Louis L. Schorsch
Analyst · JPMorgan, please
Yes, this is Louis Schorsch. I'll comment a bit on the South American situation with the FX effect. I think as Mr. Mittal mentioned, there's really 2 things that would affect the results coming out of that kind of situation. One is the degree to which we can alter or raise our finished product prices in the domestic currency to compensate for the loss in dollar revenues as the domestic currency declines. And I think there, I think to date, this is something that we've been able to accomplish. There's typically a lag, but I think everybody recognizes that a lot of the cost base of raw materials, ultimately the energy, et cetera, is dollar-denominated and there's some acceptance of that need. But again, there's typically a little bit of a lag as you'd roll through that development. I'll comment in the most extreme case and, obviously, this is looking backwards rather than forwards. But in Argentina last year, we had inflation of about 26%, if I recall correctly, and we were able to maintain the financial results from that operation. So it can be done, but again, that's looking backwards. In terms of the cost base, I think it depends on the product that we're looking at but, obviously, there is some benefit. Again, I don't want to give a figure because I think it depends on the individual product we're looking at, but I don't expect that to have a very significant effect on our export position. Anything helps, but if you look at our exports from that region, by far, the majority is the -- in semifinished products, slabs in particular, and of course, you have less value-added in the slabs, so the benefits, let's say, the impact of the lower domestic cost base is certainly much smaller there than if you looked at a more of a downstream product. So I think the challenge is, again, managing the revenues to keep stable and competitive and balanced on a worldwide basis and I think with some lags to date, we've been able to do that.