partner will depend on the profile they want for their assets, 2 under construction, 3 in the Southeast, 3 in the Northeast and 1 with an expansion in a somewhat larger region that we have just communicated. Depending on the logistic combination, those that have greater adherence or greater appetite with -- well, the investments, both primary and secondary and the company could vary. We are hoping for a we have a stake of 20% to 40% that could be sold in this operation. Now if we don't take into account the assets that are under construction or if we don't consider the Northeast cluster, we could reach BRL 8 billion in terms of liquidity injection and reduction of leverage in the group in this first phase with the assets of only the Southeast.

Regarding the second question of Usiminas, so far, we have not defined the next step when it comes to selling off our stake of how much will be sold and in which fashion this stake will be sold. Marco, simply to complement this, regarding the infrastructure, as Marco mentioned, we have 2 packages, 2 under construction, 5 assets under operation that are quite equivalent. As Marco said, they represent BRL 8 billion. This is what we have calculated theoretically based on a value of BRL 25 billion. These 5 assets represent this amount. We also have similar amounts when it comes to the Transnordestina and [indiscernible] at the [indiscernible] port.

We have 1,000 kilometers that have been concluded. They're open for traffic. And you can calculate per kilometer, 20 million very broadly, of course. And coincidentally, these packages are more or less equivalent. What we are discussing now is to see if we will offer simultaneous treatment to both of these or if we're going to prioritize the Southeast first and then the Northeast. Everything will depend on our conversations with interested parties. And for this, we are considering the choice of who will be our advisers. We're in the final stages of this, and we will begin our negotiations immediately. This is simply to complement the answer to your question of what we have in our infrastructure package for CSN.

Our next question comes from Ricardo Monegaglia from Safra.

We have 2 at our end. Well, in terms of competition, I would like to understand if that recent decision of dumping in pipes has allowed for new dumping coated products and hot-rolled products. Now I was expecting weaker results in terms of margin. So it would be interesting to hear about the trend for following quarters, perhaps a margin expansion.

Martinez, perhaps you could speak about volumes, prices and costs. Thank you very much.

Ricardo, I will begin with the first question. In truth, as Benjamin mentioned, presently, Brazil is facing an issue of imports, something that is quite chaotic and that is leading to a market that is completely different from the one we had in previous years. We have insistently discussed this with the market face-to-face meetings with the Ministry of Development and Industry. What we clearly perceive is that if the technical issue would prevail, we would have already had to have applied all of the processes for a commercial defense. What we opted to do was to work on the antidumping, as you mentioned yourself. Ricardo, in all of them, we saw dumping a causal nexus. And this has, of course, changed the nomenclature that is being used at the World Trade Association.

Simply to give you an idea, metal sheet, we began the process in October of 2023. So far, there is no provisional right enforced. Quite the contrary, they have postponed the decision month after month. And this is also the truth for cold rolling for coated products and much more. We expect the government to become more serious to be faster and to base itself on a technical response. There are margins varying from 25% to 75%. From the commercial viewpoint, a technical viewpoint, it doesn't make sense for Brazil not to apply these antidumping rules. We continue to insist. The process is much slower than we had expected, but there is time to recover all this and obtain an enforcement or implementation of rules.

Another important point referring to commercial defense, the issue of quotas, one more time, the company worked with the first thing, but with a wrong intensity. So we are still on that track with the wrong dose. Now there was 75% from U.S.A. We're working on 7.3%. If we had applied 73%, we would have an import penetration that is not difficult to deal with in the domestic market. We're now speaking of 28% of penetration of imported products as a whole.

Now when we think about CSN, the situation is more dire. We're speaking of penetration of 40% to 50% of tinplate and prepainted galva, 70% import penetration. So this is a scenario we are facing at present. The issue of antidumping, we continue to imagine that the government will approve a process for this in the coming 2 months. Antidumping and template, coated galvanized and coated products. Now we're also working with the -- basically with a priority on these other products.

Now regarding the margins, we have sound results in the steel mill. What we have prioritized, and this was mentioned here is value over volume. We have worked with product diversification with a focus on the higher added value products. We have prioritized all of the galvanized prepainted products in our product mix. And in terms of cost, of course, we had a positive evolution, allowing CSN to have margins of around 11% for EBITDA margin despite the highly challenging scenario regarding imports and competitiveness with other competitors in the domestic market.

What is positive about Brazil, and I'm very optimistic with Brazil when it comes to demand is that this year, we will probably reach a steel production for flat steel, slab higher than in 2018, 2019. That was our record year for flat steel. Sorry, I'm referring to the year 2013. We should reach 16 million tons approximately. So there is demand in Brazil. The problem is that it is very difficult to capture margins. And the question of what we foresee for the third quarter, as Benjamin mentioned, we're going to continue to work on operational excellence costs. We're looking at each value chain. Separately, the imports will have to be combated in a timely fashion. We can't cut down prices and everything. And additionally to that, with a reduction in the cost of raw material, the cost of slab, should have less than the 13,300 that were presented. And in price, I see a situation of stability.

If -- what is happening in China truly happens, the cost of PQ increased 5% with an improvement of production because of the premium that we have presently between 5% and 10%, perhaps we could also have a price recovery in the third quarter. We have to be careful not to hand over the Brazilian market to foreigners. This is the concern of Brazil. Brazil has demand. It has markets upstream, the white home products. So we have a very good market, but we need to recover our profitability, recover margins and not hand over our market to foreigners. And this is what we have been doing in terms of slabs.

Our next question comes from Marcelo Arazi from BTG Pactual.

Two questions at our end. First, a follow-up in terms of the steel. You spoke of a positive evolution in cost efficiency gains. Could you give us some details on the measures you are adopting to manage that enhancement and how this will evolve going forward? The second question, a provocation speaking about cash generation. Your cash flow is under pressure. Do you have any visibility or idea on the CapEx flexibility we could observe until the end of the year? And if you will have another sale of assets without it being part of the infrastructure, something more in the short term to gain relief in your cash flow.

Thank you for the questions, Marcelo. Well, regarding the steel mill, we have shut down the blast furnace on January 19 of this year. Now this made feasible one of the first actions to work with coke and others in the blast furnace 3. We have changed our load using a ritual iron ore for the blast furnace 3. We also had significant evolution based on investments that were made last year for the production of our own sintering. And all of these enhancements on blast furnace 3 are leading to excellent performance in efficiency and also from the viewpoint of cost. We saw a cost evolution in our own brand in the last quarters. And the second quarter of this year will be the first quarter where we have the blast furnace 3 fully using these new loads that we referred to. And with this, we will have a change in the iron ore.

So the projection that we have of a reduction of cost in slab for the third and fourth quarters of this year are even more important than what we have seen so far without giving you the figures. So we have a very good expectation in the reduction of cost of our own slab going forward. Now this is about the performance of the steel mill as a whole. We have several other projects that will be implemented, leading the steel mill to profitability levels of other areas well above the 2 digits, much more than we reached in the second quarter of 2025.

Now regarding CapEx flexibility, the CapEx for this year is between BRL 0 and BRL 6 billion. The focus of the company is in the low range of the CapEx closer to the BRL 5 billion. Now to change that CapEx significantly will not be beneficial for the company. Most of it is geared to expansion projects and an increase in productivity. These projects were done in the steel mill and for some quarters, they're showing us the benefits of these projects. We have to put them in place. And the P15, once it will be ready in 2027, this will generate another BRL 4.4 billion in EBITDA. So this is a project we have to speed up. We cannot hold it back.

Now with this BRL 5 billion, it has undergone a very important exercise, a daily exercise in the company. In terms of monetizing our assets, besides infrastructure, we're holding a discussion with the market. We're speaking about energy, bringing in a partner for that segment. It's not of the magnitude of infrastructure, but it will also help us. And we have additional initiatives in a phase of approval. And I hope that in the next earnings call or before, we will be able to mention them. But we are working on other initiatives. We're waiting for internal approvals to inform the market regarding this.

Simply to add to this in the first question, you asked if there would be faster options, more expeditious options that we can propose in terms of deleveraging. All of the options mentioned by Marco, all alternatives for deleveraging. They're all for the short term, including that of infrastructure. We're hiring our advisers at present, and our idea is to move forward at a fast pace. Of course, everything will depend on the market opportunities, but the interest in infrastructure is quite different from all of the rest. There is a demand for investment in infrastructure projects in Brazil, especially in railroads and ports.

And alongside this, we are also holding some conversations. This simply to point to the fact that all of this will be for the short term. We have structured ourselves to work very expeditiously in this option as well as in other options mentioned by Marcos to attain the fastest results towards deleveraging.

The next question is from Marcio Farid from Goldman Sachs.

A follow-up for steel. Martinez, you spoke at length about the market. If you could speak about long steel, there was a price recently, and I believe that the increase was aggressive without speaking of imports, the long steel and which have been your conversations with the government? Benjamin mentioned that at the beginning of the conversation that despite all of the efforts, all of the measures adopted have been insufficient. So thinking about the future with this discussion of tariffs and the coming closer of the government with China, which is your mindset to think of a more protective measure for the sector?

My second point, and do forgive me for insisting on this. You spoke about the sale of a stake to Usiminas. Benjamin, I would like to understand if there will be a more aggressive movement towards the sale of assets. The surprise was not only because of the timing, but because of the price at which the shares were sold to what's the market. There wasn't much choice. Now simply to understand if there has been a change of mindset to do something more aggressive in the coming quarters and years to clean out your balance. That is it.

Marcio, this is Martinez. In long steel, long steel was better than slab lack of coordination of the Brazilian segment. Everything that was done so far hasn't brought about an inch more of a new market or growth in the Brazilian market. So everything was unnecessary. To give you an idea, our sale of long steel in the second quarter fell 12% because the prices reached a level with a base price for long steel cash payment without taxes at BRL 300 -- BRL 3,400. This is an extremely low cost, and we have preferred to remain outside of this market and work in other markets.

In the long steel market, we're going to increase the price on the first -- an increase between 8% and 10% in rebar and others. And this is insufficient, of course, to recover our margins in long steel. But this is what's happening in the sector. We follow up on what the market is doing as long as it is reasonable, and it was not reasonable in the first quarter. And we expect a recovery in long steel in the second quarter and a recovery in profitability.

And because of the need to increase the EBITDA margin of the steel mill as a whole. In the specific case of the conversations we are holding with the government, I participated in all of these conversations. What can I underscore? We have a Ministry of Development, Industry and Services that is highly technical. They carry out excellent work in the technical part. They come out with thesis of commercial defense.

And as I mentioned previously, all of these without exception, without speaking about damages and causal nexus. What's lacking courage on the part of the government to clearly enforce without thinking about anything connected to politics, the economy of competition, what could be done immediately -- nothing that is very different from the regulations of the World Trade Organization is a provisional cost for all products, tinplate and other galvanized products, something that should be enforced immediately because through time, we see that China besides -- well, it's also facing a commercial defense in other countries of Asia. It exports to Vietnam, to Korea, the European Union and to Brazil, 1.2 million in flat steel. So what we're lacking is courage and that will to take the industry to another level in Brazil.

What is more important, Marcio, is that we do have demand in Brazil. We have sectors that are making due regardless of what is happening in terms of politics with the U.S.A. and China. And what we truly need is a quick implementation of measures. We don't want to hand over our market to foreigners, which is what we're doing now, a non-hedge market being handed to players and the largest of these players, of course, is China. Now this is the scenario we will be facing in the coming months. Perhaps in the third quarter, we will have the enforcement of 1 or 2 provisional antidumping rules.

To complement what Marco has said, despite all of the conversations held with the government, warning them about the growing volume of imported products in the steel sector. And despite the positive conversations we have had with the Ministry of Development and Industry and with Vice President Alckmin, we have always been treated very courteously with high-level technical discussions. But as we have mentioned in one of those meetings, what we are lacking is the will of the President of the country. This goes beyond the government. We need to have a clear manifestation of the President, his concern about the industry, what we're doing in the industry, what we're doing for employment in the industry. We're literally being run over by the volume of imported products in a highly chaotic fashion. And we need the action of the President to decrease this imminent risk that we are running of losing employment and the industry itself in general, not only the steel industry, but the industry as a whole because of the strong attacks we are under. And some of the exporters have no cost.

They try to make exports feasible. They're not concerned with cost or price. I believe that we need a presidential action signaling how the industry will be treated going forward, what they're going to do with the employment of industry and what they're going to do with investments because we find ourselves in a highly critical moment from the viewpoint of our assets, our sale of assets -- we're always going to proceed in an organized and structured fashion.

The goal, of course, is the deleveraging. And it's not worthwhile having great figures. We have good EBITDA. We have a margin even though we have lost significant margin in the last few years. The margin continues to be reasonably good between 25% and 30%. But we do have that commitment towards ourselves to deleverage, and we have several assets to work with. It's not only infrastructure as a whole. That's, of course, our largest package in the Southeast and the Northeast, as I mentioned previously. And Marcos gave you the idea of BRL 8 billion for each package.

I am convinced that we have that will, we have the determination and the need to carry out the sales of assets. Notwithstanding this, we have to wait for the right moment with the right partner. We're working strongly on this. This is our highest priority, along with a reduction of cost and enhancement of productivity. Now the issue of deleveraging is our great priority, and we will work with it in an intelligent and rational way and in the shortest period possible.

Our next question comes from Daniel Sasson from Itaú BBA.

My first question comes from that slowing down of CapEx in -- sorry, the increase of pace in investment because of P15 in mining. What is happening with the milestones that you presented on CSN days and your expectations in terms of expansion? If you could also speak, and I'm referring to Martinez about the cement business. Martinez vis-a-vis our numbers, I think it has become very clear that you have diversified your business. You have diversified the flexibility. Well, we are speaking of cement and logistics. The cement market in Brazil has it recovered from the lows a decade ago, but we're still falling short in terms of the use of capacity and the prices continue to be the lowest in Latin America. If you could discuss with us the main levers to add value to this business.

This is Marco to speak quickly about P15. Now what is still missing is the infrastructure that is proceeding at a very fast pace. We just closed a huge package of civil work that will begin subsequently, everything referring the packages of equipment, the core equipment and main equipment of P15 have already been contracted, some of which are already at the site or at other sites awaiting for their setup. What we're missing are small assembly works, accessory works that will have to be mobilized the second semester of the coming year and therefore, will be contracted in the future. Now the forecast for delivery is the fourth quarter of 2027.

Daniel. Thank you for your question regarding cement. You're one of the few that cover this sector, and we love to speak about this new sector. I have Edvaldo beside me. He's responsible for the operational part. I will respond for him because he's somewhat hoarse today. And in the market, I spoke about steel where we have the priority value over volume. In cement, it's value and volume. Based on our platform that is highly competitive because of our operational excellence, logistics, the commercial strategy, the distribution centers and much more. We have reached our maximum potential in the business. We grew 8% in the second quarter vis-a-vis the first quarter. It could have been a better growth, but we had some operational problems in the Northeast. They have been fully redressed in price, a recovery of 2.5% for the second quarter.

What you said is important. Brazil has an enormous opportunity to increase prices to recover prices. It does not make sense in a market like Brazil to work with price levels that are lower than those of Latin American markets and China as well. Our efforts in cement will be ever more geared to look for each ton with a higher value using our market coverage, the increase in number of customers and based on the commercial strategy that so far has been quite successful.

In terms of operational excellence, we see that raw material for steel have a tendency to go through a drop. In the second half of the year, we hope to be able to see a drop in costs as well, especially for raw material for pet coke. At the end of the third quarter and fourth quarters, we imagine, we will have materials and an inventory with a somewhat higher cost. Now additionally to this, we are maximizing the production of all of our assets of our 13 operations. We continue to increase the fragmentation by setting up new distribution points, distribution centers, reaching an ever more lower ticket. This is our strategy to look for this profitability of 25%.

And the Brazilian market is doing well presently. For example, let's talk about the Minha Casa, Minha Vida, My Home, My Life sector. It's doing very well. We have constructions for the higher bracket, the middle class doing very well. And there is some work in infrastructure in the Southeast that are leveraging our volume. So once again, CSN has fantastic assets in cement. We imagine that we will reach a total potential with the synergy that we have Lafarge in the coming 6 months in terms of operations and logistics as well. And Tora transportation that we acquired recently will be an important lever to work on freight transfer and with the end markets for cement.

As a whole, to speak about Brazil, what we foresee for the second half of the year is the continuity of this growth in the cement market. And for the coming year, we're working with a very positive scenario, imagining the carryover of works we have in the real estate market as well as in infrastructure. The main challenge, as you mentioned, is to recover margins. CSN has done its part, but faced with very strong competition in the market. We're going to continue fighting but working with the best margin in the sector, which is our goal.

Our next question comes from Caio Ribeiro from Bank of America.

My first question is on the evolution with China, which is the mindset of the company on the policy that will have an impact on Brazil and iron ore. Now the second question for mining, there are lower grades of iron ore. How has this impacted your commercial decisions? How are you selling the product in the market? Some players are reducing the sale of this lower-grade iron ore. So how have you adjusted to this present day market moment? That would be very helpful to us.

Caio, I'm not sure I understood your first question, if you could repeat it.

The question is about the policy that China is mentioning about resolving the oversupply problems and in some sectors. And of course, the steel sector is one of the goals. So which is your mindset on the impact on Brazilian steel industry and the iron ore market?

I'm going to speak very generally of what is happening in China at present. An important point, Caio, is that we already clearly perceive that the price has had a result. We see the PQ cost increased 5% the last week. Now another interesting piece of information, something that did not happen. The CISA, the Chinese association of steel has been working on the coordination of those industries of all the steel plants in China. Nowadays, in terms of occupation, we have a use of blast furnaces of 87, 89, but only 55% to 60% of these plants have a positive margin. Now obviously, in China, the greatest use is employability. And well, when the problem hits, they try to occupy production further. We're working with a scenario of reduction in production in China in the next 3 to 4 months. And this could have a positive impact for Brazil when it comes to the premium.

In Brazil, the premium vis-a-vis Chinese PQ is between 5% and 10%. And if there are $20 or $30 more, which is the price of the Chinese domestic market, the price of PQ in China is $500. Now we can imagine neutrality in premium in Brazil or a price recovery in the country. All of these reductions in production are being better coordinated by the Chinese Association of Steel producers. This is an important piece of information. Now despite this, the exports from China continue at a pace of [ BRL 90 million ] per year. The government has also acted on the environmental issues. They're incentivating modern plants to use cleaner technologies at present, and they could increase the use of the assets that have higher productivity, closing down capacity that has a higher cost.

Now the impact for Brazil, in my opinion, speaking honestly, Caio, will be very positive, and that is why I'm positive. This is what we were missing for the steel plants in Brazil. We have a market, we have demand. As Benjamin mentioned, perhaps the presidential decision will be to work with protection or [ economy ] that would be important for Brazil.

And finally, in this world scenario, China could help us in terms of profitability in the Brazilian market exporting at different levels. For iron ore, I will give the question to Marco. But in iron ore, you have already observed that we're working at somewhat higher levels. This is an opportunity for the Brazilian market as we will be able to capture based on the price of PQ, a higher profitability for the third quarter.

Caio, regarding the question on iron ore. Now the price of China is strong. The volumes have also hit several records. We have focused ever more on the low-grade iron ore produced in China. They are working -- well, they're working with higher volumes of low-grade iron ore. Now because of quality issues. Last quarter, it was at $14. Presently, it is at $15 and should remain at that level until the coming into operation of P15. This will change the quality of iron ore, and we will have a completely different impact due to loss of quality, of course.

Our next question comes from [indiscernible] from JPMorgan.

I simply have some follow-ups on previous questions. I begin with the sale of stake at Usiminas, the sale of assets, the idea of carrying out partnerships in the segment. I think all of this has been made very clear. I'd like to understand more about your sale of stake. This is a moment in which the industry has suffered considerably. We see the industry. We see the shares dropping. I would like to understand if the rationale of that sale of stake was based on a decision of the antitrust agency, the CADE, which was the rationale?

The second question, something that has already been discussed, refers to the steel segment. It was the positive highlight of the quarter. We have seen industries with lower margins, but you delivered a very sound margin. The question is that over volume. Now how do you look upon your strategy for the long term? Can you continue following this rationale for much longer? Can you maintain that strategy in the third quarter? What will you do in the long term, however?

Thank you for the questions, [ Tatiane ]. First, regarding the sale of stake to from Usiminas, it's not very frequently that we're able to find a buyer that wants a volume of shares from Usiminas as we transacted this week. The liquidity of shares, the common shares and preferred shares is very low. If we carry out a sale of all shares through the stock market, it will take us years to sell all of those shares to the market to find an investor at present is not something that you will find very easily. And clearly, we're following the agreement that we have with the CADE, the antitrust agency.

[ Tatiane ], once again, thank you for your question. It's what you said in the report, CSN among the Brazilian companies, industries is the one that suffers the greater pressure because of the imports. This is doubtless because nowadays, practically 50% of what we do is linked to higher quality products. And well, this is the one that has the highest import rate in Brazil. And in this scenario, CSN, as you mentioned, in the second quarter was the only industry that hiked up its prices. If I take away the long steel for our -- from our balance where the drop of prices was greater, we increased the price 2% to 3% in the second quarter to 2.5%, working with that over volume in the third and fourth quarters.

What do I believe will happen? And what will help us maintain our profitability with a 2-digit margin. First of all, the operational excellence, the issue of costs. The endless work in cost optimization of our assets. We're working with 1 blast furnace less despite this, we have complemented production with a regular purchase of [ PQD ] and slab. This is helping us to maintain our cost.

Now additionally to this, the cost level of slabs will go from BRL 300 to BRL 3,000 per ton, which offers us a comfortable position. Now still speaking about cost, we have worked broadly in terms of coke and centering to attain the maximum output to buy as little as possible of pellets and coke.

And in the commercial pillar, and this means enormous movements. We have never done anything this strong in the last few years. We have worked the most on our strategy of selling more for less, not putting all of our eggs in the same basket. We're selling in all sectors. We have increased the number of customers 50% in this first half of the year, and we're looking at added value, quality and those who truly care about quality. This is something we do day after day.

Now in terms of prices, specifically, I'm counting upon a recovery of prices in some markets. Because of that level of equivalence of premium compared to the imported nationalized product. Now to work with those prices in China, we could slowly recover slowly. It's not a strong movement, but we could recover in strategic sectors. And we're going to work ever more on our portfolio, work with prepainted zinc or material, galvanized material. And we're also working with the tinplate market in Brazil, where our margin is much better than in other products.

Now the last point, a focus -- a complete focus on the domestic market. That drop that you see in the volume of total shipment is linked to the drop in exports that we had because of the galvanized material in the U.S.A. Finally, I would like to underscore the good performance of our units in Portugal, Germany and the United States, where we have stopped up in material to be able to compete in the second half of the year. The results have been positive and will contribute so that in the third and fourth quarter, we can maintain our 2 digits or perhaps have a slight increase vis-a-vis the second quarter. This is our strategy so far.

Now let's speak about the vertical integration we have with the strategic clients and users with our partnerships working hand-in-hand with distribution. This maintains a healthy business vis-a-vis our competitors. Unfortunately, our competitors are working with a strong -- a wrong strategy, taking away value from the market.

Our next question comes from Gabriel Barra from Citi.

We have some follow-ups, and I will be quick. I'm sorry to be so insistent, but a very direct question to understand if the sale of stake is because of the antitrust agency, CADE, beyond what you have done, you have to continue doing something simply to have more clarity. Now in terms of antidumping, there is a discussion of the Brazilian industry. And of course, this is of the utmost importance. There has been a predatory situation. Now regarding antidumping, this week, there was a discussion of the government introducing a lower tariff that would have an impact on the automobile industry that represents an important part of the demand for Brazilian steel. I don't know if you can pressure the government if you're part of that discussion, if it's important for you, which is your vision in this antidumping situation, if there are other ways of going around this problem.

And finally, you speak about deleveraging. You have spoken broadly about investments that trend of having a 3x net debt EBITDA until the end of the year. I would like to gain an understanding for the medium term. You have a disinvestment of focus on deleveraging. How could we imagine that deleveraging for the coming year, which will be the path that it will follow and where it should stand in mid-2026. These are my questions.

Gabriel, thank you for your comments and questions. I'm going to refer to Usiminas. Of course, there's an agreement with CADE, the antitrust agency. There's also a certain level of confidentiality at the level of justice. Now this sale that was done now is a very important, relevant and material part of our compliance with the agreement with CADE, but it doesn't refer exclusively to them. It's an incredibly important step in our commitment with the antitrust agency.

Now regarding deleveraging, besides the infrastructure and logistics that we spoke about at length, we have improvements in our operational results that will deleverage the company in all segments. Logistics is growing considerably with record results at present, not only because of the acquisition of Tora, but because of the results of its other assets. Well, cement, the steel plant with all of the investments, 2 digits with EBITDA margin growing going forward and mining, which is also part of our project, the P15, generating BRL 4.4 billion in EBITDA and relevantly helping us to deleverage the group. Besides this, we have the sale of assets. So besides the infrastructure in the coming months, we will have other novelties for the market.

Now in the long term, the company always wants to work with a leverage of 2x or below 2x net debt EBITDA. We would like to go back to being investment grade. But this doesn't depend exclusively on the company. It depends on the market and the sovereign rating of Brazil. We've already given you guidance of this year being below 3.0x. And going forward, we want that guidance of the year to remain stable. The market should perceive that all of the enhancements in results that we will -- well, the projects we will deliver in 2027 depend on the investments we are making. We're going to balance out good investments and a reduction in leveraging. This is a daily exercise for the company. So in 2026, the year you mentioned, the leverage should be around 3.0x. This is a challenge for the company.

Gabriel, this is Martinez. Once again, thank you for the question. I'm going to speak about another side of the commercial defense issue from the viewpoint of commercial defense, practically everything that could be done in Brazil in terms of instruments have been done. In the specific case of CSN, we focus a great deal on antidumping. We have been working on this for 1.5 years and the Ministry of Industry itself has received us very well. The Vice President Alckmin has lent years to everything we say. He loves the process, but we don't see any results. 1.5 years to discuss this is much too long.

First of all, we need to have courage to make the decision to implement what the ministry should do in technical terms to set forth margins. They have to have courage. As Benjamin mentioned, this is something connected to the President of the Republic. And in terms of the third point, the government needs to focus more on the industry. This is a sector that has been left aside in Brazil in the last 2 years. So there's an important focus for industry.

We're not speaking of direct imports. There's also direct imports coming to Brazil in terms of products. And this makes the production chain rather uncompetitive compared to other countries in the automobile industry, an interesting fact. They have no imports practically. The level of services, the quality we have delivered to assembly plants in Brazil so far has been sufficient to compete in the domestic market.

The problem is that the competition with the Chinese is unloyal competition, completely disorganized and the government has to work towards a balance between imports and competitiveness of the automobile chains. This is the problem. Not having protection, having isonomy and something more reasonable so that the Brazilian industry can enhance its competitivity vis-a-vis other industries in the world.

As we have no further questions, I will return the floor to Mr. Marco Rabello for the closing remarks.

I would like to thank all of the members of the CSN Group who have contributed to our deliveries. I thank all of you for attending our earnings call. At this point, we would like to end the call, wishing all of you a very good weekend.

Thank you. The earnings call for CSN ends here. We would like to thank all of you for your attendance. Have a very good afternoon.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]