Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Ferraglobe's first quarter 2026 conference call. Joining me today are Marco Levy, our Chief Executive Officer, and Beatriz Garcia-Cost, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started with prepared remarks, I'm going to read a brief statement. Please turn to slide two at this time. Statements made by management during this conference call that are forward-looking are based on current expectations. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements can be found in Ferroglobe's most recent SEC filings and the exhibits to those filings, which are available at ferroglobe.com. In addition, this discussion includes references to EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted gross debt, adjusted net debt, and adjusted diluted earnings per share, among other non-IFRS measures. Reconciliations of non-IFRS measures may be found in our most recent SEC filings. We'll be participating in the B. Reilly Annual Investor Conference in Los Angeles on May 20th. We hope to see you there. With that, I'll turn the call over to Marco.

Thank you, Alex, and thank you all for joining us today. We appreciate your continued interest in ferroblow. Overall, market conditions for ferro-alloys have become more favorable, highlighted by our first quarter silicon-based alloys volumes, which grew 18% sequentially to the highest level in nearly five years. this segment was driven by growth in ferro silicon in both europe and north america our manganese based segment was also strong with volumes increasing six percent the improvement in europe was helped by recently implemented safeguards anti-dumping and countervailing duties tariffs and rising steel production have all strengthened demand for ferro silicon in the us This creates a more supportive silicon-based alloys market environment across our core regions. While the silicon metal market in Europe remains under continuous attack from China and its proxy, Angola, we are encouraged by recent comments. The European Trade Commissioner Miroslav Kovic has reaffirmed a commitment to protecting the silicon metal industry and is actively evaluating measures addressing imports from China and Angola. In the US, the silicon metal cases covering Angola and Laos are now final with anti-dumping and anti-circumvention duties of 78.5 and 173.5 percent respectively including the general tariff of 10 percent the department of commerce is expected to set the final rates for australia norway in late june with the us itc expected to announce its final decision in late july These measures are critical to ensuring a level playing field and supporting the long-term health of our industry. Given recent events in Venezuela, we see a compelling opportunity to reopen our operations These assets offer strategic proximity to the U.S. market, along with access to low-cost energy raw materials and attractive logistics we are actively pushing the potential restart of our operation in venezuela to take advantage of its geographic proximity to the us at the same time we are evaluating capex requirements energy availability and cost structure to determine the viability of restarting as a reminder we have three large ferro-silicon furnaces with a combined capacity of 90 000 tons and the flexibility to convert them to silicon metal when market conditions dictate in addition there is also a 30 000 ton manganese alloy furnace originally built as a silicon metal furnace we are strategically positioning ferro globe to scale our platform to increase our capacity utilization our core capabilities large-scale electric furnace operations advantage access to raw materials and decades of proprietary process expertise are directly applicable to a broader range of critical materials and alloys. This is why we are actively pushing expansion beyond our traditional portfolio. We are building on a proven base, not starting from scratch. Our history of producing materials such as magnesium and ferrochrome, combined with deep expertise in high temperature reduction and related processes, give us a strong technical and operational condition this is a natural evolution of our business the same industrial platform that supports our leadership in silicon metal and ferrolloids can be redeployed to address growing supply gaps in other strategically important materials as demand accelerates and supply chains realign this optionality materially extends for growth growth runway our western asset footprint is a clear competitive advantage it places us at the center of rising demand fueled by higher defense spending ai adoption the energy transition and the need for secure domestically anchored supply chains recent us eu agreements on critical materials reinforce a clear message trusted local production is now a requirement not a preference given that it is crucial to understand what happened to critical materials production in the west and now it lost its advantage it was not as access to mines and critical minerals was lost. Rather, China became the dominant processor of these materials into critical materials. And the market structure shifted to favor price over all other factors, rendering Western production unprofitable. All that is changing now to favor the reliability of a trusted supply chain taken together this positions ferroglobe to play a larger role in the next phase of industrial and geopolitical realignment leveraging assets we already own capabilities we already have and markets that are moving decisively in our favor moving to core shell we continue to develop our partnership to advance the use of silicon in lightweight high capacity and fast charging batteries for evs and drones in march we co-led a series big round with a seven million dollar investment increasing our total to 17 million dollars and representing an ownership stake of approximately 10 percent Corshell has started production from its current 60 ampere plant, marking an important milestone, and has already begun selling batteries to robotics and defense customers. In addition, Corshell has signed multi-year sampling and qualification agreements with automotive OEM customers, positioning it to participate in the emerging growth area in critical materials. in march we signed a binding term sheet for a multi-year silicon metal supply agreement with caution overall we are operating in an improving environment for ferrollois executing on our strategic priorities and positioning the company for sustainable growth across both our core and emerging businesses next slide please strong ferroloid volume growth in the first quarter drove shipments up seven percent to 177 000 tons primarily due to an 18 increase in silicon-based alloys this resulted in a six percent increase in quarterly revenue to 348 million dollars adjusted ebda decline to three million dollars and free cash flow was a negative 60 million dollars bear threats will provide more detailed comments in her section next slide please i will start updating our sermons from silicon metal the silicon metals market remains under pressure due to continued aggressive pricing by imports mainly from china and angola these dynamics primarily impacted europe as silicon metal was excluded from recent safeguard protections as a result total volumes declined six percent from the fourth quarter and we decided not to participate at uneconomic prices we partially mitigated this by converting three silicon metal furnaces to ferro silicon allowing us to capitalize on better market conditions in this segment two of the furnaces were in europe and one in the us was converted last year this strategic shift underscores the value of ferro globe's flexible operating model and our ability to respond dynamically to evolving market conditions Silicon metal volumes declined 2,000 tons to approximately 31,000 tons in the first quarter. North American volumes grew a solid 15%, while EU volumes continued to face predatory import competition, resulting in a 23% decline. In addition to China and Angola, low price imports in Q1 came from Malaysia, Kazakhstan and Laos. Norway is the largest importer of silicon metal to the EU, accounting for more than 50% of total imports. The polysilicon market remains weak, with silicon prices reflecting soft demand and oversupply. The aluminum segment, on the other hand, is showing initial signs of improvement as some Middle Eastern production is offline due to the Iran conflict. The chemical sector remains soft due to Chinese imports of siloxanes and silicones into Europe and in the US. UX index prices declined 3% in the first quarter compared to the fourth quarter, while EU prices declined by 6%. Although we remain cautious about the pace of recovery in Europe pending more decisive trade actions from the European Trade Commission, recent comments from the trade commissioner regarding protecting the eu market are encouraging in the us we expect the market conditions to improve in the second half of 2026 bolstered by anti-dumping and countervailing measures in the medium term there is a significant growth opportunity for silicon metal in the us as tesla aims to build a large vertically integrated supply chain to produce 100 gigawatts of solar capacity by the end of 2028. next slide please silicon-based alloys volumes reached their highest level since the second quarter of 2021 with total shipments increasing 18 to 61 000 tons driven by 21 growth in europe despite a contraction in steep reduction in the first quarter. The North American growth was equally strong at 20%. After a 22% price jump from late October to early December, following the Safeware announcement, Upro silicon index prices declined 9% in the first quarter. The reason for the recent price decline is to fall. First, import volumes were high prior to November Safeware, leading to elevated inventory levels. Second, the use of low-priced silicon metal by steel producers to replace ferro-silicon is disrupting ferro-silicon market dynamics. Yet, they are still up 9% since the pre-safeguard announcement, and we expect pricing to be positively impacted in the second half due to safeguards as excess inventory is depleted the u.s ferro silicon index was flat in the first quarter as i mentioned earlier we converted one silicon furnace in us and two additional furnaces in europe to ferro silicon to take advantage of shifting demand overall we're optimistic that 2026 will be a strong year for silicon-based alloy volumes for furrow. An additional catalyst for the second half of the year is anticipated from enhanced EU steel segments, which are expected to increase EU steel production by 12-15 million tons annually, representing approximately 10% growth. These measures are expected to take effect on July 1st, 2026. next slide please our q1 manganese shipments posted a strong quarter with a six percent volume increase to 86 000 tons up from 81 000 tons in the prior quarter helped by safeguards europe accounts for the majority of the manganese sales manganese alloy index price surge after safeguards were announced in November and are up 18% since pre-safeguard with year-to-date levels roughly planned. We are constructive about the 2026 manganese outlook and expect to report strong volumes for the remainder of the year. Strength and steel safeguards are another catalyst as they are expected to be implemented in July can improve EU demand I would now like to turn the call over to Beatrice Garcia cost our chief financial officer to review the financial results in more detail Beatrice thank you Marco please

turn to slide 9 for a review of the first quarter income statement total Q1 sales increased by six percent to 348 million dollars driven by a seven percent increase in total volumes with federal alloys being the primary driver more specifically silicon and manganese based alloys volumes increased 18 percent and six percent respectively while silicon metal shipments declined as we prioritize price discipline in europe raw material and energy costs after adjusting for the 5.5 million dollar impact from power purchase agreement declined to 66 percent of sales down from 67 percent in the fourth quarter as a reminder the ppna's are marked to market using fair value and we exclude them to better reflect comparable quarter over quarter performance despite a strong volume growth adjusted every year declined to three million dollars higher energy transportation costs and raw material inflation began to impact costs in march as a result of the conflict in iran next slide please Silicon metal revenue declined 13% to $84 million due to a 6% reduction in volumes and a 7% fall in prices to $2,754 per ton. Adjusted EBITDA declined $3 million in the first quarter to an EBITDA loss of $2 million, resulting in a negative margin of 3%. The margin contraction was driven by lower realized prices partially offset by improved cost in Canada and the restart of progress in Spain and France next slide please silicon-based alloys revenue post another strong quarter with an 18% increase to 122 million dollars driven by an 18% sequential increase in volumes to 61 000 tons realized prices were essentially flat with the fourth quarter at 2016 per ton adjusted the beta decreased by 9 millions to 6 million dollars sequentially due to higher production cost in spain energy and raw material cost in spain and the u.s margins declined nine percent points to six percent next slide please banganese base alloys revenue increased 16 percent to 107 million dollars from 93 million dollars in the prior quarter the improvement was due to a nine percent increase in realized prices to 1250 dollars per ton and a six percent increase in volumes to 86 000 tons adjusted ebitda in the first quarter was 10 million dollars up from 9 million dollars in the fourth quarter adjusted the bit the margins remained solid at nine percent inflation in manganese or combined with higher transportation and energy costs offset most of the price gains while the Iran conflict continues to affect near term logistics and raw material cost we expect this cost to be temporary next slide please for the first quarter our cash flow from operations was negative six million dollars due to a 13 million dollar investment in working capital as we built inventory and increased account receivable balance to support We reduced our capex by $3 million to $11 million in the fourth quarter. For the first quarter, our free cash flow was negative $16 million. Next slide, please. As announced previously, we increased Q1 dividend payout by 7% to $3 million, which was paid on March 30th. Our next dividend of 1.5 cents per share, in line with the previous quarter, is scheduled for June 29, payable to shareholders on record as of June 22. We fund strategic investments, such as Coreshield, to support near-term operating needs and long-term growth opportunities, and repurchase a modest 5,000 shares in the first quarter. although our net debt position increased to 55 million dollars in the first quarter we remain in a solid financial position to support our growth objectives at this time i will turn the call back

to marco thank you beatrice before opening the call to q a i'd like to provide key takeaways raised from today's presentation on slide 15. We began to see the benefits of various trade measures in the first quarter as evidenced by stronger volumes of silicon-based alloys and manganese alloys. Unfortunately, the prices still reflect an imbalanced market environment. We believe that the pricing will strengthen in the second half of the year, as we have said before. fairblog is uniquely positioned to lead the next era of critical materials supply with the asset platform footprint and expertise to serve western markets where trusted local productions has become a global imperative while geopolitical disruptions continue to create near-term volatility and pressure logistics and raw material costs. We believe this impacts are temporary. The structural improvements underway in our markets, such as strength and steel safeguards, seaband and unshoring, underpin our confidence in a stronger second half and longer term value creation. Operator, we are ready for questions.

Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. We will take our first question. And the question comes from Martin Engler from Seaport Research Partners. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Hello. Good day, everyone. I have a little question.

Hey, Martin.

Good to hear from you again. You had discussions with the U.S. and or EU governments regarding potential grant opportunities for growth when it comes to critical materials. And then if you could just touch on what specific metals or alloys you're most strongly considering maybe pursuing here.

Yeah, I mean, there are different departments, government departments in U.S. we have been talking to, and there is an agreement between U.S. and Europe on planning this critical material partnership confirmed the intent of governments to increase the independence from from China on critical materials we have been today we produce we produce gold silicon metal and manganese alloys which are critical but in the past we have been producing other many materials in our furnaces in particular ferro silicon chrome and ferrochrome. And a long time ago, Ferroatlantica was producing magnesium in Europe. But on top of that, we have technologies that can be applied to our furnaces to produce other critical materials for europe critical minerals for for us at this stage i cannot be disclosing which materials we were going to produce but i can tell you that we went through a serious process where we started from more than than 100 options and now we are down to new 10 critical materials that we can produce either by in the current furnaces that we have or in slightly modified furnaces with minimum minimum capex and in some cases like magnesium we will need to invest in a new plant what we are doing right now we are validating the market attractiveness of these 10 new materials and we we plan to drive our conclusions in in the next few weeks when we present to to the board how we intend to start at these critical minerals diversification at

You touched on this, but the maybe goalposts for associated capex and correct me if I misheard you, but it sounds like several of the options for materials that you're considering might be very minimal where the furnaces wouldn't need much. Others sound like they're fairly nominal investments with some furnace upgrades, but then I believe you said magnesium would require more substantial investment, and I believe you said a new plant. So just goalposts on if you would decide to go forward as something, and single digits, millions of dollars at the low end to tens of millions, and then what would it look like on the high end with CapEx?

We are consolidating the numbers right now to go to the board with some NPD estimates to select the most attractive opportunities. You got it right. Some of these materials really don't need further investment. Probably they need some new permits because we have not been producing these products for a while. We need to assess the reliability of raw material, new raw material sources. And you are correct, for some of these materials, we don't need any additional GAPEX. For other materials, we need a little bit of GAPEX in the single digits million dollars. Of course, due to the pressure that we have from governments to start the production of these products, we will give priority to the easier and more profitable to produce critical materials or minerals. Thank you for that detail. Be curious to

learn more over the coming weeks or months as you have more to share. When When it comes to the increased logistical expenses, are you implementing surcharges across your product offering to cover both the inbound and outbound inflation associated with this?

Yes, we are implementing surcharges both in Europe and in the U.S. we're implementing a surcharge of 30 euros per ton in Europe and 40 dollars per ton in the US with different level of acceptance there are businesses like chemicals who are doing that they're more used to this practice other businesses like steel which are much more resistant to that I think that anyway in the next few weeks we are going to be forced to increase prices across our product mix as well because the prices that we see today particularly in Europe particularly on silicon metal and ferro-silicon are simply unacceptable for everybody so I think the market should move us and there is a lot of cost pressure coming from freight gas is influencing the energy cost and all the critical raw materials of our supply chain have gone up so So, we need to try to pass these increases for the supply chain.

It comes to the pricing dynamic. I mean, within the silicon-based alloys business, there's been fairly favorable trade measures across your asset footprint. Underlying demand seems like it's pretty favorable or moving in quite a bit better direction. And what do you think is the inhibiting factor that hasn't allowed you to raise prices thus far in the EU and U.S. market for products like ferro-silicon?

I would say that we have to consider different dynamics here. In Europe, before safeguards were announced, a lot of ferro-silicon has been moved by the usual countries and inventories were pretty high. The second point is that Angola has been switching furnaces to ferro-silicon, dumping ferro-silicon, in Europe. Angola is not subject to any kind of safeguard. The third element, due to the low price of silicon metal in Europe, We have seen significant ferro-silicon volumes being converted by the steel makers to silicon metal. And we have seen imports in the first quarter from Malaysia and Kazakhstan going up. So these are the main factors that have prevented the consolidation of the price increase that happen immediately after the safeguards on ferro-silicon. In the U.S., I think now is really a matter of time with the recovery of the steel consumption in the U.S. the first quarter numbers show growth in U.S. in steel. So we expect pricing to become more robust on ferro-silicon in U.S. near our term.

Okay. I appreciate the caller. Thank you, and good luck.

Thank you, Martin.

Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star 1, 1 on your telephone. We will take our next question, and the question comes from the line of Nick Giles from B. Riley Securities. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Hi, Nick. Thank you, operator. Hi, everyone.

I appreciate your update this morning. I guess just following up on some of Martin's questions, you know, when we think about you pursuing new critical minerals, you know, with something like like a price floor or government-related off-take or stockpiling efforts, would that be a part of the decision matrix? Or is it really more a factor of kind of CapEx requirements and something more on the grant side? Just appreciate any color there.

Well, we are trying to be as fast as possible here. And clearly we count on government support, but like I mentioned when I replied to Martin, Nick, we are looking at what we can control now. And what we can control is which technologies are available to us, which technologies can be then implemented with minimum investment or zero investment, and current market attractiveness for these products. Clearly, I think pretty soon, deals like the critical material partnership between U.S. and Europe will have tremendous weight on our decisions and strategy implementation because when you look at this kind of deal, yes, you talk about potential decision on price floors for these critical minerals in US and Europe. They're talking about joint mapping, meaning identifying new resource deposits in our geographies. We talk about defense, so prioritizing NATO on the rest. Next, we talked about, very interesting, about harmonized ESG, especially when you talk about E, this can be an harmonization of the environmental measures can be extremely interesting, especially for the Europeans. And focus on recycling is another key element of the deal. So, we have to see how this kind of agreement gets translated into measures, being it either price levels or environmental limits or whatever else refers to what I just mentioned. But for me, there is a fact that certain products that we can produce, either in Europe or in the US, either are not produced at all, like magnesium, there is no active production of magnesium in the West at this stage. There are few startups, but there is nothing. Or the current amount of products that are produced today are a minimal part of the demand. So being the intention of Europe and the U.S. to be more back integrated on these materials, I think would provide us a tremendous opportunity to position FerroGlobe like one of the key suppliers of critical minerals in the West.

Marco, thanks a lot for all that detail. I really appreciate your perspective. Maybe switching gears, just, you know, you mentioned your prepared remarks, Corshell did another raise, and you obviously participated. and attached to that or alongside that there is a multi-year silicon metal supply agreement. So can you just touch on maybe the overall progress for Coreshell? What kind of customers are they signing and how you anticipate volumes within that supply agreement to ramp and what the margins look like there? I know that was a lot, but I think you get where I'm going.

Yeah. I mean, the volumes are not going to be significant until OEMs qualify the 60 ampere batteries that we estimate happening between the end of 2027 and 2028. and then there we we are we expect to develop business for by 2030 31 to a level of about 70,000 tons of silicon metal for for batteries just related to core shell the volumes are already flowing now but there are minimal volumes for their sales to batteries and drones. I think I can share that the budget of these sales for Korshaw next year is north of 60 million dollars, so it's significant. So the technology is validated. Now we need the series B, like I mentioned in the past is related to building a bigger pilot plant that is going to be used to sample system system pair batteries for qualifications by the automotive OEMs were shown interest in this technology understood appreciate

that maybe just turning back to Fezzi I mean volumes did improve pretty meaningfully in the first quarter can you just talk about what your volume expectations are in 2q and then what should we expect uh for manganese-based alloys as well well we mentioned

in in when we communicated the the previous quarter about our expectation for 2026 that were related to a significant growth in alloys driven by safeguards in Europe by the new safeguard measures on steel were kicking in as of July 1st, 2026, and steel recovery in the US. so this is happening clearly on manganese when you talk about safeguard there is only one producer I will say your manganese alloys in the U27 territory which is Ferroglobe one of our competitor is a small plant in France but we are the guys that from a volume point of view benefit the most out of safeguards of manganese on ferro silicon I already described in detail to Martin what happened in Europe and in us I hope you were in the call so I think I

answered this question now understood that's helpful um maybe just one more if I could just on the ferro silicon costs you kind of went through you know you're looking to pass through some of the elevated costs within each segment but if we were to kind of isolate those you know cost pressures and just look at quarter over quarter what what kind of cost improvement would we expect to see in ferrosilicons, specifically.

Maybe it's a point to notice, Nick, this is Patricia speaking. In Q4 versus Q1, we have a huge one-off in Q4, a positive. And of course, in Q1, we don't have any longer this non-recurrent. So this is why you notice an increase in cost in q1 2026 versus q1 versus q4 2025 so what i'm saying is that not i like to like when you compare the two quarters going forward i can confirm that of course we are improving our cost the challenge could be more on the logistic side and transportation cost as you know due to the iron war we expect that this cost to potentially increase a little bit more in q2 and then fade away uh on the second half of the year uh thanks for that patrice just to clarify so costs

in silicon-based alloys would actually uh rise in 2q uh before kind of declining in 3q and 4q okay you're right okay guys i appreciate the update this morning and uh continue best of luck Thank you.

Thank you. This concludes today's question and answer session. I'll now hand back for closing remarks.

Thank you. We are excited about the medium-term potential to grow and diversify our business through a broader mix of critical materials and an expanded geographic presence. Thank you again for your participation. We look forward to updating you on the next call in August. Have a great day.