Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for holding. We would like to welcome everyone to CSN's conference call to present results for the fourth quarter and full year 2024. Joining us today are the company's executive officer. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded. And all participants will be in listen-only mode during the company presentation. [Operator Instructions] You can access the event at ri.csn.com.br, where the presentation is also -- the replay will be available after the conclusion. Before proceeding, we would like to state that some of the statements, our expectations are trends and based on current assumptions and opinions of the company management. These performances and events may differ materially from those expressed herein as they 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, such as general and economic conditions in Brazil and other countries, interest and exchange rate levels, future rescheduling or prepayment of debt in foreign currency, 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 basis. I would now like to turn the floor over Mr. Marco Rabello, the CFO and Executive IR Officer, who will present the Company's operating and financial highlights for the period. You have the floor, Mr. Rabello.

Good morning, everybody. It is a pleasure to present the results of CSN for the fourth quarter and full year 2024. We begin on Slide 2, where we have highlights of an exceptional quarter, the strongest in the year, with a strong EBITDA evolution, cost control and enhance the prices in all segments. We have the highest cash of our history, almost reaching BRL25 billion of course, enabling us to control the leveraging of the group. Now the leverage of this semester is the impact of the exchange rate variation and our debt in dollars. Otherwise, the leverage would have been closer to 3.2 times showing the operational enhancement and the projects to recycle capital in the group. With the coming of CMIN that brought in BRL4.4 billion to the cash of CSN at the end of 2024. If we look at the highlights in mining, the fourth quarter of '24 was a period confirming the operational excellence, the company reached its production guidance and CI cost with operational records for the year despite the rainfall at the end of the year. They did not have the impact that we had expected. We also had a strong price increase of 35% vis-a-vis the previous quarter, leading the EBITDA margin to a level above 50%. In steel, our plan for a normalization and recovery of results continue that full steam. In the fourth quarter 2024, we had the best commercial results since 2021. We offset the negative seasonality at the end of the year with a 10% increase in sales when compared to the same period last year. This shows that the steel consumption continues a favorable trend and that we're making the most of that trend. It was possible to present a recovery of EBITDA with the margin reaching 11%…

Well, this is our performance for the last quarter 2024. We had excellent performance in terms of all of the material issues Well, we implemented a program to reduce the rate of potential excellence. We ended the year without fatalities, but we also had a 63% reduction in loss days, reaching the lowest rate in 10 years. When we had 66.3% reduction in the accident severity rate. Now all of this in a year where we work the most in our history with more than 106 million hours worked, 10% more than in 2023. In the last quarter of '24, we had positive results in our agenda, where we focused on investments in projects to enhance our competitiveness to reduce costs. The results of these investments were expressive reduction in the emission of CO2, 7% reduction in the steel mill, very close to the goal we have for 2030 and also because of the record production year and other programs to increase the use of diesel in the social part. We continue to advance in terms of diversity. We have 75% PMO representation since we set up this goal and we reaffirm the diversity policy of the company. We're now moving back or simply moving forward. We want to have a more representative more diverse company, and this is associated to the pillars of efficiency and meritocracy. These pillars are convergence. We had investments in the CSN foundation, BRL60 million invested in social work. And this simplifies the positive impact of our operations, maintaining that constant dialogue with society so that we can renew our social policy. And of course, for another year, and thanks to all of this, CSN is recognized as industry top rated. We are a benchmark in our sector, and we were awarded with that top rated steel for 2024. Very well. These are the highlights, and I would like to return the floor to Marco.

Thank you very much, Helena. We will now go on to the question-and-answer session. Benjamin Steinbruch, our CEO, is present with us and -- the rest of the executive officers are also at your disposal for your questions. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now go onto the question-and-answer session. The first question is from Caio Ribeiro from Bank of America. [Operator Instructions]

Good morning everybody, thank you for taking my question. The first question refers to the expansion projects the company is working on in mining, you have several projects like P15, the port expansion and options for organic growth in cement. If you could give us an overview of the priorities of this expansion that you are contemplating and at which stage they are, this would be very helpful. Now moving towards the steel production. If you could give us an update on the parity premium that you foresee for Brazil and how this effects your strategy in terms of price readjustment. And if we keep in mind that tariffs are now by the United States, which is your expectation regarding the antidumping suit that have been analyzed in Brazil and the changes in the quota and tariff system in Brazil as well. Thank you.

Caio, thank you very much for the questions. If I skip one of them, please repeat it at the end. Now in terms of our investment plan, what is important is that 2025 is a very important year. More than 60% of our CapEx is devoted to priority projects and expansion. We have done this in the past of course, but 2025 and onwards, most of our CapEx will be devoted to growth, which is part of the transformation of CSN Group. When we speak about priority projects, without a doubt P15 is a significant priority for the year. The forecast is that it will come into operation until the end of 2027 to have a full year of operation in 2028, more than 50 million tons high-grade iron ore phenomenal EBITDA for the group. In steel, we have a plan, a reorganization that extend for the next 6 years to 10 years. It's a lengthy project that began in 2024, and it continues in 2025. This year, we will focus on centering with several investments there. The many reform of furnace to that was announced to the market and other significant reorganizations in 2025, all of which are geared to enhancing performance and reducing cost at the steel mills when we speak about cement, we have Edvaldo here and I will allow him to speak about the cement expansion plan.

Good morning Caio. In terms of cement, we're considering three greenfields that we had spoken about in previous meetings. We have a project in Parana and other in Sergipe and a third one in Para. Now these projects are in medium to high priorities. We have acquired the main equipment. We have paid it and paid for them and stop them in Brazil, they will be assembled when it makes sense for the company. And the main highlight is a project from Parana. We're working on engineering. We have worked with basic engineering. We have progressed to higher engineering, and we're very optimistic that we will have the environmental license to set up the plant this year. It's a plant with a capacity of 3 million to 5 million tons per year, and it makes sense for the company as we are now present in a significant market, which is in the south. We're working on the maturity of the projects. And of course, our purpose is to continue forward. And when it makes sense for the company, we will begin allocating capital to these projects.

Hello Caio. This is Martinez. I will begin with a question referring to anti-dumping, the freight protection United States. Despite everything by China, we're still here. We're surviving. Now what is important is that during the last 6 months or 9 months, excessively, we have had several meetings with the ministry with Vice President of CMIN. Practical viewpoint, [12 innocuous ] (ph), nothing was done to resolve the problem of competitiveness. It is not a protectionist measure. Now when we think about the import parity, this continues. You spoke about the quota system Brazilian import. This cycle is innocuous. Well, we have business to legitimate what was important in 2023 based on the average of 2021, 2022. Well, the system, the government said for did not work with this movement today linked to the U.S., we see that in the market, we have communicating vessel and China has suffered antidumping from countries in Asia, such as Vietnam, the Thailand. And they're also holding back on the imports of Chinese material. So in Brazil, you cannot survive with these import, representing 25% and they could increase depending on the imbalance in the international market. Once again, this is not an issue of protectionism. It is one of isonomy and we're very competitive in the country. When we think about trade protection and still speaking about dumping in the case of tin plates, CSN was successful in implementing a provisional antidumping for tin plates. This should be extended for the coming months and should become permanent. It's a technical issue. And well, it was proven and it was implemented. Yesterday, we had a decision on coal lamination, something unexpected. We had everything that you can imagine in terms of competition, there was dumping. There was damage. There was just cost jumping at…

Very clear. Thank you very much for your details on the quarter.

The next question is from Rafael Barcellos from Bradesco BBI. Your microphone has been activated.

And congratulations for your results. My first question is to have more details on the strategic plan of the company. We're undergoing a trade war. And I would like to understand which will be the impact not only on tariff on CSN, but how this changes your vision regarding the investment for the company, I understood that the priority is to continue on with mining, steel and efficiency projects. Now if you could give us more color in terms of the projects you have greater flexibility on if you are going to postpone them or not. And if there is a possibility of M&A in the steel segment, second question, a follow-up for Martinez in steel. Steel had a significant evolution of its results in this quarter. Could you connect what you've said initially and the evolution of these results in the first half of the year, cost and margin.

Rafael, to go to the second part of your question linked to cost margin and evolution. As I mentioned, last year was an interesting year in the case of the steel plant we were able to grow more than the market and especially in the fourth that theoretically, has always been a seasonable period, we were able to neutralize the drop and remain stable in terms of volume. The market had a 7% drop. This shows that our strategy -- and we say this in all the calls is working and is on the right path. The most significant path in the steel mill as you have all perceived were justified. This increase in EBITDA is linked to cost. The cost we have been referring to the search for operational excellence. And it is our understanding that it will continue until the first quarter of the coming year. In some of the calls, I mentioned that we have to pursue figures of 3,000, 3,100 tons per ton of slab, we have to head to that. In terms of price, we were able to recover in the first quarter, the increase in higher added value products among assembly plants. This will have a positive result. We hope that the market will continue to grow. We have a portfolio despite all of this, a very good portfolio that still needs to improve when it comes to added value we're seeking to enhance the added value of our portfolio, and we will continue with that two-digit EBITDA for the first quarter and grow above the market. This is a scenario we foresee for the first quarter. In terms of guidance for the coming year as we work with full production, it won't be very different from this year, but we will focus more on the cost pillar and optimization of products maintaining the added value strategy, the positioning in different segments and much more. I'll give the floor to Marco to answer the first part of the question regarding investments.

We have two questions. One about the company's strategy. How we look upon the future, the issue of tariffs, steel, mining and much more. Now the group has begun the diversification of segment for some time already. It represents 13% of the cash of the group in steel, we will continue to increase its share in the company cash. We are going to improve our average EBITDA margin as part of future strategy. And we had mentioned this in the CSN Day in December about infrastructure that will add value to our logistics network. Just this alone has the potential of having the highest equity in the group. They are the two main value segments for the CSN Group. And in a future line of diversification of EBITDA, deleveraging and growth, they will be very important for the future of the company. You spoke about tariffs. I'm probably referring to steel. And I think this has been clearly explained. The price of steel in the U.S. makes it worthwhile selling very even with the 25%. And in Brazil, where we exported to the U.S. was a very small part of our production. We can accommodate this in the local market differently from other companies with reasonable results. Regarding investment to complete the question, we do have good flexibility among all of the projects we have set forth. We have a road map for the coming 5 years. For the year 2025, we see a level of CapEx, very similar to that of 2024. We can still make adjustments, subsequent adjustments, but our focus is P15 and the reorganization of the steel plant. This shows how important the steel plant is in the company profitability and in risk diversification. We're not going to postpone these projects, other minor budgets. We will be flexible in terms of postponing them depending on how the year unfolds. Well, we in terms of results for 2025 should be more than sufficient to have the right CapEx, taxes, interest rates and further deleverage CSN. Thank you very much.

Our next question comes from Daniel Sasson from Itau BBA. Your microphone has been activated.

Thank you. And good day to all of you. My first question goes to Marco. If you could further detail your deleveraging plans, if that guidance to get to the end of the year below 3x about which would be the main drivers for that and perhaps you have a significant improvement of EBITDA implicit in these figures, or does the guidance imply an increase in CapEx vis-a-vis 2024. And well, as a follow-up to previous questions. How much of that is in your hands to eventually postpone disbursements of 2025 for 2026, if this year proved to be somewhat more challenging in the second half of the year, then it is now the outlook seems to be very good according to Martinez for the steel plant. My second question, and Martinez, thank you for your explanation on protectionist measures. Could you speak about the environment of steel in the Brazilian market comparing that moment where things are better for flat steel compared to long steel. What you expect and in theory long steel, perhaps has more space but the supply and demand dynamic seems to be more challenging. If you could compare these two segments, I would be very grateful. Thank you.

Hello Daniel, this is Martinez. Last year, was an interesting year because when we began the year, we could not imagine that we would get to 15.6 million tons of flat steel. Last year, we had some markets to give you more details. Well, some things were better than we expected in the automotive market. The market grew 16%. The bus market and truck market with 30% to 40% growth, recovery from other years of very low growth and a wide line on interesting surprise. People were buying more. They were renewing the equipment, civil construction. We still have a significant backlog works that are underway. Something will happen with infrastructure in distribution. It follows the segment. It was present in all channels in a very balanced fashion. The only sector that was more impacted last year were agriculture machines because of investments in agribusiness, they came to a standstill. Now this year, to give you more detail, we began the year with a good portfolio, a well-positioned portfolio. In the second half of the year, perhaps I'm not sure, but we could have different signal in terms of what is happening. But I do believe that in the first half of the year, it's a given. There is not very much to do in terms of the market. The market continues a buying market. But of course, there are other variable economy inflation, interest rate. I'm not taking that into account. We're riding the wave and we'll prepare ourselves for whatever is ahead. When we speak about long steel, what is happening in the domestic market, we suffered this with flat steel before because in long steel, we have several market players, via additional capacity in the domestic market, we have Gerdau , [Arcelor Brazil], (ph) a huge fight…

Thank you Marco, thank you Martinez for the answers.

Our next question is from Yuri Pereira from Santander Bank. Your microphone has been activated.

Thank you very much and good day to all of you. About the antidumping issue, once again, after the decision of coal drawing, which is a product you're monitoring for the coming government decision. There is a schedule that the government does not always follow the schedule. If I could get an idea of which is the product that you are monitoring for the next government decision. And if you could speak about the very noisy news, the very volatile news about digital decisions and a sale of stake at Usiminas, simply to clean up this issue a bit if possible. Thank you very much.

Hi good morning. This is Martinez. To speak about the antidumping, specifically. What is happening in these pre-define process. It is very difficult to separate what is technical and what is political. Last year, I had mentioned this in other calls, our decision was to offer something technical and to work with the product that CSN is more interested in. We based ourselves on tinplate under when the process were successful and put in provisional amounts. We have the challenge for the government to maintain that antidumping and something definite at the end of April. Coal drawing, this is very bad news in my opinion. It's a sign that despite this scenario of trade defense linked to in a causal link damage with expressive value of $500 to $600, I simply cannot understand which is the reason why they only have a temporary antidumping business makes sense technically. It leads me to understand, and this is not a precipitated decision that there is interest in another market and other sectors. And well, we came in with the antidumping requests for all of the other products, we will have the prepainted products. CSN has led this along with Tecno. In terms of terms we have 1 or 2 months for this to happen. And the government after 120 days, will approve this and in prepainted products that we are in same business, we're making investments in another production line of prepainted in [Porto Real] (ph). And what we have is 2x what CSN has in terms of import in miscible. We cannot imagine that we can continue with the industry at those levels. And what we have together is some of Arcelor and CSN and together, and companies are increasing capacity in the market are -- Arcelor doing this. So that…

Yes, yes. Thank you very much for the answers.

Our next question is in writing from Mr. Marcio Farid from Goldman Sachs. He says, in terms of dividends and execution of CapEx, these are changes of paradigm pointing to the need of deleveraging discipline in M&A hopes, but M&A should not be out of the agenda until you have executed your CapEx or deleverage.

Marcio, thank you for the question. As we showed you yet, the cutting of dividends will lead to deleveraging all of our strategy flexibility with CapEx follow along those lines of M&As are in accordance your company. The company did not follow through with an important M&A in 2024, precisely because of our deleveraging due to the commitment of CSN with deleveraging. And that is why we did not follow up on this M&A. Now this analysis of M&A last year, had extended for 24 months in the company. But when the transaction came about and the conditions at CSN were different, and we decided not to pursue that operation, although there was great synergy with the group. You're right, at that point in time, we took that out of our strategy. And I would say that nowadays, the company does not have any material M&A for the year 2025.

Our next question in writing comes from [indiscernible], He said, good day. The company is it assessing the sale of minority stakes in MRS logistics.

Good morning. Thank you for the question. No. No, we are not holding discussions on a sale of minority stakes at MRS. This is a very important asset for operations, especially for steel and mining, and we’re very happy with investments and the results that MRS has delivered. So there is no decision therefore to sell a minority stake at MRS.

The next question from Mr. Luciano Costa from GC. How is the process of selling a stake in your energy assets. This process has been mentioned in some calls. Has it been difficult to find investors interested in that profile of hydric acids.

[indiscernible], thank you for the question. In truth, we made adjustment in the schedule for the transaction before bringing an apartment, we looked at the financial decisions we had at [indiscernible]. Of course, there was a debt in the company. The financial team worked on an infrastructure debenture that was made public. It represents BRL1.2 billion at a very efficient cost. And this helped us to sell of the operation, and we have debenture without the stakeholders of CER energy assets. So once we bring partners to this deal, it can be done in a more independent way. This is a strategy of the company. Now the sale was finalized last week on Friday, which means that the road has been paved to continue on or to go back to the discussion of bringing in a strategic financial partner for the company. And we're going to prepare the company during the year 2025. This is an important decision. It is part of the company plans, but is not very impactful in terms of deleveraging for the CN Group as the asset has very little debt. But of course, we will continue on with all of our deleveraging actions at the company.

Our next question comes from [indiscernible], who says, could you speak about what we can expect from the cement business, news on acquisitions of inter cement prices cement IPO and costs.

I will begin speaking about inter cement it's news that we mentioned during the call. This is a transaction that we're not following up on since the end of last year, we're not considering this transaction at present, I think they have taken the route of a judicial recovery. We don't have other details on this. The information can be obtained from the company. IPO for cement, yes, we do want to hold a cement IPO. The company is ready in terms of figures, governance, control frameworks to undergo an IPO, we wanted to list the company some years ago. We weren't able to do it successfully. The company is even larger now and more ready to undergo an IPO, the difficulty is having a window in the equity market because of the higher interest rate, this will be more challenging. But yes, the company will. [Foreign Language]