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Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (SID)

Q3 2019 Earnings Call· Fri, Oct 25, 2019

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, and thank you for holding. Welcome to CSN's Earnings Conference Call to present the Results for the Third Quarter 2019.Today, we have with us the Company's Executive Officers. 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. And showing this, we will go onto the question-and-answer session when further instructions will be given. [Operator Instructions]We have simultaneous webcast that may be accessed through CSN's Investor Relation website at www.csn.com.br/ir where the presentation is also available. The replay of this service will be available for a period of one week. Once again, please feel free to flip through the slides at your convenience.Before proceeding, we would like to state that some of the forward-looking statements here are near expectations and trends based on current perceptions and opinions of the Company’s Management. Future results, performance, and events may differ materially from those expressed herein, which do not constitute projections.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 foreign currencies, pegged, protectionist measures in the U.S., Brazil and other countries, changes in laws and regulations, and general competitive factors at global, regional, or national basis.We will now turn the floor over to Mr. Marcelo Cunha Ribeiro, the Investor Relations Executive Officer, who will present the Company's operating and financial highlights for the period. You have the floor Mr. Ribeiro. You may proceed.

Marcelo Cunha Ribeiro

Analyst

First of all, a good morning to all of you, and thank you very much for your presence, especially those who are here with us. During this quarter, we have changed our format, making it more interactive. We do apologize due to the logistic complexity which you may face, but it is for a good reason. Most of the market participants are here face-to-face, so thanks those participating through the conference call.We will as usual make an initial presentation, which we hope to keep very brief, signaling the highlights for the period. Our CFO and Chairman of the Board will join us, make his comments on the period on the Company’s strategies and in so in this way we'll open the floor for your questions. And of course, we will answer all the necessary questions and we thank all of you for your patience.We may begin with the presentation therefore, for those who are accompanying us through the webcast, we begin with the highlights of this period on Page number 2, where we present to you the different fronts, where we have focused our efforts that is to say operational results and acceleration of deleveraging and financial liabilities. Now, this was a transitional quarter, we have BRL 1.6 billion.Although, we have gone through the most acute phase of a very important event of the company, which was the blast furnace number three maintenance with an impact not only on steel, but mining because of unsold product and cement, because of the higher costs now despite having had the mining prices impacted by these one-time factors and increase in freight and others. Despite all of this, we did have a strong EBITDA of BRL 1.6 million, but we were affected by the foreign exchange variation. Our debt had an increase and…

Benjamin Steinbruch

Analyst

Good morning to all of you and thank you very much for the presence of analysts. I would like to begin by stating that I don't want to sound overly positive that the results of the third quarter were good and all of the tropes can be justified. They're not abstract conceptual issues.They're simply numerical issues and you and the investors can come to their own conclusion. It was to be a much better quarter to continue on with what we had shown you in the previous quarters. So we're not for those highly justifiable events or factors from the viewpoint of commitment to reduce our debt, the commitment remains unaltered.We did have the impact because of the blast furnace number three. We had an impact in the purchase of slabs. We paid at 30 days. Our cycle is normally 180 days. And in December, we should be able to recompose our cash. We had the payout of dividends as you'll know. The depreciation of the real that was quite strong with a one-time impact. This is diluted through time, but it does have an impact.And that issue in mining as we sold two-thirds going forward and one-third in the past, the sales of the consortium and the sell of iron ore to Japan and Korea are based on the previous quarter and two-thirds refer to spot sales to China and they're carried out with the prices open for the coming month. We've benefited from the increase of the sale of these two-thirds of our value, when there was a reduction of price, we were hampered. Of course, this was the impact of the previous quarter.And as of this moment, we have the advantage of the one-third. And there's no longer a penalty because of price has already been updated…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question will be in English and comes from Carlos De Alba from Morgan Stanley.

Carlos De Alba

Analyst

Hello. Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much. The first question is on iron ore sales. Could you help me understand why we saw a drop in volumes? I understand the comments that Marcelo made regarding the fact that you sold less to Volta Redonda, but the maintenance of the stoppage of the blast furnace have been scheduled for some time and presumably the company would have planned these ahead of time and still be able to sell those volumes to third parties. So could you please help us understand if there was any issues with availability of ships or something at the port? Or just the market wasn’t there for the company to keep the 10.1 or 10 point something million tons of cements in the quarter.And second, if I may ask just on the progression of the lower steel cost, I think Marcelo mentioned the expectation of BRL 300 per ton decline in slab cost. Is this something that you expect to see already in the third quarter or is going to – sorry in the fourth quarter or is going to be a smooth delivery of these lower cost?And then finally, if I may, what are the trends that you expect on working capital? We saw a big decline in receivables in the third quarter. Inventories remain high. I suppose that inventories will decline in the fourth quarter just as the normalization of the steel business takes place. But what about receivables? A huge benefit in the third quarter. How do you see that going forward? Thank you very much.

Unidentified Company Representative

Analyst

Carlos, good morning, and thank you very much for your question. This is [Anez]. Allow me to explain what happens in terms of production and volume. This is a quarter where we had strong production. We use 500 million to 600 million tons. We reduced our purchase volumes. As a result, we had 600 million tons, which is a challenge that will be transferred to the fourth quarter.Now the result of this level of operations is due to timely logistic problems and the market volatility. And because of this, we were not able to sell out this product and this will be done with greater challenges in the fourth quarter. To confirm our expectation of 40 million tons in sales, the fourth quarter will offset the lower sales volume in the third quarter.We would like to clarify that we have had no problems in selling iron ore. The demand exists. It is a commodity. We always have a market for it. It's simply price and availability issue. We're going into the fourth quarter with a very good inventory. We're going to pressure Luis Martinez to deliver zero inventory and OMS will also have to deliver a zero inventory. We have orders. We have the port. The product has been stopped, so we should have an excellent fourth quarter when it comes to our profit and because of the inventories that will enable us to offset the third quarter.

Pedro Gutemberg Quariguasi Netto

Analyst

A question about the cost of slabs. This is Pedro Gutemberg, Carlos. Thank you for the question. We think the cost of slab will be BRL 300 lower vis-à-vis this last quarter. And this is the price of iron ore, BRL 1,100 and some per ton. This is a preliminary estimate that will be confirmed with the data from our input.

Benjamin Steinbruch

Analyst

And Pedro Gutemberg knows we are buying slab at $340. We're not traders. We're an industry. This is the market benchmark and Dr. Gutemberg will have to make efforts to get to that price in terms of cost. We simply have to comply with this. He refers to BRL 300. We're going to pressure to obtain more than BRL 300 in the market serves as a guidance for us. And as part of that guidance and effective purchasing prices and one way or another, we have to get to that reality. We cannot buy at a lower price than we produce and so we are going to try to achieve this level discounting the fiscal credits that some Brazilian plants benefit from.Another important issue to enable you to produce your models. Let's imagine a cost of slab at BRL 1,850, a conversion cost of $60 from BQ to slab, we will get to $520 with BQ. The average price without COFINS is $615 minus $520 will be $95 per ton in the BQ, which is not bad at all. And this will put us back at a reasonable level if we do not have a price correction.Now a better scenario, the other half that I sell are coated products 63% of our portfolio, and we have average prices of three 550 pre-painted, tin plate, zinc with 321. Without these COFINS, it would represent $805 net minus $660, which is a cost for the galvanized product. I have a $150. $150 plus the $95 of the BQ gives us $136 per ton versus $300,000 per month, $40 million times 4, $160 which would be the results we are protecting for the quarter. Now these are expectations now projections. No, this is not a projection.This is the reality, I can guarantee the…

Carlos De Alba

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will be in Portuguese and it comes from Thiago Lofiego from Bradesco BBI. You may proceed.

Thiago Lofiego

Analyst

Good morning to all and thank you for the call. I have two questions. We go back to the leveraging cash generation, BRL 380 million normalizing. This is a simple account even with the iron ore price quite steep at $100, which will be the evolution of your cash generation. X sale of assets and the leverage of iron ore at lower prices, which is the operational variable where you can have an enhancement to sustain cash generation and deleveraging. Will CapEx be sufficient or will you work on another variable?

Benjamin Steinbruch

Analyst

And as part of this question, if you could also refer to your investments more specifically, what is happening with WT working capital and if you could speak about the steel market in Brazil, Martinez, what have you seen in terms of demand, if there is any room to improve the price and what you foresee for the very short-term or the next year in terms of price increases and of course there has been a retraction in China, which is a reason of concern. Martinez, would you like to begin?

Luis Fernando Barbosa Martinez

Analyst

Thiago when it comes to the premiums simply to review this. If you want to show the graph, where beginning from a very adverse situation of Chinese BQ of $450, BS at $290 and there is a price curve that was never that low. We're getting to a negative peak when it comes to market prices.Now if we base ourselves on those prices and think about the prices in domestic market, the premium for BS and BQ is approximately 2% for galvanized well products, 11% and for other coated products varying between 8% and 10%.There is no possibility in my understanding of importing products with a lower added-value. And it's not about imports. Imports have dropped, but have had an increase in the galvanized products and we need to be careful with that.Now when it comes to the CSN price strategy, we are imagining that until the end of the year. The scenario will be of price stability. Now, theoretically there would be room for a price hike, but I prefer to say that we're going to work with a stable scenario until the end of the year.When it comes to costs, we have hit rock bottom. Once again, we're ready for resumption. We're going to work at full steam and as Benjamin mentioned, this is what we're doing. We're destocking and we're going to go through the end of the year with the lowest inventory level of finished products at CSN in the last five years.Now our inventory with added value is very strong 53%, we continue to have 6,000 clients in our customer base. We don't have all of our eggs in the same basket. We're working with assembly plants and other industries and there are some scenarios such as civil construction and cement.Our cement business grew 12%…

Marcelo Cunha Ribeiro

Analyst

Well, there's a consensus when it comes to Platts. The Platts will be of approximately $80 for the year 2020. This is what we have, established through a consensus. Tiago, when it comes to volumes. It's our views that the volumes we're producing are not the ones who were used to producing. They should be higher.Now, another important side of this coin that refers to the market simply to give you an idea of what this quarter wasn't this year was we bought from was Usiminas 160,000 tons. I don't know if you're aware of this from Arcelor BQ 40 and 600,000 tons of slack.Now, besides maintaining our market share, we practically did not lose market share. I feel then the pockets of competitors, which is not desirable. We’re not used to doing this. We're going to recover this. We're going to bring everything in-house. It makes no sense to buy so much material to service the market and when this stops we will go back to our previous results.I believe there was a question on WT – SWT. When it comes to SWT, we can say that the business is still alive and kicking, moving forward and one step ahead. We cannot say more than these M&A issues. Well, we never know about the timing and the possibilities for success. We have been discussing this for mostly a year and this is a serious business. It is moving forward. This is all we can say at present.

Thiago Lofiego

Analyst

Thank you, Martinez. Thank you for your responses.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We are now going to go on for the question-and-answer session for the analyst present at the call. Now please give us your name and company before posing the question and speak very close to the microphone to guarantee optimum sound quality. [Operator Instructions]

Leonardo Correa

Analyst

Yes. Good morning and thank you. I'm Leonardo Correa from BTG Pactual. The first question to Martinez, an easier question. There is a thesis of a struggle for market share specifically in the fourth quarter. The blast furnace coming back into operation and there's a thesis that competition will become harsher and there will be a price drop. You spoke about stability, but I would like you to speak about the competitive scenario which is still very difficult with a scenario of compressed demand and the expectation is that everything will improve in the first or second quarter of 2020.The rest of my questions are to Benjamin. We have seen CSN with an evolution in terms of EBITDA for two years, a net debt coming to a halt as CSN has had difficulties in deleveraging net debt and has been paying dividends. Is this challenging? You were quiet assertive at the beginning about the positive sale of Casa de Pedra 8% of mining. Are there any conversations underway? Anything in the radar? Or is this something that could come about in 2020?The second question, we understand the issue of the holding, the holding is leveraged and you also have a leveraging at the operating plant. My question is, if you would consider selling a part of CSN to pay the debt of the holding, so you don't depend so much on the flow of dividends from the operating company to the holding. Would you sell part of their share of CSN and perhaps suspend the payout of dividends for two or three years?

Luis Fernando Barbosa Martinez

Analyst

Leo, it's not very simple in a very hostile scenario and where the blast furnace under renovation. When you buy material from third parties, it's not simple to maintain your prices and what you're looking on is what happened with prices on the average, but we don't live only from the market of low added-value in packaging.Based on 2018, we're at 114 for packaging in the industry. We were at 100 in 2014. We're at 104. And there's a minor correction in the distribution market. We have to make this a restatement of correction. There will not be that price struggle because we have reached at a very low point.Nobody is making money and the blast furnaces of our competitors are also attempting to optimize cost. And for this day, reduce production they use less pellets to maximize costs, not output. This is given. And the outlook for prices that we have for 2020 imagining that the market will have a slight resumption is a recovery already in the first quarter.I truly thanks to our portfolio in this fourth quarter. Do not think of a harsher competition. December is a seasonal month. There is no price flexibility and we will have equivalent volumes. So I believe the scenario will be stability. We will work ever more on a stronger portfolio in the galvanized products.Our project that has been mentioned frequently is working for steam. We're going to create that galvanization line in São Paulo with an investment of BRL 2.5 billion. Presently we're defining the location in Vale do Paraíba very close to the markets. And we will have a CSN portfolio going from 51%, 52% to 63% of coded products for the coming two years perhaps in the short-term.And when it comes to the premiums, it is important to observe that the price in China at present, if you look at the cost of raw material, Coke and others, the Chinese in the steel mills that you accompany have a negative EBITDA.I don't believe that this situation will be maintained for very long and the USA is going through typical moments due to the scrap prices that had a higher drop than iron ore. It's below $200 or less. And as the market resumes, we should have a better point of balance. This is what I believe will happen to prices for the end of the year and for the year 2020.

Benjamin Steinbruch

Analyst

Leo, thank you for what you did last night. And I would like to say that you're going to be happier and work more in this coming quarter. Now to respond to your question objectively, we are negotiating the assets in Germany. It's simply an issue of price. Now if we have had a year of negotiation is because there is interest on the part of the buyer side as well as on ours as the seller side. There is interest and the difficulties will converge and we're reaching the final stages.Not surprisingly, we could sell this in a week or two weeks or not have any business at all. We are now at a very conclusive stage when it comes to the possibility of selling off our asset in Germany. This is what is happening regarding those 8% for mining.We have 88%. The Asian consortium has 12. As you know, during the entire year, we negotiated the streaming. We came very close to working on an operation that was 5% equivalent to the sale of a streaming operation.Now, because of the novelty, in terms of iron ore, this was lengthened and the operations still has not come out. We're also interested in mining. It is not difficult to sell a good asset with a high EBITDA. Now this is the crux of the issue, you'll have to do your accounts. The market demands from us a mobilization, but – well what we have in Europe could represent 60 million EBITDA are in euros.And this is significant because of the business and itself. It is a positive business with a positive EBITDA. It is not difficult to manage and it does contribute to results. And we could do the same when it comes to mining. Mining will give us BRL…

Daniel Sasson

Analyst

Good morning and thank you for the questions. Daniel Sasson from Itau BBA. When it comes to the net debt EBITDA of 3x at the end of the year and EBITDA at BRL 7.5 billion, you would have to reduce your debt by almost BRL 5 million between the third and fourth quarter. What are you expecting in terms of sale of assets, cash generation and reduction of debt? Thanks to foreign exchange appreciation. As part of this question for Benjamin. If the end of the year will be a 3x net debt EBITDA ratio, which will be the level of tranquility that you mentioned at the beginning of your address.The second question referring to CSN investments, if we could have more color and a ranking of priorities. Martinez referred to your new galvanized line, the expansion of mining. What is it that the company will do first or can you do all of this simultaneously? Has the line of galvanized products been approved at board level? And what is the status and the timing that we could work with in terms of these investments? Thank you.

Benjamin Steinbruch

Analyst

We’ll begin with the ratio. We expect BRL 3 billion from financial initiatives M&As and/or new iron ore deals, 500 million of reduction based on foreign exchange. The rest will come from the business.Now which are the investments, which is a very broad question. In mining, there is an expansion project that has been approved and is underway with 10 million tons that will begin to be built in 2020. And of course, this is different from the plant of galvanized products. The governments in the state of Rio and São Paulo are supporting us. In São Paulo, we have a memorandum of understanding that is quite advanced, but we need to be able to reach the right conditions in terms of funding. But we do have support for this.What is sustainable, what is comfortable because of our type of business would be 2x net debt EBITDA. Less than this would not be very intelligent. I find this comfortable. EBITDA of 3.5. Net debt ratio is comfortable because of the capital intensive activity that we have and the diversification of commodities and products.I have already mentioned this. I went abroad and I was surprised with the market demand and the lack of stability. Now this account of 3.5 for a stable or predictable market would be comfortable. But because of what we see worldwide in terms of political economic instability and because of those sudden oscillations make people request a lower indebtedness, a lower and suing that we will have a certain comfort.It would not be intelligent on our part to abuse the market. And another trend that we're working on is to move away from bank credits and obtain this from the market. Now if we do this abroad or locally, the terms will be much longer.Therefore, when I speak about this, net debt EBITDA ratio of 2x, this will be with the length and period, which gives us even greater comfort and moving away from commercial bank loans in the short-term. This is what we're working towards and I believe we can comply with this strategy at the end of the year 2020.

Gabriela Elerati Cortez Joubert

Analyst

Good morning. Gabriela from Bank of Brazil. Martinez, I have a question regarding the price scenario for the coming year. You are pointing to a scenario that is somewhat discrepant towards what we have. We have a global deacceleration and we think this will have an impact on demand and prices. You have proven to be more positive. So what is it that you are thinking about these two factors now for a [indiscernible] in terms of the pricing of iron ore from CSN, what do you expect for the fourth quarter? Are you expecting a discount for silica, lower freights? What is it that we can expect in terms of prices?

Luis Fernando Barbosa Martinez

Analyst

Benjamin?

Benjamin Steinbruch

Analyst

Well, we had somebody that was 93 years old this year. So you do have a great deal of time simply to conclude. And the issue of investment is important for analysts and for the market. CSN has investments under way that are investments that will bring a significant return in a very short-term operational adjustments, and all of this has been done and we analyze them in terms of the return for the company.We're always attentive to opportunities and a large investment that you do and still in mining or cement in the best of hypothesis. If everything works out, you have 18 months or 24 months for approval. So when we speak about a possible new galvanized plant or a new cement plant, if we speak about the expansion of Casa de Pedra to be able to do this environmentally and in fiscal terms.We cannot make this happen before those 18 months or 24 months. And this is something I would like to clarify. My sister for example, who has a shareholder called me yesterday, it was said in the newspapers in Netanyahu that we were investing in a cement plant because there was a public hearing for the environment.And I called her back and I said in the best of hypothesis, if everything works out, it will take us 18 months or 24 months to begin. And of course in that case, if we deliver what we have committed to this year and the coming year. CSN in 2021 will have that net debt EBITDA ratio of two allowing us to begin moving forward.Now we have to begin doing all of this before and you should know that nothing expressive will be happening before that 18-month period. Production adjustments, intelligent investments with a large return that, yes…

Gabriela Elerati Cortez Joubert

Analyst

Why iron ore at $120 has motivated several plans to go back to production in China?

Benjamin Steinbruch

Analyst

All of the iron ore companies have a loss. So there is a trend for an adjustment, a Platt price with a lower freight cost, premiums coming back. This is what we hope for the fourth quarter, a large volume of sales. This is a challenge. So the expectation within the scenario is to have better results in terms of prices.

Caio Ribeiro

Analyst

Good morning. Caio Ribeiro from Credit Suisse. I have two short questions. The first referring to investments and the investments which will be the timing and execution of your sale of stake at Usiminas and what is happening in terms of your project and which are the necessary disbursements for CSN?The second question goes to Benjamin. You mentioned that you have rolled the holding debt. I would like to know what this represents because year-after-year, you have been rolling the amortization of the debentures and I would like to know if this debt rolling means a better negotiation or if you're postponing these installments for the coming year for 2020? Thank you.

Luis Fernando Barbosa Martinez

Analyst

Regarding Usiminas, there are no secrets. It's a market issue in the market isn't there? So this will not be happening in the short-term. But it is there as an asset that we would like to sell off and they will help us in the deleveraging in terms of the Nordesina product. It is a commitment of CSN through a constructive negotiation with the government.We plan to reinitiate works, create employment and services with an investment of BRL 250 million and CSN is ensuring that this will happen in the short-term to be able to reestablish public funding that up to recently had come to a standstill. So what CSN did was this gesture to reestablish the funding that had already been contracted and had come to a standstill. This is what we have negotiated with the government.In terms of the holding, well, Marcelo referred to Usiminas. I'd love to sell Usiminas. Unfortunately, I have to await the right price, the same with Germany, if we get the right price, we will sell it and Usiminas is no longer part of the Company's strategy. At the right time, we will dispose of this asset. When it comes to the holding, Marcos is here. We have lengthened this for 2022, 2023 or 2021, 2022 what happened there?Seven years to have grace period. Five of principle and semester payments to pay the interest rates. For those who did not hear this, that debenture is a debenture that it's a mission, works with [indiscernible]. It's on the site, [yako.com]. This is where you will be able to find all of the details on this debenture. It is a definite lengthened debenture with an interest rate grace period of two years.Now from the viewpoint of the holding, this was something definite when I said that we had resolved the situation because this separates anything from the holding. The controlling company and the controlled company and Transnordestina were putting forward this gesture of goodwill.We would like to reinitiate the works. We have offered 2 million to get to [indiscernible] where regardless of going forward, we would already be able to obtain [indiscernible]and we will conclude that stretch to [PRV] and then begin to work on that stretch to Ceará and up to Fortaleza. Once again, this is a gesture of goodwill and we have the commitment of the government.From [indiscernible] and the Bank of the Northeast to make allocations in this work site. And we will hold this conversation in a timely way with the government once again to work with our resources and those coming from the government as well.

Antonio Heluany

Analyst

Antonio Heluany from Bank of America. The first question to Marcelo. In the last quarter, you had some questions from the analysts when it came to your cash reconciliation; you had additional costs and some questions on your cash generation. And the question in terms of your CapEx for 2020, if you could give us more color, what do you have budgeted? What will come from steel from mining and expansion?And the last question to Pedro regarding the blast furnace renovation, which were the surprises when you began on this work and which will be the blast furnace ramp-up going forward.

Marcelo Cunha Ribeiro

Analyst

In terms of the difference, we have a definition of working capital associated to the business, which is inventory, suppliers and trade receivables and a broader line at CSN that involves all of the current asset lights. The first had a gain of BRL 1.2 billion, especially trade receivables with a drop in inventory. What impacted cash was BRL 400 million lower, BRL 750 million approximately?Now this difference can be explained by two lines, BRL 150 million and amortization of the prepayment deliveries that we do to Glencore, where we have already received the cash in the past. I pause here because this is temporary because new prepayment operations will be done in the short-term and BRL 150 million are taxation credits, temporary differences. For example, for the acquisition of slabs that we bought in the local market with our credit of ICMS. There is a balance that will be subsequently consumed. These are the main differences in terms of working capital.Now it's a premature to speak about the CapEx for 2020. It will be 10% or 15% below the one of this year. We still do not have a complete breakdown for this.

Pedro Gutemberg Quariguasi Netto

Analyst

Antonio, good morning. Regarding the blast furnace question, when you carry out renovations in the blast furnace, you have some alternatives. One of them is when you have the outflow of the pig iron in the blast furnace and you have this alternative. What happened is that we had a higher volume of residues and it was more difficult to carry out the cleaning to be able to reconstruct this area.Our decision therefore, when faced with this decision was to transform a threat into an opportunity. We saw that this blast furnace would have a delay in maintenance. We made the most of the opportunity, carried out other low cost works that were very important in our centering machines and in the steel mill and the greatest cost was the cost of opportunity of not having production. I think this was the decision that we took when we discovered that there were more residues than expected in the blast furnace.Regarding the ramp up. If everything goes according to plan between Sunday and Monday, we will restart the blast furnace. There's a 10-day curve where we have an increase of production, a gradual and controlled increase. We have to be very cautious with this.And on November 10 or 15, we do believe we will return to a normal production, a higher production as mentioned than the one we had before the blast furnace stoppage. Now this is what we have planned for the startup again of this blessed furnace number three.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. As we have no further questions, we would like to return the floor to Mr. Ribeiro, the CFO and IRO officer for his final remarks.

Marcelo Cunha Ribeiro

Analyst

I give the floor to our Chairman for closing remarks.

Benjamin Steinbruch

Analyst

I would like to thank all of you. We will repeat this model, which we think is very propitious. It enables us to meet, to speak prior and subsequently to the call perhaps at a different schedule, 8:30, 9:00 o'clock. You can have breakfast with us. We can hold the conversation, present results and everybody can return to work at 10:30. This is the ideal model. And with excellent figures, I truly hope to be here. I will be here to present what we have set forth to present annually and for the quarter.We are on the right path. We have taken the right decisions. You always have difficulties, one-time problems than we need to resolve them and continue moving forward. Our intention is to have a modern and transparent company with state-of-the-art technology, producing diversified added value product. This is our quest. This is our day today to guarantee that all of our Directors and Employees are working in an attuned way. CSN sets itself aside in the market.We should have a profit of BRL 26 billion with an EBITDA between BRL 7.5 billion and BRL 8 billion. And I think this speaks for itself. Everything that might seem somewhat hyperbolic or overly optimistic we are delivering.If you look at the billing of CSN, it has always grown in the last few years. We work fully, we do not have layoffs. We have continued to work despite the market difficulties and difficulties in working capital. Paying the expressive interest rates of Brazil, we have never laid off employees. We have had consistent EBITDA.This is what motivates us and propels us forward. So that we can have a more streamlined company geared to the market to favor both its shareholders and employees. Thank you very much. And until January of 2020, perhaps February or March. Well, the better the results or sooner our call next year. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The conference call for the earnings for CSN ends here. Have a very good day.