Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN) reported 3Q20 results for its cement division with net revenue of BRL259m (US$46.2m), up 50 per cent QoQ due to higher sales volumes, which rose by 16 per cent compared to 2Q20. CSN’s cement division achieved an EBITDA record of BRL100m (US$17.8m) in 3Q20.
"When it comes to cement, to give you an idea, the market capacity is 100Mt, a theoretical capacity at present the capacity that is available to the market is of 75 and if we analyse the third quarter of 2020," said Luis Fernando Barbosa Martinez, CSN's executive officer and member of Executive Board. "We have gotten to 70Mt. So in cement, we're balancing supply and demand. What happened in cement? We have a competitive cost and we truly, we covered our prices and we have a record EBITDA BRL100m only in the third quarter. And the trend for cement is highly positive. Construction continues on and commercial and residential construction will continue."
Mr Martinez continued, "Our cost has decreased, but we have recovered in terms of prices. We're not a sector of leader in the southeast. We have 15 per cent to 20 per cent for São Paulo, Rio and Usiminas and a six per cent share in the rest of Brazil. So we are heading toward optimising service to the 20,000 clients we have in our portfolio and when it comes to price we're speaking of BRL260/t (US$46.4/t), BRL270/t (US$48.15/t), according to the present exchange rate. The price is below international prices."
Benjamin Steinbruch, CSN president, chairman and CEO, sees consolidation coming to the Brazilian cement sector. "We have two plants, that we acquired. One in Europe and one here and we have foreseen the opportunity of consolidating the sector because of the very difficult times that cement went through and this continues vis-a-vis the international scenario. So we believe there will be a significant change in terms of consolidation as the idleness that we see is not real in truth. There is a great deal of nominal capacity that is not feasible in terms of cost. If we analyse this, we believe that does exist that possibility for organic growth among the assets that we have and eventually the opportunity for mergers and others."
