Acerinox nets nearly $280M in first quarter

Spain-based stainless steel producer Acerinox S.A., which owns the North American Stainless mill in Kentucky, has reported $2.39 billion in revenue in this year’s first quarter, helped by its melt shop production of nearly 670,000 metric tons of metal.

Those figures helped it achieve $441 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) and “profit after tax and non-controlling interests” of $278 million.

The metals producer says its output increased by 7 percent compared with the previous quarter and was “stable with respect to the first quarter of 2021.”

Higher finished product prices, however, meant its revenue climbed by 59 percent compared with the first quarter of 2021 and was 18 percent higher than the fourth quarter of 2021.

Acerinox indicates its first-quarter 2022 EBITDA was 2.6 times higher than that of the first quarter of last year and 33 percent higher than the previous financial quarter’s. “The EBITDA margin was 18 percent” in this year’s first quarter, Acerinox says.

Its profits followed suit, being 3.4 times higher in this year’s first quarter compared with the first quarter of 2021 and 34 percent higher compared with the previous quarter.

In the sustainability section of its comments, the company reports, “Acerinox manufactures with a group-wide average recycled content rate of more than 90 percent and valorizes [recycles or diverts] more than 70 percent of waste generated.”

Looking ahead, Acerinox writes in comments released with its first-quarter results, “The market situation, the control of our costs and the backlog allows us to continue being optimistic for the second quarter, in spite of numerous uncertainties in the international panorama, the price of energy and the inflation experienced in all of our raw materials and consumables.

The company adds, “We expect EBITDA in the second quarter to be slightly better than that reached in the first quarter. The group’s sales will not be affected by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, since they account for just 0.4 percent of [Acerinox] total sales.”

Pertinent to its North American Stainless (NAS) mill in the United States, Acerinox says, “In the first two months of 2022, apparent consumption in the U.S. increased by 17 percent. The majority of the economy’s sectors that consume stainless steel maintained solid demand during the first quarter of 2022 and continued the strong tendency established during the fourth quarter of 2021.”

Acerinox adds, “Our NAS plant operated at full capacity and implemented two base price increases during the quarter.”

The firm states, “Thanks to the efforts made, we have managed to not depend on raw materials from Russia, with the objective of sourcing our raw materials from countries that respect human rights and international law.”