Earnings Call Transcript - VALE Q1 2025

Operator, Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Vale's First Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. This conference is being recorded, and the replay will be available on our website at vale.com. The presentation is also available for download in English and Portuguese from our website. To listen to the call in Portuguese, please press the globe icon on the lower right side of your Zoom screen and then choose to enter the Portuguese room. Then select mute original audio, so that you won't hear the English version in the background. We would like to inform that all participants are currently in a listen-only mode for the presentations. Further instructions will be provided before we begin the question-and-answer section of our call. We would like to advise that forward-looking statements may be provided in this presentation, including Vale's expectations about future events or results, encompassing those matters listed in the respective presentation. We caution you that forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and involve risks and uncertainties. To obtain information on factors that may lead to results different from those forecast by Vale, please consult the reports Vale files with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission SEC, the Brazilian Comissão de Valores Mobiliários, CVM and in particular, the factors discussed under forward-looking statements and risks factors in Vale's annual report on Form 20-F. With us today are Mr. Gustavo Pimenta, CEO; Mr. Marcelo Bacci, Executive Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations; Mr. Rogerio Nogueira, Executive Vice President, Commercial and Development; Mr. Carlos Medeiros, Executive Vice President of Operations; and Mr. Shaun Usmar, CEO of Vale Base Metals. Now, I will turn the conference over to Mr. Gustavo Pimenta. Sir, you may now begin.

Gustavo Pimenta, CEO

Good morning, everyone and welcome to Vale's first quarter 2025 conference call. First, I would like to take a moment to remind you of our strategic direction as defined by Vale 2030 vision. We're building a leading mining platform with a flexible portfolio of assets exposed to the right long-term fundamentals and based on a unique mineral endowment. All of that supported by a highly innovative and purpose-driven organization. We are confident the actions we are taking today will create substantial value for all of our stakeholders and will lead to a more resilient enterprise. The current trade war only reinforces the importance of building a competitive business that can thrive under different market conditions, and that is exactly what we are doing at Vale. Despite the short-term volatility and uncertainty, we are optimistic about the future and our role in driving sustainable mining to support global economic development. Now let's take a look into our Q1 performance. Driven by our integrated supply chain and as anticipated, iron ore sales increased by 4% year-on-year, reaching 66 million tons, while our production was 4% lower, mostly within our mine plan for the quarter, but also impacted by the higher rainfall in the northern system. Our operational excellence initiatives continue to bear fruit. S11D, for example, achieved its higher production for first quarter, thanks to several asset reliability programs we have implemented. In Q1, we continue to prioritize the supply of medium-grade products like BRBF and PF C1, which is the pellet feed produced in China. This approach maximizes the value generated across our business, particularly in a time of challenging margins in the steel industry. This is only possible thanks to our flexible portfolio and integrated supply chain. On increased flexibility, I'm happy to report that our three main growth projects in iron ore are progressing as planned. Vargem Grande and Capanema, which started operations at the end of 2024, will produce a combined 40 million tons of iron ore in 2025, securing adherence to our production guidance, as well as greater portfolio flexibility. Both projects are expected to reach full capacity in the first half of 2026. Furthermore, the expansion of our Plus 20 project at S11D is advancing well, having achieved 73% of its physical progress by March. We are confident that this key project will begin operations in the second half of 2026, delivering high-quality volumes at remarkably low production costs, with an expected C1 in dollars per ton at mid-teens. We are advancing in the mining of the future agenda, investing in cutting-edge technology and fostering innovation to enhance the safety and efficiency of our operations. We are currently operating three mines with autonomous equipment, including heavy haul trucks and drilling rigs, and recently we extended this technology to the loading yard at the Guaíba port in the southern system. This technology has led to a 12% increase in recovery rates at the port, allowing us to relocate personnel from higher-risk activities to a safer work environment. We will gradually increase our autonomous program, expanding from 14 to 70 autonomous trucks at Serra Norte over the next three years, delivering substantial productivity improvement on the site. In our energy transition metals business, we continue to see solid and consistent progress across all operations. Corporate production increased 11% year-on-year, achieving the highest output for first quarter since 2020. The strong performance came from Salobo and Sossego operations, as well as from the ramp-up of the Voisey's Bay project in Canada. In nickel, Voisey's Bay and Onça Puma have contributed to an 11% increase in production year-on-year. We are glad to see that strong operational performance, together with the positive impact of by-product prices, have contributed to more than doubling the EBITDA of the base metals organization compared to the same period last year. Together with Shaun and his leadership team, we remain highly committed to delivering continued improvements to our operational performance, as well as on accelerating our value-accretive growth on copper. Our Novo Carajás initiative was put in place early in the year with a dedicated leadership team, and I'm very excited with the initial insights which only reinforced the great opportunity we have ahead of us. Now I'd like to comment on the strategic partnership we announced with GIP and Aliança Energia. As you know, Vale has been dedicated to sourcing all of its energy needs from renewables for many years and reached this milestone in Brazil in 2023, two years ahead of schedule. Having access to clean and competitive power is crucial for us, and by bringing a strategic partner like GIP, we can create an asset-light business that can help us deliver on our long-term decarbonization goals. With the closing expected in the second half of the year, Vale will hold 30% of the new joint venture and will receive $1 billion in cash proceeds. Finally, I would like to highlight that we recently published our 2024 integrated report. This disclosure is part of our commitment to transparent and comparable reporting on our ESG progress and challenges. In 2024, Vale invested over $250 million in decarbonization initiatives as part of our journey to net zero Scope 1 and 2 by 2050. In the sustainable mining front, we recovered almost 30 million tons of iron ore by reusing tailings and other materials from our operations, reducing waste and creating value. The report also touches on our community relationship plans, which are channels designed to share information about our operations and implied risks and impacts. It is also a way for us to listen to the perspectives and concerns of the local communities, incorporating those into our business decisions. I invite you to read the full report to get a better understanding of our sustainability journey and how we are working to build an even better Vale. Now I'll turn to Marcelo Bacci to talk about our financial performance. I'll be back for closing remarks before the Q&A session. Thank you.

Marcelo Bacci, CFO

Thanks, Gustavo, and good morning, everyone. As you can see, our pro forma EBITDA reached $3.2 billion in the quarter, 8% lower year-on-year, which we see as a solid performance, particularly considering that iron ore prices fell 16% in the same period. The combination of the continued C1 cost reduction and an encouraging performance from Vale's base metals, which doubled its EBITDA in the period, were the key factors for strong results in the quarter. Let's take a closer look at our cost performance on the next slide. Our costs continue on a very positive momentum. In Q1, iron ore C1 cash costs, excluding third-party purchases, reached $21 per ton, 11% lower year-on-year, driven by our efficiency initiatives and a favorable exchange rate. With this strong start in 2025, we're even more confident in achieving our C1 cost guidance for the year of $20.5 to $22 per ton. Our all-in-cost performance was also solid, with a 7% year-on-year reduction, reaching $54.4 per ton. The improvement was not only driven by a lower C1, but also by lower freight costs and expenses. This was our lowest all-in-cost for a first quarter since 2022. Turning to our energy transition metals business, we observed a significant year-on-year improvement in both operational and financial metrics, already reflecting some initiatives from the asset review. In copper, our all-in costs decreased by 63%, reaching $1,200 per ton, substantially below our $2,800 to $3,000 per ton guidance range. This was due to strong performances at Salobo and Sossego, and increased by-product revenues benefiting from higher gold prices. We are highly confident on delivering our copper all-in guidance in 2025. In nickel, the all-in costs decreased by 4% year-on-year, driven by solid operating performance and higher volumes, leading to fixed cost dilution. Nickel costs should decrease in the upcoming quarters, driven by the ramp-up of the Voisey's Bay underground mine, and by our continued efforts towards efficiency gains. Now moving on to cash generation. The current free cash flow reached roughly $500 million in the quarter, lower than the $800 million generated in Q4, mostly driven by seasonally lower EBITDA and lower-than-usual working capital variation. During Q1, we had lower-than-normal cash collection, as we opted to ship less in December 2024, given our portfolio optimization strategy. Lastly, total CapEx was slightly lower year-on-year, trending in line with our guidance for 2025 of approximately $5.9 billion. Our free cash flow generation and strong cash position were primarily used to return value to our shareholders, with the payment of $2 billion in dividends and interest on capital in March. As you can see on the next slide, this payment led to a seasonally and expectedly higher expanded net debt, which reached $18.2 billion in the quarter. Our expanded net debt range remains between $10 billion and $20 billion. We will gradually bring it back to the mid-level of this target in the coming quarters, supported by higher cash flow generation and along with a $1.1 billion positive impact from the Aliança Energia deal, which includes both cash and deconsolidated debt. To conclude, I would like to reinforce our focus on disciplined capital allocation, maintaining net debt within our targets, utilizing asset life strategies and delivering strong shareholder returns through dividends and buybacks. As Gustavo mentioned earlier, we also remain highly committed to improving cost and CapEx efficiencies, making sure we become an even more competitive company. With that, I now pass the floor back to Gustavo.

Gustavo Pimenta, CEO

Thanks, Marcelo. Before we open up for the Q&A session, I would like to reinforce the key takeaways from today's call. We will continue to leverage our supply chain flexibility in iron ore. Our ability to adapt the portfolio according to market conditions puts us in a unique position to maximize value. Additionally, the ramp-up of the Vargem Grande and Capanema projects will further enhance this position. At Vale Base Metals, we are already seeing the benefits of the asset review initiatives. Our operational performance and EBITDA generation improved quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year, and I'm highly confident that we'll continue to make significant progress in the coming quarters, creating a leading energy transition metals business. Driving cost competitiveness across our businesses is a key priority for us, and I'm happy to see our Q1 performance demonstrating that the actions we are taking are already generating results, and we'll continue to do so in order to create value through the cycle. On our sustainability journey, the recently published integrated report brings updates on our progress towards our ESG targets. We remain committed to our long-term goals and to continuously increasing transparency and keeping an open dialogue with our stakeholders. And finally, our disciplined capital allocation approach, combined with strategic asset light initiatives, as was the case of the Aliança joint venture, will continue to ensure healthy remuneration to our shareholders. Now let's move to the Q&A session.

Operator, Operator

Our first question comes from Rafael Barcellos with Bradesco BBI.

Rafael Barcellos, Analyst

Good morning and thanks for taking my questions. My first question is about the iron ore market. So iron ore prices have been holding up pretty well around the $100 per ton level, which is quite different from the pressure we have seen in other commodities, right? So I just wanted to check what kind of feedback you are getting from China, how healthy do you think the iron ore market is right now? And Gustavo, if you can complement here, I mean, what has changed at this point in your capital allocation strategy given these macro uncertainties we are dealing with? And then my second question is for Rogerio about Vale's commercial strategy. So looking at the release in your product mix, we have seen IOCJ volumes coming down, concentration in China going up, and the orders line becoming more relevant. So it would be very helpful if you could talk a bit more about these movements, explain what is behind the orders line, and of course, give us more color on the overall commercial strategy. Thank you.

Gustavo Pimenta, CEO

Gustavo here. I'll start with the question on the capital allocation given the macroenvironment. Look, it's certainly something we are watching closely. We haven't yet seen immature impact on our operations or financial results. As you know, we sell very little, for example, into the US. Nickel has been exempted. But we are monitoring closely because the situation is highly fluid. And certainly, if there is an overall impact in the global GDP performance, this will certainly have an impact on commodities. So what we can do and what we are doing is to be highly focused on cost efficiency and highly disciplined on how we allocate capital to make sure we preserve liquidity and we continue to deliver on our efficiency initiatives. We had a good Q1. I think that was highly encouraging for all of us. And we will continue to do so vis-a-vis the current macro environment. So I'll pass to Rogerio to cover the market question.

Rogerio Nogueira, Executive Vice President, Commercial and Development

Okay. Good morning, Rafael. Thank you for the question. I think the market, as Gustavo said, is fluid. It's volatile, difficult to predict, as you know. But we see reactions differently in different geographies. Let me cover some of them. Let me start with China, which is the most important one. I think coming out of China, we see a mix of confidence and caution. A lot of the clients that we just visited recently are seeing their margins improve and are waiting for some news from the government, especially on this new political meeting, which is expected to come in the coming weeks. But we had real signals that the market was moving in the right direction. So the first quarter of 2025, we had a GDP of 5.4%, which was actually higher than expected in the steel market. Crude steel production was up 0.6%. Big iron production was even higher. Fixed asset income, which is something that we always look at on an aggregate basis, was up 4%, with manufacturing and infrastructure coming very strongly out of the incentives from the Chinese government. I think you all know properties are still struggling, but there are some good tailwinds, especially when you look into property sales, which are actually decelerating but at a much lower pace. So this gives us an indication that the market might have been at the bottom. On our client side, as I said, a lot of the clients that we have talked to are actually achieving good margins, around 200 renminbi per ton. But on average, that's not the general market case. But it's actually improving. They're having margins above zero. So there's a bit of confidence. I think the other indicator which is important when you look into China is the blast furnace utilization, which is going up over 90%. Also, in terms of the steel market, as you may see, inventory at ports and traders have come down. So all-in-all, I think there's a very positive outlook from a steel perspective. When you look at the situation regarding China, we see different markets reacting differently. Japan and Korea, for example, are facing challenges. We have been there talking to all our clients. In Japan, the construction sector is depressed. In Korea, the auto manufacturing sector is experiencing difficulties. They are also preparing for the election of the new prime minister. And the EU is experiencing some closure of plans, but we expect to see some reactions in monetary policy. Other regions, such as India and Southeast Asia, are seeing growth, but the rest of the world is a bit balanced. Overall, when you look into the global supply and demand, we believe it will be balanced. Brazil is increasing production while India is decreasing. Supply is still at about 1.6 billion tons.

Caio Greiner, Analyst

Hello. Good morning, everyone. Thank you. My first question, I wanted to get an update on your value over volume strategy. Gustavo, I know you mentioned that iron ore markets are resilient so far, but what we're seeing is that the Chinese demand environment and the economy is likely to weaken over the coming quarters. So if in a scenario in which iron ore prices are impacted and start to move lower, at what level of prices would Vale start cutting its high cost capacity? And how much capacity are we talking about here? This has been a question we've been getting a lot from investors. And my second question for Bacci in terms of the CapEx efficiency program. Bacci, we're glad to see the CapEx moving lower on a year-over-year basis. It's in the right direction for a reduction compared to the previous guidance that you had. So just wondering if you could give us an update on how the program is evolving, if you could elaborate a bit more on the main initiatives. And I know you already revised the guidance downwards, but I was just wondering if Vale still sees room for more revisions down to the CapEx figure closer to $5 billion or $5.5 billion. That would be helpful. Thank you.

Marcelo Bacci, CFO

Okay. Before I go to the price question, let me just talk briefly about the portfolio, which was the question that was raised previously and I ended up not answering. Look, I think we have indeed sort of conceptualized, redesigned our portfolio. And we've done this under current market conditions. And we are beginning to implement these new changes. So let me provide the context and background of what I say and what I call the current market conditions. As you know, our clients are operating under very low margins. Coking coal prices are very low. So what we see today is less of a need for productivity. And thus, quality premiums are at their lowest. And what clients are actually seeking for is for mid-grade iron ores. So in that regard and in that context, let me give you a few examples of what we're trying to do. First, I think we're moving towards concentrating the most we can of our low-grade iron ore to provide these mid-grade products. It is an accretive movement in terms of that we beneficiate, but it is also very accretive when you look into the broader portfolio. We're also looking to optimize this concentration value chain outside Brazil, seeking plants with good logistics and operational performance. The second initiative that I would like to highlight is the launch of a mid-grade product out of Carajás. Why mid-grade? Again, this is much more appropriate to what the market is looking for. And being from Carajás, it actually would still have the good metallurgical properties which are delivered by the Carajás ore because of its crystalline structure. This suits the market, but it also helps us with providing some flexibility at the operational sites. This means that we can operate with lower strip ratios, eventually reduce costs, and eventually increase production. But not only that. It actually allows us to increase our reserve base. So it's a very sensible move at a point that the market is actually not providing us with very high premiums. Last but not least, we will need to have a transition period. And during that transition, you will see some finds which are actually not standard or non-standard finds that we will need to sell. But it will be during the transition process. But I’d like just to let you rest assured that our objective function in this is always and will always be to maximize value. So it's not about only price realization or only volumes or only costs; it's about the unit margin times volumes. This is what we're looking for. And as we go through the exercise, we're flexing our supply chain, creating a broad portfolio that we can always return to. If the market changes, then we can change and adjust ourselves very quickly. The question of, I don't know what price is coming lower, is more difficult. When we look what's going on in the world and see all these measures coming from the tariffs, we don't know exactly what the reaction will be. So, for example, if China reacts and puts incentives to the domestic economy, a lot of this steel currently being exported might revert back into China. Quite frankly, this could be positive given that the steel produced in China is essentially produced out of pig iron. My general feeling is that we will have a stable year at the same levels we're currently seeing.

Gustavo Pimenta, CEO

Caio, regarding the CapEx question, the first quarter is seasonally lower normally. So you shouldn't be annualizing this amount. We are still aiming for the $5.9 billion. We are constantly working to find additional efficiencies, but we keep the guidance at $5.9 billion for the time being.

Caio Ribeiro, Analyst

All right. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity. So my first question is on dividends. In the past years, Vale has announced extraordinary dividend payments such as when the 10% stake in the base metals division was sold. And more recently as well in the fourth quarter. So my question is with that announced transaction related to Aliança Energia, in which the company should receive a $1 billion cash influx, whether you see room to return that to shareholders in the form of dividends, particularly given that your expanded net debt is still below the ceiling of your self-imposed cap. But now it's at $18.2 billion, which is closer to the top of that self-imposed range versus the $16.5 billion that you had in the fourth quarter, which is the last time that you announced an extraordinary dividend. Is there a particular level of expanded net debt that you see the likelihood of those extraordinary dividends being highly likely?

Marcelo Bacci, CFO

So, Caio, this is Marcelo speaking. In relation to dividends, as discussed by my colleagues before, we are in a very uncertain period in terms of market conditions. So it is not the right moment to discuss extraordinary dividends at this point. The cash inflow from the Aliança deal is already considered in our program for the year, in which we intend to reduce the expanded net debt level towards the mid-range at $15 billion. So we are already counting on that. You should expect that if, given market conditions, our performance, and if our expanded net debt trends below $15 billion, we have a higher probability of having extraordinary dividends or more buybacks. Other than that, I think it's too early to discuss that. In relation to your second question, we had indeed a very good first quarter in terms of costs. The second quarter, I would like to highlight that historically is seasonally worse than the first quarter. We expect the C1 in Q2 to probably be higher than in the first quarter, but still lower than the same period of last year. Looking at the full-year performance, we are very confident about the guidance that we gave. And again, it's too early at the beginning of the year to think about a revision, but our level of confidence has indeed increased.

Daniel Sasson, Analyst

Hi, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Some of them have actually been answered. Just if you could give us more details on your strategy to buy ore from third parties.

Rogerio Nogueira, Executive Vice President, Commercial and Development

Hi Daniel, thanks for the question. I think first of all, I just would like to make it clear that we will only buy it if it is value accretive. If prices are at about $100 per ton as they are today, we expect volumes to be close to what we've done last year, around 25 million tons. If market prices decrease, we will cut non-profitable ores to maintain profitability. As prices come down, it probably will reduce volumes, but we will reduce it gradually. Margins differ based on product quality, railway costs, and ports used, but we will always focus on value accretive volumes.

Carlos De Alba, Analyst

Yes, can you hear me now? Thank you very much. Just a couple of questions. One maybe for Rogerio. Can you give us, Rogerio, more color please on the ramp-up, expected ramp up, or at least the progress in the stabilization works of the plan two of the Briquettes Tubarão and any color as to how the conversations with clients and the acceptance by them of this product is evolving?

Rogerio Nogueira, Executive Vice President, Commercial and Development

Okay, Carlos. Let me start with the ramp-up of our pellet plant BT01 and then I'll pass it to Medeiros. From a client point of view, we have a very long lineup of clients trying and looking for testing the Briquettes because the industrial trials have been very successful, and we're now starting to produce for the short industrial trials. Now we're starting to produce for longer industrial trials. What I can tell you is that we have a batch right now at a blast furnace client, and we should be able to try it within the next couple of months.

Carlos Medeiros, Executive Vice President of Operations

Good morning, hello, Carlos. Regarding the Briquettes plant, it is ramping up according to our expectations. As Rogerio mentioned, we have produced two batches of commercial products, one for direct reduction, another one for blast furnaces. Last month we produced 40,000 tons of briquette. Now we have the plant down for some adjustments in the mixes and other parts of the plant. In about a week or 10 days, we'll be ready to start production again. Our expectation is that until the year-end we should be producing about 600,000 tons of briquette.

Gustavo Pimenta, CEO

So Carlos, to your question on the iron ore deposits, you're right. We have a very unique endowment, not only in base metals but also in iron ore. We've launched early in the year the new Carajás initiative, and we are seeing a lot of good insights from the team on our ability to increase copper, but also ensure we bring back the northern range to about 200 million tons a year, which would be highly accretive for our shareholders. We are very focused on that.

Rodolfo Angele, Analyst

Hi, good morning, everyone. I have two questions here. The first is on the nickel business. We see iron ore doing well, the trend of costs going down, the results on copper were quite impressive, but nickel remains, even though you were able to cut costs, it's a business that's generating very little EBITDA. And we know it comes with, if I'm not mistaken, close to $1 billion in CapEx every year. So can you talk a little bit more about what can be done on that front?

Shaun Usmar, CEO of Vale Base Metals

Rodolfo, good morning. It's Shaun in Toronto. To your question on nickel, I think I'll zoom out for a second and just take you back to the journey we talked about on the last earnings call. You may recall, we talked about starting off with reducing our overhead to reduce the burden on our operations and both copper and nickel. We termed this internally project catalyst and we talked about achieving a run rate of around US $200 million a year of cost reduction. We've achieved that. In fact, I think we've exceeded what we had expected. And we've actually tried to take that further, just given the uncertainty in the markets. To continue, as you look to nickel, bear in mind, not only are we focusing on the overhead reduction programs, you recall we have this year, we'll have a full year of Onça Puma Furnace One, which will contribute to fixed cost dilution and volumes. We will and we're on track to bring on the second furnace at Onça Puma, which will take place during Q3. And we should start seeing volumes by the end of Q3 occurring, which will again add to fixed cost dilution. And you'll recall that we announced we just finished the Voisey's Bay mine expansion, and the team is doing remarkably well on that ramp up. My message to you is that you should start seeing more of those cost improvements because our focus for this business under any scenario is not to buy our way to a sustainable future in nickel. It's to firstly extract the potential, minimize cost, maximize our internal throughputs, and focus in a disciplined way on cash margins. As part of that initiative, we're also looking at the portfolio optimization.

Rogerio Nogueira, Executive Vice President, Commercial and Development

Rodolfo, first of all, thank you very much for your comments on our innovative commercial strategy. I think that's very good to hear about it. Regarding briquettes, the real transformation comes when it's used together with direct production, which is going to be used more during the decarbonization journey. But on Simandou specifically, when such a big project is put forward in the market, many investments get postponed. Additionally, if you look at the industry, natural depletion runs between 3% to 4% a year. Calculating this on top of 1.6 billion tons of seaborne iron ore means a 50 to 60 million tons depletion per year, which actually offsets the entry of Simandou to the market. Not only is Simandou high-quality ore coming to the market. Many players aiming to develop Simandou also plan to bring lower quality ores into the market for blending. Ultimately, the amount of high-grade iron ore surplus may not be as simple as just considering the addition of Simandou. This gives us room to operate, and the flexibility of our supply chain will be critical in these dynamics.

Gustavo Pimenta, CEO

Rodolfo, just a quick note to add. I was with Rogerio and our commercial team recently in Asia. Despite all of the noise we hear in terms of delays and decarbonization challenges, our clients in China, Korea, and Japan remain highly focused on decarbonizing their production processes. This was good to see; our clients continue to pursue decarbonized routes, which is encouraging as we see momentum in our Mega Hubs strategy.

Marina Calero, Analyst

Good morning. Thanks for the call. I have a couple of questions on my side. First, on your production performance, it looks like rainfall levels in the northern system were heavier than usual in Q1. Can you give us some color on how production has been progressing so far in Q2? And then my second question is, can you remind us how much debt is linked to Aliança Energia? Thank you.

Rogerio Nogueira, Executive Vice President, Commercial and Development

Okay. Marina, thanks for your question. The rainfall during Q1 was unusually high. Just to put it in some context, in the port in February, rainfall levels were the highest in 20 years. So in March, particularly in Serra Norte, we experienced rainfall three times higher than average. While these heavy rains did impact our infrastructure, it was all fixable. What I can say is that we expect the rainfall to be back to normal levels in our mines in the north, and we anticipate being back to full functioning as the rainy season concludes soon.

Gustavo Pimenta, CEO

In terms of the Aliança deal, the impact on debt is minor, around $100 million of deconsolidated debt in addition to the $1 billion of cash that we're going to receive.

Christopher Lafemina, Analyst

Hi, guys, hopefully, you can hear me okay. Thanks for taking my question. Most of my questions on operations have been answered, but I wanted to ask about capital allocation. Other mining companies are talking more about stepping up their capital returns. Vale obviously has a really strong track record in terms of dividends and even buybacks. You're trading at an extraordinarily inexpensive valuation. So if we go into 2026 and the iron ore market is as resilient as we expect, generating good cash flow, your net debt is approaching the middle of that net debt target range. Do you step up the pace of buybacks? How do you look at buybacks versus dividends?

Marcelo Bacci, CFO

Christopher, this is Marcelo speaking. In terms of capital allocation, we are currently in a phase where our intention is to bring our expanded net debt back to the middle of the range around $15 billion. If we approach that quicker than we expect, and certainly if market conditions improve, the trend for extraordinary dividends and buybacks becomes more favorable. The choice between the two will depend on share price levels. Last quarter, we approved a new buyback program considering that the share price was attractive, so you should monitor that combination.

Gustavo Pimenta, CEO

On your second question, one of Vale's unique advantages is our flexible portfolio. Last year, we removed 8 million tons from the market in Q4 because prices were not there. Now with Vargem Grande, Capanema, and Plus 20 coming online, we finally have greater flexibility to manage the value-to-volume strategy. In a scenario of increased prices, we'll have opportunities to capture more value throughout our supply chain.

Rogerio Nogueira, Executive Vice President, Commercial and Development

In addition to what Gustavo is saying, we are working on a more comprehensive menu of products, and we can adjust quickly to the market reality. So if prices go up, we can change accordingly, and if prices come down, we can react quickly as well.

Yuri Pereira, Analyst

Hi, guys. Good morning. Thank you. First question to Shaun. Do you have any sensitivity of gold prices on companies' copper costs? And maybe to Gustavo, regarding the Mariana Agreement, do you have recently more municipalities searching for an agreement with you? Thank you.

Shaun Usmar, CEO of Vale Base Metals

Yuri, hi. Yes, on the gold sensitivity, obviously, we're experiencing a good environment right now. You'll see that for every $100 an ounce move in the gold price, it impacts our copper costs by about $135 a ton.

Gustavo Pimenta, CEO

On your question regarding the municipalities, the deadline for municipalities to join has passed. Most have joined, and those that have not will not be able to enjoy the payments already made to the others.

Operator, Operator

This concludes today's question-and-answer session. Vale's conference is now concluded. We thank you for your participation. And wish you a nice day.