Earnings conference call (announced in 6-K)

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the first quarter Tenaris SA Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear a message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to the Investor Relations Officer, Giovanni Sardegna. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Carmen, and welcome to Tenaris' 2026 first quarter conference call. Before we start, I would like to remind you that we will be discussing forward-looking information during the call and that our actual results may vary from those expressed or implied in this call. With me on the call today are Gabriel Potskowska, our newly appointed Chief Executive Officer, Carlos Gomez-Alzaga, our Chief Financial Officer, and Guillermo Moreno, President of our U.S. operations. Before passing over the call to Gabriel for his opening remarks, I would like to briefly comment our quarterly results. Our first quarter sales reached $3.1 billion, up 6% year-on-year and 4% sequentially, despite the disruption in the Middle East caused by the conflict and the closure of the Strait of Hormons. Our sales benefited from seasonal higher activity in Canada, a limited recovery of activity in Mexico, higher offshore sales in Brazil, some stock building in North Africa, and an advance of shipment in Saudi Arabia. Average selling prices in our tubes operating segment increased 5% compared to the corresponding quarter of 2025, and 1% sequential. Our quarterly EBDA rose 3% sequentially to $735 million, while our net income increased 22% to $564 million due to better results below the operating line. Our EBDA margin remained at 24% as higher costs for maintenance shutdowns were offset by lower tariff costs. With operating cash flow of 618 million and capital expenditure of 114 million, our free cash flow for the quarter was 503 million. Following share buybacks of 90 million during the quarter, our net cash position at the end of the quarter increased to 3.8 billion. Now I will ask Gabriel to say a few words before we open the call to questions.

Thank you, Giovanni, and I would like to extend a warm welcome to all of you. Before we go to our results, I would like to express that I am deeply honored by the trust that Paolo Roca and the Tenaris Board of Directors have placed in me, and with it, the enormous responsibility of leading this company in the next phase of growth. At the same time, I am very pleased that we will be able to count on the continuing support and leadership of Paolo as chairman of the board. When I joined the company as a graduate engineer in 1995, I never imagined how Tenaris would grow so quickly and come to play the leading role in serving the world's energy industry that it does today. During all these years, Paolo has been the architect of the growth and the transformation of Tenaris, and a constant presence and inspiration to all of us. The journey has been truly extraordinary, and it has been a privilege to experience it from the inside and to have had so many opportunities for professional growth. I look forward to building on his remarkable achievements. Now let's move on to our first quarter results and the panorama that we have ahead. This quarter reminding us that the geopolitical risk and uncertainty is ever present in the oil and gas industry. As is well known, the conflict in the Middle East has led to the closure of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world's oil and energy normally passes. During this time, our first priority has been the safety of our 1,000 employees in the region. I would like to give a special thanks to them for their unwavering commitment to serving our customers through this turbulent period. In Saudi Arabia and the UAE, our customers have continued their operations and we continue to support them. However, customers in Kuwait, Qatar, and Iraq have had to shut in most of their operations. We expect our sales in the region to be affected in the second quarter in around $140 million. We are also seeing higher logistic costs as we seek alternative routes to the region and also from the global increase in fuel prices. Amidst the regional turmoil, we continue to differentiate our service in the region. ADNOC Offshore recognizes our reliable service and HSC performance with a Supplier of the Year award. In Kuwait, we have been awarded a five-year contract for the supply of casing products and accessories to be used in the development of a complex new field. As an immediate consequence of the supply disruption in the Middle East, oil and gas companies and consuming countries are looking at diversifying supply. Investment in short-cycle shale plays in the Americas are likely to benefit and some rig direct customers in the United States and Argentina are already confirming that they are adding rigs. The fleet of high-spec rigs operating in Vaca Muerta is expected to increase by 15% by the end as new rigs and hydraulic fracturing sets are brought into the country. Tenaris will start to operate its third set of hydraulic fracturing equipment towards the end of the year. We are preparing for an increase of activity in the United States in the second half of the year, while in Canada, industry and government are working to increase LNG and pipeline takeaway capacity, which will allow activity growth in the years ahead. We are also strengthening our rig direct service through the integration of all torques, hardware, and software for torque term monitoring operations. We recently acquired this specialized technology and know-how that now forms part of our well-integrity service and will add further value to our customers. The outlook for deep water drilling, offshore pipeline construction, and further exploration activity in the next three years is promising. There is a significant number of deep water projects in Africa, Asia, and the Mediterranean, which are nearing final investment decisions, while in the United States, Brazil, and the Guyana-Surinan Basin, developments are also moving forward. Operators are looking to shorten time from discovery to first production, and Tenaris is supporting them by fast-tracking the integrated supply of OCDG, line pipe, coating, and accessories. As we look into the eventual reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, Tenaris, with its extensive presence, flexible supply options around the world, its differentiated service and technology for shale and underwater operations, and the strength of its financial position is well placed to serve our customers as they respond to the need to replenish oil and gas inventories and increase breathing activity. I will now open the floor for questions.

Thank you. And as a reminder, to ask a question, simply press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To remove yourself, press star 11 again. One moment for our first question. It comes from Sebastian Erskine with Rothschild & Company. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, gentlemen. and Gabrielle, best wishes to you on the new chapter here as CEO. My first question actually on the 2Q kind of guide, you indicated 440 million impact from kind of lower revenue and then the higher kind of cost impact. Could you maybe venture and give a sense of what that looks like in terms of absolute EBITDA impact from the higher cost? I presume if I assume decrementals are sort of 50% and then obviously the logistics cost in absolute terms, but any color on what that might look like to EBITDA and then should we expect you to operate at the lower end of that 20% to 25% medium-term target?

Very good. Thank you, Sebastian, for the question and for the kind remarks. Regarding the second quarter, as I was anticipating, due to the situation in the Middle East, we expect in the second quarter lower revenues, probably mid to high single digits is the range that we would like to guide today. There's still uncertainty, and this is mainly driven by the Middle East conflict, this $140 million that we had earmarked for invoicing in the second quarter. $40 million of that was anticipated in the first quarter, and the balance due to the difficulties to get into the region are probably going to go into the third quarter delay. This is on the revenue side. Then you're talking about EBITDA margin. There we expect EBITDA margin to contract. a couple of points. This is going to be one-third related to the logistic cost that I will comment in a minute, and two-thirds related to a lower absorption of fixed cost, semi-fixed cost, related to the lower volumes that we expect this quarter. Logistic is an important component. We expect about $32 million of higher logistic cost in this second quarter due to the the conflict, and here we need to separate two effects. One, the difficulty in arriving to our customers through the Strait of Hormuz. We have additional cost on vessels that are waiting for birth in ports that are either in Fujairah or Corfagan, in the outer part of Hormuz on the Emirates, or Oman as well, some ports in Oman that we are using, or even Jeddah in the Red Sea to access to Saudi. So waiting times, unloading, and a second leg, an inland transportation that is additional to the cost that we would normally have if the strait would be open. This accounts to around $8 million of estimated additional cost in the quarter. In addition to that, and related to the price of oil, fuel prices are going up all over the world. This creates an additional cost of logistics, mainly in trucking, to some extent also in maritime freight and also railroads. This is around, in our estimate, $24 million of higher freight costs related to the increase in fuel in the different parts of the world, clearly a higher impact in North America given the amount of intensity and service that we have especially in U.S. and Canada. So these effects are temporary in this quarter contracting David Amarty.

That's very helpful. Thank you, Gabriel. Now, my second question is on the North American business, obviously performing very well and now at a higher commodity price environment, likely to see a ramp up in spending at some point from E&Ps. But if I look at the business, do you expect the growth predominantly to be led by pricing? And we're seeing, obviously, PipeLogix is now beginning to step up or by volume. Is there really that much more kind of share gain to take, given your position already? So I'm just thinking about that. Is it pricing-led or volume-led in North America going forward?

Yeah, Sebastian. On this point, I think the short answer is both volume and pricing. But I will let Guillermo give you a bit on color about what we expect on North America on the second half of the year where we're seeing activity increase and possible price increases and this is part of the improved outlook towards the second half of the year for Tenaris.

Thank you, Gabriel, and good afternoon, Sebastian. As you said, we are expecting upside in both in terms of activity and sales and in prices moving forward. By talking with our clients, We are starting them to say that they will be adding rigs, particularly led by the small private operators, but also some medium and large-sized independents are planning to add Putting all together, our expectation is that activity by the end of the year, in terms of rig count, will increase around 50 rigs, in other words, around 10% of activity. and we expect that we will grow with our clients in line with this. In terms of prices, PipeLogic has increased 4% in the last two months and we expect this trend to continue in the following months. So mainly pushed by the increase of raw material and logistics costs but also because of the expectation of the increase of demand.

Very helpful. Thanks very much. I will turn it back now.

Thank you. Our next question, one moment, please, comes from Mark Bianchi with TD Cowan. Please proceed.

Thank you very much. Giovanni, I didn't hear you introduce Paolo, but I'm sure he's listening. I want to congratulate him on everything that the company has accomplished under his leadership. And, Gabriel, welcome into the role.

Thank you very much, Mark, for your comment. And probably later today or tomorrow, and talk to Paolo and pass along the message. If he's not listening, he probably is, but anyway.

Yeah, great. Well, I guess maybe continuing the conversation of how the business is progressing here. So second quarter, you've outlined pretty clearly, but the comment in the press release was that, you know, second half recovers, assuming the straight opens shortly. But can you talk about, you know, how quickly that happens? is the expectation that maybe third quarter can come back to where first quarter was and maybe unpack that a little bit for us if you could.

Sure. Indeed, we are seeing volumes recovering in the third and fourth quarter. At this point, I would say probably towards a higher fourth quarter than the third, but it's reasonable to assume that we will get very close to the first quarter levels during the second half. This is our best estimation today. And then we have, as Willie anticipated, the trajectory on price increases that will offset the cost increases that we're having. Because besides the logistics that we talk about, there is an impact starting in the second quarter. We have had higher raw materials on the metallic side, scrap, ferro-hylobs, hot-roll coils. The full impact on these cost increases of the last few months we will start to see, to a large extent, the full impact on that on the third quarter. So the pricing trajectory with a better North America, with a better offshore as well in the second half, will support, together with the volume, an increase on the pricing, returning to EBITDA margin levels close to the first quarter.

And just specifically related to that, does the PipeLogix price need to improve beyond what we've seen so far to get to that? Or is it just what we've seen through April that gets you to where you just talked about by 4Q, or do we need additional PipeLogix improvement?

I think we need some more steam on the PipeLogix, but I will let Guillermo comment on which are our basic premises that are typically conservative on PipeLogix increase.

Yes, we need some additional increases, but our expectation is that PipeLogix will increase at least to allow us to offset those cost increases.

Yeah. Very good. And then the other question I had was just back on the Middle East and the opportunity for perhaps some more pipeline work to try to reduce the risk of all of the volume going through the strait. There's been talk of expanding the east-west pipeline within Saudi Arabia, so I'm curious what your opportunity is for that or any other similar type of investments in the region.

Yeah, in that regard, indeed, the east-west pipeline in Saudi Arabia and the pipeline going to Fujairn and the Emirates have been redundancy contingency until now, but now are strategically important. So I think it's rational to assume that this is a study that might be continued and expanded. There is no clear indication, announcement that these projects are going ahead, but it's very rational to assume that they will add a lot of value. From that point of view, we see how and if this will occur. Probably for this type of pipelines, you're talking about a year to year under a fast-track scenario, so this is not something that can be produced and built over a few months. In any case, we have a large diameter facility in Jubail, GPC, in Saudi Arabia, so we will be ideally positioned if this project goes ahead. We have a capacity of around 450,000 tons in our facility in Saudi, and depending on the diameter, wall thickness, and the trajectory of this pipeline, these pipelines could demand hundreds of thousands of tons to be built. So I think we will see how this develops over time, but we are in a daily position to capture that from the pipeline point of view. And if there's a pipeline capacity, there's going to be drilling behind. So both in Saudi Arabia and UAE, we also have a distinctive OCDG position, so we will also benefit from that down the line. So too early to tell, but an important upside opportunity for TENARIS is this develops.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Matt Smith with Bank of America. Please proceed.

Hi there. Good morning. Good afternoon. Congrats from myself as well, Gabrielle, and best wishes to parallel two. For the first question, could I focus on tariffs? And the first part of that would be to ask what the current run rate you're seeing for Section 232 costs within your financials at the moment, post the mitigation efforts that you've been carrying out and how you expect that cost line to evolve in the coming quarters. And then perhaps, would you mind if I add on to that, are you able to add any comments on Canadian anti-dumping headlines that we've seen in recent weeks?

Thank you, Matt, for the congrats. Regarding the first point on tariffs, We have arrived to a level of studies impacting our first quarter results of $110, $120 million. And we believe that we arrive to that steady state, and we will take this towards the same level towards the end of the year. So this is what to expect. We know that there is a USMCA that's starting to be discussed, but this will take probably all the second semester. So no variations, I think, that we have in our forecast in the short term for further mitigation. But as you said, this number used to be much higher than that in the range of 140, 150, I believe, at the peak. And we are maximizing steel production and pipe manufacturing in the U.S. to mitigate these tariff numbers. regarding your second point of anti-dumping against Mexico in Canada this is something that yes was announced early last month let me tell you first that in Canada like in many important bases in the world we have a strategy of mainly domestic manufacturing and sourcing So today, in Canada, 80% of our sales of OCDG come from domestic manufacturing, but still we import from our different mills around the world to complement this local manufacturing. The impact of this anti-dumping, I believe, is quite limited going forward. We expect 7% of our supply in Canada to be sourced from TAMSA going forward in line with the pricing indication of this result. And this is particular products, specialized products, but that, by the way, are not manufactured by the local petitioners of the case. So we believe we have ability to continue to serving our customers in Canada with a mainly domestic base, which has been all along our strategy. So this is something that we're factoring in our supply. It had an impact on the first quarter, which was $14 million, and this is something that we expect not to have later on throughout the year.

Perfect. Thank you for that. And then perhaps could I switch tones for a second question towards the buyback. I think last quarter I asked Paola whether the philosophy had changed at all, how you viewed the buyback. Could I ask you the same question in this volatile environment? Does your philosophy in terms of how you implement that, how you size that, does that change at all? And should we look to the AGM next week to hear news on it, please?

On that point, as you know, This is a decision that is to be taken by the shareholder meeting first and then by the board. So next week, we will see on May the 12th, the company shareholder meeting will consider, among other topics, the renewal of the authorization of a repurchase of shares. Afterwards, it will be up to the board to decide on that. So I cannot offer more color than that at this point.

Okay. Well, thank you very much. Happy to pass it on. Thank you.

Thank you. And our next question comes from Paul Redman with BNP Paribas. Please proceed.

Hi, guys, and thank you very much for your time. Yeah, Gabrielle, congratulations on the new role. I just wanted to ask, you've been COO for a number of years. I wanted to ask where you see the greatest opportunities for Tanaris as you step into the role. And then secondly, just on the Middle East, can you provide a bit more detail by country in terms of where you're seeing the greatest issues around logistics, costs, delivery to customer? Just a bit more detail than Middle East in general. Thank you.

Yep. Thank you very much for the congrats again. Again, maybe I start from the second part related to the logistic codes into the Middle Clearly, Saudi and UAE, due to this pipeline capacity that we talked before, they have continued their drilling operations. Okay? It has been remarkable that the majority of the rigs have been operating under the challenging conditions that we had in the month of March and April. So it has been very important for us to serve them every day with our local manufacturing, our local service centers, and bringing material into these two countries to replenish our inventories and support them. And we had zero rig stoppages, so we have been able to serve them under this condition as in normal times. So this is an important part of the effort, but again, going through logistics outside through Ormuz with longer transit times and higher costs. When you go to the upper part of the Gulf, it's much more difficult to reach, much more costly to reach. And in Qatar, which is mainly producing LNG for export, and in Kuwait and in Iraq, the capabilities of export alternative routes is much limited. So draining activity there has produced much more. So there was less of a need, for the customers to receive new material and there was more of a difficulty for us to reach those locations upper part of the gulf okay so this is a way we will see how this unfolds in the next few weeks in the next few months our base scenario continues to be that this is a resolution that will come in in the short term and we hope for that but this is what we see today so the majority of the big delays have been in the northern part of the Gulf, while Saudi and UAE, we are finding alternative routes, because the material is really needed, the rigs are working. Regarding the first question, maybe you remind me again on the first point.

It was just as you step into the CEO role, where do you see the opportunities to add value, yeah.

Yeah, well, you know, I think there are a lot of opportunities for growth in Tenaris. And this situation in the Middle East creates and strengthens the importance of energy security, diversification of supply. So I believe that, as we were saying in the opening remarks, we're going to see actions by customers increasing drilling in different parts of the world. Guillermo mentioned about the U.S., but I think this creates and strengthens conditions for growth in Canada. Certainly Venezuela was starting, but makes Venezuela even more interested into the future. We have Vaca Muerta, which is a work-class play, that is also strengthened by the outlook on this situation. And the offshore, which has and will continue to have steam, We are seeing FIDs being even anticipated due to this condition. So we believe that we are already entering an expansion cycle in the offshore, in the deep water. And this is something that we will carry into the balance of 26, 27, and 28. We are seeing projects that are already with FID and schedules, even with two, three-year visibility. So I believe that in this different area and parts of the world, Tenai has a lot of opportunity to increase his business.

Right. Thank you very much, and best of luck in the new role. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jamie Franklin with Jefferies. Please proceed.

Hi there. Thanks for taking my questions. Congratulations, Gabrielle, and best wishes to Paolo. So firstly, I just wanted to ask on the international business. So last quarter, you spoke to generally seeing some stability in pricing with balanced demand and supply. Can you just give us a sense of recent price moves in the different regions, given the current geopolitical situation and a kind of best estimate as to how you see that evolving as we move forwards through the year? and then secondly you already partially touched on this but could you give us an update on how your offshore backlog is shaping up you previously talked to an expectation of 1h26 revenues offshore being higher than 2h25 and that 2h26 would likely be at least as positive as the first half so just wondering if you can give us a sense of how things have evolved since your last set of results thank

you yes a Jamie thank you for for for the congrats on the second point in the offshore I confirmed what I we said in the in the in the previous call we are even seeing anticipation on some of the backlog of first half into the second half of 26 so where I'm sitting today we're seeing an increase in revenue for the offshore in the second half of 26 versus what we are having in the first half of 26 in the range of 10%. Okay, so this backlog for offshore is very important and continues to build up and even anticipate a bit. So I'm ready to be a bit even more optimistic than I was in the previous call. Regarding pricing in the international markets, probably we need to divide Europe from the international markets. In Europe, as you know, CBAM has started since the beginning of this year, and the new safeguard in Europe will be implemented July 1st. This is a safeguard that is much more stringent than the previous one. The quotas are going to be reduced by half of what they were, and volumes in excess of the quota that today are paying a tariff of 25% to get it into Europe, this will go to 50%. So this will protect and strengthen steelmaking and steelpipemaking in Europe, which I think is positive for Denaris as we supply our European customer mainly with European production. So we see a trend in pricing that already started, and we're seeing in the second quarter of this year and probably continuing moving upwards in Europe. Then when we go to the international pricing, as I was saying in the last quarter, there's a certain stability between supply and demand. With the situation of the war in the Middle East, there is a pressure on costs, and we believe that this pressure of cost will be translated into the international pricing. The majority of our work in international markets are contracts that have formulas in place from the different components. There's typically a legacy on two to three quarters for this to be seen in the invoicing of pricing. So I would believe that in our pricing, pricing in international business will go accompanying offsetting the increasing cost over time.

Very helpful. Thank you. You're welcome.

Thank you, and as a reminder, to ask a question, simply press star 1-1 to get in the queue. Our next question comes from Arun Yarram with J.P. Morgan Securities. Please proceed.

Yeah, good morning, Gabrielle and Paolo. Congratulations on your new roles. Great to see Gabrielle. Well, Tanaris mentioned an increased focus on security and the diversification of supply in your release. You know, one of the things that in an era of more energy security, there's been thoughts that key players in the Middle East, the NOCs, may be focused on having more redundancy in terms of evacuation options by pipelines, so they're less reliant on the Strait of Hormuz. So I was wondering if you could talk about how Tanaris could be levered to this dynamic. I know there's been news about a Gulf Super Express pipeline that would take flows to the Red Sea and Mediterranean, but I just wanted to talk about and see if you could elaborate on this dynamic.

Yeah. Thank you, Arun, for the best wishes. And yeah, let me tell you, I think a similar question came up earlier in the call, but still, I will tell you that this possibility or potential of additional pipeline capacity in Saudi and UAE is something that would look very rational today and a big business opportunity. I was saying before that this will probably take eight or two under a fast-track scenario to be built, but it's something that we cannot take out of the question on the contrary. No announcements, media reports, so this is something that we don't have anything to comment yet. But if that opportunity would materialize, Tenaris with its GPC, large diameter facility in Jubail, we would be able to take an important part of this pipeline capacity going forward. This is a facility where we just last year expanded into the second line, and we have an ability even to de-bottleneck with limited investment to take this capacity even higher. So these pipelines would entail hundreds of thousands of tons of demand of tubulars. So one way or the other, I believe that Tenais would be well positioned to capitalize on that. and all the drilling of OCDG that we come behind to make this pipeline capacity full. So we'll see, a bit early to tell, but certainly a potential maybe eventually into a 2027 type of scenario.

Great. Thank you. Thank you for that. And I did join the call because I had another call, so I apologize on the question. No worries. Thank you for joining anyway. And then my follow-up here is I did hear your comments on Outlook. I know the stock is maybe reacting to the near-term impacts in 2Q relative to some of the Middle East impacts.

But I just wanted to see if you could maybe clarify your comments on the second half. what we heard is your expectations that second half EBITDA could be close to one queue which is in that 735 range which would be a little bit above the street so just wondering if you could comment on that outlook yeah I would say that this would be a good estimate even take it's a bit early there is a lot of uncertainty the street is not open yet so to be precise in the third and fourth quarter to be honest is kind of a challenging but from where we see and And based on this assumption of a relatively short-term resolution of the conflict and the positive dynamics on volume in the offshore in North America and pricing trajectory, I think this is where we are seeing our results heading into the second half.

Great. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Arun.

Thank you.

As a reminder, if you do have a question, simply press star 11 to get in the queue. one moment for our next question it comes from the lobby with Bernstein please proceed yes good afternoon and congrats for for the new role one question globally when I look at the structure of the industry in terms of competition, the past four or five years have seen that probably reduced competition for companies like yours. My question is, given the strengthening outlook for the next three to five years, is it reasonable to expect that at some stage, of course, it is much too early to worry about, but at some stage, you may face increasing competition by the end of the decade. For example, in North America, with the recent combination of U.S. steel and iPhone steel. So maybe I would like to have your view on the competitive landscape, very, very strong today, likely to remain, but how do you see it evolving over the next three to five years? Thank you very much.

Thank you, Guilherme, for the congrats on the new role. Look, I think your question is very important. I would say that it's difficult for me at this position to illustrate if in the next five years the competitive landscape will improve or deteriorate. I would say that we are competing every day the analysis is built on being the best and bringing the best valuable position to our customers in different parts of the world we are catering those segment customers countries where we can find differentiation where we can be different we can be a partner of choice differentiating on technology, service, local capacity. So these are some of the values that we bring, and we are building on these capabilities over time. So I believe that there is a common threat for our industry that has been steel pipe manufacturing from China. This has been what we consider in general in the majority of the international markets unfairly traded imports. So this is a threat that we had that we confronted with technology, with services, and in certain areas of the world also with anti-dumping and protective measures according to the different parts of the world where we operate, consider that these were unfairly traded imports. Difficult to see how this will progress into the future, so we have been and will continue to be in a competitive world. We don't take our customer trust. We don't take our differentiated EBITDA margins for granted, and we work every day to remain competitive and to become the best option. So it's difficult to project this into the future, but this is what we're all focusing on every day, we'll say.

Thank you very much for this answer. What I like is the humility. So I think it has been probably the main characteristic of Tenaris over the past three years. So very happy that it continues.

Thank you, Guilherme. and there is clearly a message of continuity in Tenaris and with my new appointment and the support of Pablo. He has been planning this transition for the last three years as I have the role of COO. We travel together, we work together, and when I say on a daily basis, it's not a metaphor. It was on a daily basis. So I think part of the message of the new role today is the continuity on the support on Paolo and the 25,000 employees that make Tenaris. And that probably is one of the secrets of the strength of this company.

Thank you very much. I turn it over.

Thank you. And we have a question from Paul Redman with BNP Paribas. Please proceed.

Yeah, thank you very much for a third question. I want to touch on Venezuela. There has been a production increase over the past few months. I wanted to ask how involved you are in terms of sales in that market. And when you think about Venezuela, where do you think production could go to and the opportunity that makes for Tanaris?

Thank you, Paul. On Venezuela, we continue to have a favorable look, an outlook. After the legal framework that we had in the previous quarter, There have been licenses granted to some of the companies. Some of the companies, even of the majors that are starting to operate, have made some announcements of additional areas. So we see things progressing in the right direction, obviously from a small size. Tenaris has never left Venezuela. We have always remained closed and waiting for this opportunity to return. we are mobilizing more resources and we have plenty of Venezuelan colleagues in different parts of the world so we are stepping up our presence in the country from the commercial, the technical and the service sides we will start direct services in Venezuela in the Orinoco area starting in July we are certainly a first mover and we are the front runner as Venezuela recovers today the business is important I gave a figure of around $50 million for this 2026. In the last call, I think we are going to be in that range still. And we see rigs going up from the different operators that are early positioning in Venezuela. So this will be a country that for us will increase substantially from this level into to 2027. So we're quite positive about the opportunity of Venezuela. The range of production increase varies, and it's still a bit uncertain, but with the outlook that we described before of the need of diversifying supply of oil, I think Venezuela becomes even more attractive and important to the global matrix than it was before the conflict.

So we see that this going to increase and tonight will be an important part of that thank you ladies and gentlemen this concludes our q a session and i will turn the call back to giovanni sardana for closing comments thank you carmen and well thank you all of you for joining us during the call thanks and this concludes our conference thank you for participating and you may now disconnect