Cleveland-Cliffs Inc

NYSE:CLF

Earnings Call Analysis

Cleveland-Cliffs Q3 Performance and Projections

In Q3 2023, Cleveland-Cliffs' revenues hit $5.6 billion, with a record steel shipment to the automotive sector at 4.1 million net tons, even as a UAW strike impacted three clients. The company generated $605 million in free cash flow, reduced net debt to $3.4 billion, and increased liquidity to a record $4.4 billion. Costs are projected to drop by another $15 per net ton in Q4, with $2.7 billion in annual savings already achieved. Significant contract negotiations in Q3 may reduce coal and gas costs by $250 million and $150 million, respectively, in 2024. Despite the UAW strike, Q4 shipments are expected to remain steady at approximately 4 million net tons, with no price decreases in the recent automotive negotiations and successful implementation of the Cliffs H surcharge.

Strong Resilience Amidst Slowed Service Center Sales

During Q3, the company witnessed resilient shipments even as service center sales slowed. Operationally, the company benefitted from the maintenance activities conducted in the previous year, resulting in reliable operations and sustained high shipment levels. Steel shipments to automotive clients saw an increase despite a United Auto Workers (UAW) strike, reflecting the company's strong position in this competitive market. Despite a dip in average selling prices, the sales mix favored the company leading to robust prices above $1,200 per net ton. Cost reduction initiatives led to a $31 per net ton improvement over the previous quarter, with expectations for a further $15 per net ton reduction in Q4.

Record Automotive Shipments and Competitive Edge

Q3 marked the company's third consecutive quarter with steel shipments surpassing 4 million net tons. The company set a new record for direct automotive shipments thanks to increased production volumes despite industry-wide challenges like model year changeovers and a UAW strike. The majority of their shipments are not affected as they are not destined for the 'Detroit Three' automakers. With the service center sector being the most negatively impacted by the UAW strike, the company saw an opportunity as service centers are now compelled to restock. Two recent price increases have already been embraced by the market, indicating a strong demand rebound from service centers anticipated in Q4.

Leading with Low Carbon Production and Future Commitments

The company's Cliffs H initiative charges a premium for its steel production methods which use a high proportion of scrap and HBI, resulting in low carbon emissions. With investments in adopting hydrogen as a reductant in their blast furnaces, the company is poised to be a leader in decarbonization efforts. A favorable selection by the Department of Energy for clean hydrogen hubs supports this strategy. The company's union-friendly approach aligns with the administration's values on sustaining good-paying jobs, solidifying its collaborative ethos. By Q4 2023, the company plans to adopt a path to net-zero emissions, hoping to achieve this goal well before 2050.

Q4 Outlook: Shift in Mix and Price Response

Due to ongoing strikes, Q4 is likely to see a shift in product mix with fewer shipments to automotive and increased service center demand. The company projects shipments to remain around 4 million net tons. The reduced costs, aided by $15 per ton savings, coupled with strong market responses to price increases, set a positive revenue outlook for the fourth quarter.

Diversified Demand and Prospects Beyond Automotive

Outside the automotive sector, the company is experiencing robust demand for military applications, infrastructure, and alternative energy sectors, particularly solar. Service centers, which previously reduced their stock, are returning to the market, driven by necessity and the fear of missing out on current pricing benefits. This return is expected to gain momentum into Q4 and the subsequent quarters.

Capital Allocation Strategy and Competitive Landscape

With significant debt reductions, the company is well-positioned to consider share buybacks, dividends, and strategic mergers and acquisitions (M&A) while maintaining a target net debt to EBITDA ratio of one. The company's pragmatic approach to acquisitions and its effective management of key cost drivers like energy and raw materials have contributed to its competitive positioning in the industry. For 2024, the company aims to measure costs closer to $1000 per net ton, accounting for higher productivity and normalized repair and maintenance cost reductions.

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q3

[Operator]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Darryl, and I am your conference facilitator today. I would like to welcome everyone to Cleveland-Cliffs Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session.

The company reminds you that certain comments made on today's call will include predictive statements that are intended to be made as forward-looking within the safe harbor protections of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Although the company believes that its forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Important factors that can cause results to differ materially are set forth in reports on Forms 10-K and 10-Q and news releases filed with the SEC which are available on the company's website.

Today's conference call is also available and being broadcast at clevelandcliffs.com. At the conclusion of the call, it will be archived on the website and available for replay. The company will also discuss results excluding certain special items. Reconciliation for Regulation G purposes can be found in the earnings release, which was published this morning.

At this time, I would like to introduce Lourenco Goncalves, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer.

[Lourenco Goncalves, executive]

Thank you, Darryl, and thanks to everyone for joining us this morning. Before Celso starts the discussion of our Q3 results, I want to provide another brief disclaimer. Back in August, we announced a potential exciting and transformational opportunity for Cleveland-Cliffs. Since then, restrictions have been put in place on what we can say or disclose. And therefore, for the time being, we cannot discuss the issue. So before you start wondering why you will not hear anything about it, that's why.

With that out of the way, I'll turn the call over to Celso.

[Celso Goncalves, executive]

Good morning, everyone. In Q3, we generated revenues of $5.6 billion, adjusted EBITDA of $614 million, and GAAP earnings per share of $0.52. Total shipments reached 4.1 million net tons and despite the UAW strike impacting 3 of our clients in the automotive sector, aggregate shipments to all of our automotive clients collectively were higher in Q3 than in Q2.

Fuel shipments from Cleveland-Cliffs to the automotive sector in Q3 were actually a quarterly record. During the quarter, we generated free cash flow of $605 million. As planned, we used the majority of that cash to pay down our ABL, bringing our net debt down to $3.4 billion, and boosting our total liquidity up to an all-time high of $4.4 billion. We also returned approximately $60 million to shareholders by buying back 3.9 million shares during the quarter. With our ABL balance down to only $325 million, we now have a capital structure comprised primarily of low-cost fixed coupon debt instruments with no upcoming maturities until 2026.

Since acquiring ArcelorMittal USA in December 2020, we have reduced our net debt by nearly $2 billion and eliminated another $3.5 billion in pension and OPEB liabilities. That's a 60% combined reduction in net debt and postretirement liabilities in less than 3 years. Over the last couple of years, we have also reduced our diluted share count by 13% from a high of 585 million shares to only 509 million shares today.

Elaborating further on our Q3 results, shipments remain resilient despite slowed service center sales during the quarter. The maintenance activities we performed last year have paid off for us. As our operations have been running reliably, affording us the ability to achieve these strong shipment levels all year. As I said before, notwithstanding the UAW strike, steel shipments to automotive clients actually increased sequentially in Q3. This outperformance in automotive steel shipments and the lower service center shipments helped to mitigate the change in average selling prices quarter-over-quarter with a richer mix, holding strong above $1,200 per net ton, even after the drop in overall index prices during the quarter.

Our cost reduction performance was also very good during Q3, improving by $31 per net ton quarter-over-quarter. This came in less than our previous guide only due to this mix factor. But we were happy to take that trade-off due to much higher prices associated with better mix. We expect costs to fall by another $15 per net ton during the fourth quarter.

Since Q3 of last year, we have reduced unit costs by a total of $165 per net ton year-over-year. That is roughly $2.7 billion in savings at an annual run rate. This solid performance in cost is expected to continue into next year. We are happy to report that our annual metallurgical coal buy will result in a $250 million reduction in 2024 coal costs. We executed these 2024 annual contracts during Q3, and our negotiations were very well timed as global met coal prices rallied shortly thereafter.

Among other savings, we have also locked in an additional $150 million in savings for fixed natural gas costs in 2024. With that, I'll turn it back to Lourenco.

[Lourenco Goncalves, executive]

Thank you, Celso. As you may recall, we had to sacrifice production and shipments last year to bring some of the steel mills acquired in December 2020 from ArcelorMittal USA to a reliable level of performance. Automotive is our biggest market and we were anticipating much higher demand for automotive steel coming into 2023 versus 2022. Fast forward to Q3, our demand forecast has been confirmed and we have absolutely taking advantage of that. Q3 was our third straight quarter with total steel shipments above 4 million net tons, even in a business environment where service centers sat on their hands and were not actively buying for most of the quarter.

The automotive business in the United States is extremely competitive. Automotive is an industry that every steel producer wants to serve. When we negotiate our annual deals, we are competing against offers from countless other suppliers, including Korean, Japanese, German, other European as well as against Mexican joint ventures and Mexican transshipments. We also have seen growing competition from EAFs and the ongoing threat from aluminum substitution. There is no unfair advantage we have from that standpoint.

The United States is by far the largest importer of steel in the world, importing more than 30 million net tons of steel in 2022 alone. No matter what changed with the market structure of integrated blast furnace based oxygen furnace operations in the United States might happen, these competitive forces are there and will continue to be there. What sets Cliffs apart in automotive is our excellence at serving the clients. We are just better at meeting our customers' needs.

In a detail-driven and customized business like automotive, reliable quality, customer service and meeting just-in-time needs are paramount, and Cliffs does that better than anyone else. We have been willing to sacrifice throughput to serve the wide variety of parts, each one of the clients need. We have to reserve our valuable capacity to align with their production forecast, and we hold inventory for our automotive clients.

As I have said before, a steel buyer for a giving car manufacturer can replace Cliffs with another steel supplier just to buy cheaper steel from them for a little while. But history tells that they will come back to Cliffs after the buyer or the decision maker above him or her or both the buyer and the boss are replaced with someone else.

We have seen that happen time and time again. Cliff's position in automotive has been earned, not given, and we continue to fight these numerous competitive forces every day to maintain and improve this reputation based on excellence.

As a direct result of increased automotive production volumes, we actually set a new company record for direct automotive shipments during the third quarter, surpassing the previous 2 healthy quarters, even in the midst of model year changeovers and all the uncertainty before the strike was called by the UAW. So far, the strike affecting a number of plants of the Detroit Three has not impacted us materially on a direct automotive basis.

As of right now, the impact of the current outages on Cliffs are less significant than what we felt from the Microchip shortage and other supply chain issues the entire automotive sector went through in 2021 and 2022. Also important to say, the majority of our automotive shipments do not go to the Detroit Three. And that's particularly true for our largest customer, which is not one of the Detroit Three. In fact, we have seen much better demand from these other automakers. As a result, we expect total shipments in Q4 to remain around the 4 million net ton mark, even if the UAW strike continues for a while.

Conversely, the service center sector was the one creating in Q3, the most negative impact associated with the UAW strike, not the automotive OEMs themselves. An expectation of a strike kept picking up steam in July, service centers did what they always do when they face uncertainty. They destocked and set on the sidelines. However, the strike has not had nearly the impact these folks anticipated and they got caught flat footed again. The best evidence of that is how quickly our 2 recent price increase announcements gaining traction in the marketplace.

As for our annual automotive negotiations, our October 1 renewals, which represent about 30% of our total annualized out of volumes were another success. We held on to important volumes and did not take any price decreases. In fact, in these negotiations, we are successful in implementing the Cliffs H surcharge that we discussed last quarter. As a reminder, Cliffs H represents the premium we charge for supplying our customers in the United States with steel produced with close to 30% scrap in our base oxygen furnaces and using HBI in our blast furnaces.

Our clients in automotive and other sectors as well cannot get that in Europe or in Japan or in Korea or in India or in China. As a consequence of our operating practices utilizing HBI and maximizing scrap, Cliffs is among the lowest carbon intensity blast furnace base COx GEM furnace operations in the entire world and certainly much better than any of the current top 10 largest steel producers in the world.

While Cliffs H is a very important first step in decarbonizing the production of sophisticated grades of steel, earlier this month, we saw the most consequential step forward in advancing to the Cliffs H2 phase, in which we will implement the use of hydrogen as reductant in our blast furnaces.

On October 13, as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the White House and the U.S. Department of Energy announced the plan to commit $7 billion toward clean hydrogen hubs across the country including among the chosen locations, Northwest Indiana, the most critical region for Cleveland-Cliffs. As you have heard me say in the past, it's not about where the ball is right now. It's all about where the ball is going to be and where the ball is going to be is hydrogen. Hydrogen is the future. Effectively, all of the current carbon emissions in our footprint are a result of the use of fossil fuel based reductants or energy sources where there is no economically feasible alternative.

Hydrogen can and ultimately will change that. Cliff's commitment to buy a large portion of the output from the Midwest hub helped get this location selected by the Department of Energy. Furthermore, our commitment of a significant offtake ultimately makes the hub viable as we solve the chicken and egg dilemma. The very existence of the hub should attract other sectors and other users including the viability of production of hydrogen fueled vehicles as a clean and viable alternative to battery powered EVs.

Most steel companies have decided that spending billions of dollars in building new EAF-based capacity to recycle scrap with growing residual copper content is the way to go. Unlike taking that path, we at Cleveland-Cliffs prefer the higher steel quality that comes with blast furnace-based oxygen furnace is still making. In addition, if hydrogen is available and cost competitive and you already have blast furnaces, the use of hydrogen is very minimally capital-intensive. Only minor additions are needed, like the new pipeline, we are currently installing at our Indiana Harbor plant. Our decision to use hydrogen as our decarbonization path set us apart from the crowd, and that will be accomplished in a much more cost-effective and quality-driven manner.

On that note, I want to emphasize one more important point. We appreciate the value that the Biden administration places on projects and investments that sustain and grow good pay middle-class union jobs. Regulatory authorities have been strict on fighting M&A deals that harm workers and rightfully so. Most of you have followed Cleveland-Cliffs for years and are very familiar with the way in which Cleveland-Cliffs works collaboratively with our union partners, in particular, the USW, the UAW and the International Association of Machinists. I'm grateful that President Biden's administration is aligned with us in our long-term collaborative approach with the unions and has taken notes that Cliffs puts workers at the center of our strategic decisions and growth objectives.

Last but not least, one person would have been excited about these great opportunities is the late International President of the USW, my dear friend, Tom Conway. We shared the same views on a vibrant middle class in the resilient American manufacturing sector. We, at Cleveland-Cliffs mourn the loss of Tom Conway. But our relationship with the USW will continue into the future is stronger than ever.

We congratulate David McCall on his well-deserved election as International President of the USW. Dave has been the key leader within the USW in building our Cliffs-USW partnership, which has been a model for other companies and for other sectors of the American economy. We look forward to continuing to fight for our people together with Dave McCall.

With that, I will turn it back to Darryl for Q&A.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first questions come from the line of Lucas Pipes with B. Riley Securities.

[Lucas Pipes, analyst]

Good morning, everyone, and congrats on a great quarter. Lourenco, I really appreciated your comments on hydrogen and good job there. And I wondered if you could maybe expand on that hydrogen route on a couple of fronts.

Well, first, where would the carbon intensity go or where would the coke intensity go once you fully converted a blast furnace to the use of DRI and hydrogen usage? And then secondly, more strategically, does that change how you kind of think about the attractiveness of blast furnace assets? You mentioned in your prepared remarks, others are betting on EAS, you don't seem to go that direction. And obviously, that would be really interesting to hear how you think about that in the current context?

[Lourenco Goncalves, executive]

Thanks for the questions, Lucas. And thanks for the kind words. Let's talk about the carbon intensity first. It's very easy to understand where the CO2 is generated in our blast furnace. We load in a blast furnace as part of the burden coal in the form of coke and coal in the form of coke is actually C. That sea in a super separated environment in the presence of ratified O2, we will generate a lot of CO, and that CO, that monoxide of carbon is the reductant that takes the oxygen out of the pellet to create the aero metallic. And then when that chemical reaction happens CO2 is generated. So the more you take coke out of the blast furnace, the least you are going to be generating CO2. As simple as that.

Hydrogen follows an alternative chemical reaction to remove the oxygen. Instead of combining to produce CO and then CO2, hydrogen will combine to produce H2O and H2O is water in the form of steam. So instead of generating massive amounts of CO2, you're going to be generating a massive amount of steam. So the more you replace coke with the hydrogen, the more you are going to take CO2 out of the picture.

And the use of direct reduced iron in the form of HBI in a blast furnace is for a simple reason. When you load HBI, we're no longer loading an oxide. You are loading aero metallic vast majority, is FE, not FEO. So we don't have oxygen to be removed from that portion of the burden that is loaded in the form of HBI. So that per se already reduced the needs of coke. And that's the reason our coke rates are so low as of today, even without hydrogen because we load a massive amount of HBI, so we are loading a lot less O inside the blast furnace, so we need a lot less carbon.

With hydrogen, we are going to need even less carbon. How much less, time will tell. Because we only have 1 trial so far in our smallest blast furnace in our fleet, that's Middletown, which was a big success, and the next one will be a trial in Indiana Harbor 7, but that one we are going to do with a lot of hydrogen because we are building a pipeline for that.

So we are going to be the first ones in the world to adopt hydrogen as reductant, and that will be a new route. Will that change the EIX? No. EIX will continue to generate less CO2 than the current route. But [ EIX ] cannot aim for a number that we are going to get with hydrogen. Among other things, because the electrodes of the EAFs are made by graphite and graphite is C. You cannot make graphite with hydrogen because graphite is solid. That's why the electrodes are on graphite, and hydrogen is a gas. So I would say that EAFs are limited in their ability to produce certain grades, they will be limited on reducing CO2 emissions beyond what they produce today and the possibility with the hydrogen are at this point a lot more interesting for the next 10 to 20 years.

One more thing. Now that we are completely convinced that we are going to have hydrogen, Cleveland-Cliffs during Q4, we will adopt a path to net 0 and certainly will be way before 2050. We are working on that. We'll release that during the Q4 of 2023.

[Lucas Pipes, analyst]

Lourenco, thank you very much for that, and congrats on that. Two quick follow-ups. The first, the right to bid under USW's basic labor agreement, which you received on August 17. Does that right extend to the totality of U.S. dealer? Would nonunion assets such as Big River Steel, possibly be excluded from that? And then secondly, on the auto contract negotiations for annual 2024, if you could maybe just share some thoughts about negotiating in the current environment?

[Lourenco Goncalves, executive]

Let me start for the one that I'm going to be able to respond. That's the auto contract. We already said in our prepared remarks that we didn't take price decrease. So we're able to keep our prices in good shape, and we implemented Cliffs rate. That's all we're going to disclose. And we are not comment beyond that on the other portion of your question, Lucas.

[Operator]

Our next questions come from the line of Carlos De Alba with Morgan Stanley.

[Carlos de Alba, analyst]

Just on the hydrogen discussion, maybe a couple of follow-ups. How much do you expect the CapEx to be as you convert or you increase -- yes, you convert your blast furnace to be able to be hydrogen-ready? What is the investment per blast furnace or per ton of steel? And second, is there a limitation? And if so, what more or less is the range after which you can substitute coke with hydrogen in your blast furnaces?

[Lourenco Goncalves, executive]

Yes. The first portion, the investment, like I said in my prepared remarks, when you already have the blast furnace, you have the tools there, you have the valves, everything in place, we are going to have to build a pipeline basically to bring the hydrogen from where the generation is usually outside the fence, all the way to the blast furnace.

We are doing that as we speak for Indiana Harbor 7. And we are doing Indiana Harbor 7 because that would be a high watermark. It's the biggest platforms. They wanted to use the most in terms of hydrogen because of its size. And it's also because it's our flagship furnace, our biggest, the biggest in the Western hemisphere, and we are going to use as a demonstration plant for how to use hydrogen.

But it's basically it. It's a pipeline and a couple of valves. So we are estimating this CapEx to be less than $9 million as we speak. So it's very minimal. And also, don't forget, we are not doing this for free. We are going to pass this cost to the clients in the form of the Cliffs H2 like we're doing the Cliffs H. If clients really want green steel, and I believe they do, they should be willing to pay. And they should be willing to pass along to the consumer or their end users, whatever, we can just keep talking about this thing as a theoretical exercise.

It sounds like everybody is paying for this thing to just go away. This thing is not going away. So if you're going to have to tackle, if you're going to have to fight it, we're going to have to fight it the right way. This is a business. We are incurring costs. They are not -- as far as hydrogen, I would insist, is not going to be massive costs. But whatever cost we have, we're going to pass along in the form of Cliffs H.

On the other part of the question, I've promise that I forgot. Can you repeat, Carlos?

[Carlos de Alba, analyst]

Sure. It's just -- what is the technical level or limit of which you can replace hydrogen with -- coke with hydrogen?

[Lourenco Goncalves, executive]

Yes. That's a question I don't have an answer yet because the coke in the blast furnace had a place a couple of different roles. And of course, the most important one is to generate the reductant, the reductant is CO, like I explained before to Lucas Pipes, that it's not just the fact that the coke generates the CO, that's the reduction. The other role that the coke plays is as a source of heat for inside of the furnace, remember, you are melting solids and transforming liquids. So that coke has that role. Hydrogen will play both roles, reductant and source of heat. So from these two stand points, hydrogen is perfect.

But there is 1/3 rule that coke plays inside the blast furnace that hydrogen cannot replace. Coke is responsible for sustaining the burden inside the blast furnace in a way that the gases can traffic inside the furnace and the chemical reactions can happen. You don't have pellets, touching pellets by and large. We have pellets touching coke, and that structural role inside the furnace is extremely important. We can minimize that. We have been doing that by reducing our coke rate, and we will continue to do that with more HBI and with less coke. But we don't have a limit yet. This will be the object of several trials as we start using. We know it to be a lot less, I don't know how much.

[Carlos de Alba, analyst]

All right. Great. And just to clarify -- sorry, the $9 million investment or less than $9 million of investment in the pipeline is per plant, and it is for the inside defense pipe, right?

[Lourenco Goncalves, executive]

Yes. It's a pipeline that we run from the fence to the furnace. For a plant of that magnitude, it's an enormous plant. We are talking miles. So it's not a small feet. It's a long pipeline.

[Carlos de Alba, analyst]

All right. Got it. And then just a pipeline...

[Lourenco Goncalves, executive]

It's not a complex technological facility or anything like that. It's a pipeline but it's a long pipeline. And the pipeline that will carry hydrogen. So it has specifications. It's a pretty well-defined type of steel that they're going to be using for that pipeline.

[Carlos de Alba, analyst]

Fair enough. Understood. And just another question, if I may, on the auto price negotiations. So you mentioned October, any color that you can provide on January? Have you started those conversations? Or are they going to start only once the auto strike ends? Or given that most of your clients are not the Detroit Three. Would you start negotiations? Have you started negotiations with the other OEMs? And when would you expect to complete those?

[Lourenco Goncalves, executive]

No. the negotiations are ongoing, Carlos. And there's no bearing on what happens with the strike. And by the way, my position with the strike is very clear. This strike has passed the midpoint by a lot. It's not something that will stay forever. I don't believe that we are going to have this strike going beyond Q4. These things have a beginning, have a peak and must have an end. Otherwise, things go nowhere and it starts to disrupt not to build anything. So we are a lot closer to the end than to the beginning of this strike, but it has no bearance in our negotiation. Our negotiation is ongoing and it's going extremely well.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our next questions come from the line of Timna Tanners with Wolfe Research.

[Timna Tanners, analyst]

I wanted to ask a bit more about the Q4 outlook. I know you said the $15 per ton cost savings. Just talked a little bit about some of the auto contracts that kick in, in the October time frame. But anything further about mix or how to think about some of the other components?

[Lourenco Goncalves, executive]

Well, Q4, we are going to have a bigger impact on the shipments to automotive than we had so far. Remember, the strike started September 15, and it has been picking up steam since then. Now that we are on October 24, we are now with more than a month. And 24 days of the quarter have been affected by the strike. So we're going to have a difference in mix in Q4 in comparison with Q3 because we are going to be somewhat affected by the fewer shipments to automotive.

That said, think about the service centers. Service centers have been not buying. They passed Q3 without buying. They were the doctors that can't touch blood. They can't touch steel. So now they need to touch steel, they need to buy. That's why they got a price increase of $100, check the box, then they've got another one a fifth, check the box. And there is more to come. And it's better for them to start to buy that, they have already started, by the way, buying a lot more now because otherwise, they will buy a lot more in Q1 and it will be a lot more expensive. That's the color I would like to give. Celso wants to say something.

[Celso Goncalves, executive]

No, I was just going to complement just to round out the conversation, Timna. As we guided, costs are going to be down $15 quarter-over-quarter, and this decrease in cost will help partially offset the decrease in average selling price. But from a shipment standpoint, we'll be around that 4 million-ton level again in Q4. And then from a mix standpoint, we'll have less kind of the value-added product. But working capital should provide us a nice tailwind from a free cash flow standpoint.

So I think the way to look at it is Q4 will be sort of a trough in terms of EBITDA, but we'll generate a lot of cash perhaps even more cash than EBITDA during the quarter, which will support our ongoing capital allocation priorities and deleveraging, continuing to pay down debt. We'll use some of the cash to pick up some shares if the price remains at these discounted levels. So I think that's the way to think about Q4.

[Timna Tanners, analyst]

Okay. Great. You answered some of my next question which is going to be on an update on about capital allocation. So I'm not sure if I need to ask that, but any of these further comments would be great. Anyway, the other question I had was just I know they are smaller parts of your mix, but we were kind of surprised to see stainless and electrical volumes down. I assume that stainless and electrical has been sold out, and you've got more tons there. And also on the plate side, would be great getting an update on those markets, please?

[Lourenco Goncalves, executive]

Yes. Look, we are seeing in our -- actually, it's a good point, good point. You got on a very interesting point. The electrical steel situation here in the United States right now is pretty much in flux because we are still in an American market that consumes GOES, not NOES. The consumption of NOES will pick up when the production of electric vehicles picks up. And this is still in talking mode, but not in execution mode. So we are prepared, and we invested to produce high-performance NOES, we call MOTOR-MAX. And we are selling, but we are not selling a lot. Because the biggest producer of electric doesn't produce here in the United States, produced in China, produced in Germany, but doesn't produce here. So we don't sell to them. In China, we don't sell to them in Germany. Maybe one day we will, but not at this point. So we're waiting for the real Americans to start buying more of our MOTOR-MAX. That's the NOES portion.

The GOES portion continues to be way under supply because we need a lot. But the problem is that our clients have all kinds of problems with hire people, supply chain issues, the ability to handle the tonnage. We have actually one client that has been able to overcome these things. Everybody else is running behind. So it's about the downstream of the plant, not about the plant. The plant is able to produce more now because we're able to move NOES to Zanesville.

So the Butler plant, that's the plant that produce electrical steels is now able to be totally focused on re-oriented electrical steels. The demand theoretically is there, but the clients need to be able to digest the higher tonnages. It's not on us, it's on them.

[Operator]

Our next questions come from the line of Bill Peterson with JPMorgan.

[William Peterson, analyst]

You've spoken a lot about decarbonization in auto. I was hoping if you can provide some color on some demand outside of auto. And in particular, how you're thinking about the demand showing up for the various buckets of policy support whether it be the IJA or IRA, maybe as it relates to solar business or chipset and how those various pipelines could evolve, and how they have lost since the start of the year and how they could evolve into next year?

[Lourenco Goncalves, executive]

Yes. Look, the biggest thing so far this year has been military. And in a world that is now with wars in 2 fronts and the potential of a third front in Asia. That's always looming the background between China and Taiwan and the South China Sea. We have a lot of demand for military users. We can't discuss too much. We are a big supplier of military still for the DOD. So we're not going to be able to elaborate much on that. But it has been a very, very important portion of our business here at Cleveland-Cliffs.

Infrastructure, yes, is starting to pick up and things related to alternatives clean sources of energy as well, particularly wind and solar. Solar panels have been one of our greatest bright spot in our mix of sales. And if I want to elaborate a little more in terms of demand. I will emphasize one more time that demand coming from service centers is coming back, we will come back because they don't have it or they go out of business. That's another option for them, too. They are starting to become more and more irrelevant for the supply chain because they don't carry inventory when prices are going down, they don't carry inventory when prices are going up, because price will go down after they go up. So that's a pretty difficult position to be in.

So I have serious questions if we really need service centers. We are having service center coming to us and asking for us to expedite, that's outrageous. That's beyond ridiculous. So anyway, there's a group of companies that need to take some type of religion and change the way they do business. And I believe they will because I'm a very optimistic person. And I believe that, that will be a big source of supply coming into Q4 and even more in Q1.

[William Peterson, analyst]

Yes. Another kind of bigger, bigger picture question. So we've read recent reports that the U.S. and Europe are discussing the used tariff rate quotas. Maybe potentially allowing more imports. But I guess, how do you see this impacting the U.S. steel market? And what is your kind of view on that topic?

[Lourenco Goncalves, executive]

Yes, I think that should be a sale for now. The discussions didn't conclude with a solution for the request of the European Union. The situation has been maintained. The TRQs, tariff rate quotas, are still in place, and the alternative to the TRQs are Section 232 and Section 232 has not been revoked. What we need in the world view is more free trade. But we need more free trade both ways. The United States need to export some steel to Europe. We have a highly subsidized European steel industry. like, for example, the U.K. that is controlled by an Indian company and a Chinese company. And we only hear about more and more money being given by the government to decarbonize the bridge to industry and do this and that. It's just the government subsidizing the replacement of equipment with replacing blast furnace BOFs with the EAFs, firing 2/3 of the workforce, and claiming that they are decarbonizing green in the steel. It's all BOF and this is all Chinese taking advantage of the bridge.

So I believe that earlier rather than later, we'll be able to export some steel to the U.K. and high-quality steel and create a free trade the other way from the U.S. to Europe. That's my plan.

[Operator]

Our next questions come from the line of Tristan Gresser with BNP Paribas.

[Tristan Gresser, analyst]

The first one is on capital allocation. I think for a number of quarters, the focus has really been on deleveraging and then returning cash to shareholders and sometimes both at the same time. What is really changing your view of the strategy to look more maybe favorably at large M&A? How should we think about Cliff moving forward regardless of the bid, is the priority now more towards growth? If you can discuss a little bit the strategy there, that would be great.

[Celso Goncalves, executive]

Yes, sure Tristan. We've been pretty clear in terms of our capital allocation priorities, and we've reduced debt by a large amount, and we feel like we're in a position now that we have the flexibility to go in other directions, whether that be accelerating share buybacks at the right time or introducing a dividend we won't stop paying down debt, but we have the flexibility with the capital structure that we have to go in different directions.

From an M&A standpoint, the flat-rolled market remains fragmented there are many avenues that we could pursue toward further consolidation. We've been very successful in M&A in the past. We've executed well-timed acquisitions that we haven't overpaid for. And that's what we're going to continue doing going forward. Our net debt target of onetime through the cycle EBITDA will remain regardless of what we do from an M&A standpoint. But we feel good where we are right now. We've paid down -- we've got back-to-back quarters of $500 million of net debt reduction.

You can look through Q4 and see how much cash we're going to generate, we'll continue using that cash toward paying down debt, toward buying back shares when appropriate, and being aggressive and opportunistic with M&A opportunities.

[Tristan Gresser, analyst]

All right. That's very clear. And maybe a second question is a bit more bigger picture on aluminum. I think you mentioned a little bit the threat and the growing market share that aluminum is having against flat roll. Yes, I would like to have your thought on the debate around the future of steel intensity in cars, notably versus aluminum. Yes, that's my question.

[Lourenco Goncalves, executive]

Yes. Look, alumina has been a threat for steel for a long, long time. And with mixed results, mixed successes. Keep in mind, beverage cans, one day were all [indiscernible]. And now they are all aluminum. So check that box for can making, they won. On the other hand, for cars, they have penetration, but it's not that big success that people talk about. We have situations like the F-150 that was supposed to bring then the F-250, the F-350, they Explorer, the Expedition.

And so far, it's only the F-150 and even the F-150, we, at Cleveland-Cliffs have a huge participation of the F-150 on high strength, low alloys structure and steel and everything that's inside the car and beyond the hood. So my intention with the F-150, I think is taking aluminum out. And I believe I will, going forward. So it's a fight, and we will continue to fight. It's another competitive threat that we have to continue to take seriously. And now we even have a steel company that's built to an aluminum company. So the aluminum mill to compete against us right here in the United States. So I don't believe that this will be a home run, but I don't take these things lightly. We are going to compete, and we're going to win, but we're going to have to fight. It's a competitor, and we will compete.

[Operator]

Our next questions come from the line of Lucas Pipes with B. Riley Securities.

[Lucas Pipes, analyst]

Lourenco, I wanted to ask a little bit about cost reductions for 2024. Great job on the coal side. You mentioned there are cost reductions, including coal. And I wondered if you could maybe expand a little bit on the other cost drivers that may move to your advantage in 2024?

[Lourenco Goncalves, executive]

Celso, take that, Lucas. Please go ahead, Celso.

[Celso Goncalves, executive]

Yes, sure. Lucas. Yes, I mean we expect further cost reductions next year as we'll see benefit from this new coal contract and lower natural gas prices for the hedge portion. We have lower inventory starting points in 2024 as well. Specifically, as it relates to Q4, the $15 a ton quarter-over-quarter reduction that we guided to, that's going to be largely driven by mix with less automotive and higher volume of less value-added product driven by more service center demand.

That's going to have an impact on costs. And this impact will ultimately run through inventory. So as we look forward, you can kind of see how we'll have continued cost reductions here in Q4 and into next year.

[Lucas Pipes, analyst]

That's helpful. So would it be reasonable to kind of take a Q4 starting point and then further reduced energy cost, gas and coal off of that base?

[Celso Goncalves, executive]

Yes, that's the right way to think about it.

[Operator]

Our next questions come from the line of Carlos De Alba with Morgan Stanley.

[Carlos de Alba, analyst]

Also staying on cost. So beyond the very large savings on coal and natural gas next year. I don't know, so Lourenco, can you talk about other initiatives that you may have more on productivity or more efficient labor deployment? Or any other changes on how you do can you make steel besides the savings on raw materials that you can point to? And if you have any quantification of those, that would be really interesting to get any color.

[Lourenco Goncalves, executive]

Yes. Okay. Well, our work done back in the second half of 2022 when we deliberately reduced throughput in order to fix the equipment that we bought from ArcelorMittal U.S.A. there was in much worse shape than the equipment that we bought from AK Steel. We did that knowing that our results will take a hit. The results took a hit. And since then, we are demonstrating that good equipment and good people, good union labor force can produce a lot of steel. So 3 quarters in a row, in an environment that's not the most vibrant I have ever seen. For sure, we have seen better than that. We are delivering more than 4 million -- shipping more than 4 million net tons of steel 3 quarters in a row. So far, so good. Productivity has been achieved. And it's not productivity, just producing commodity hot rolled. Really produce all kinds of very sophisticated products for a very demanding customer base that is primarily automotive and other OEMs. So we are very satisfied with our level of productivity.

So other cost initiatives are all related to the fact that we are a big buyer of everything, like we did with coal. Big buyers tend to have a good treatment from the suppliers, particularly if the big buyer knows how to buy. We nailed with coal. Let's face it. We closed our deal at the perfect timing, because remember, dealers have mining company before. We understand commodities. So we know how to negotiate these things. So I'm not going to elaborate beyond that, Carlos. But that's basically what we do. Celso you want to complement something.

[Celso Goncalves, executive]

No, just to quantify it a little bit, right, Carlos. So when you take everything into account, the normalized repair and maintenance, the lower input costs, the higher productivity. These lower costs that are going to bleed into 2024 will more than offset any kind of increase we see in labor. And if we had to put a number on it, costs should return to that $1,000 a ton range for 2024.

[Operator]

We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the floor back over to Lourenco Goncalves for any closing comments.

[Lourenco Goncalves, executive]

Thanks, Darryl. As always, great pleasure discussing Cleveland-Cliffs with you. Now we're going to take the longest gap in our sequence of conference calls because the next quarter to discuss will be Q4 will be the end of the year. So we will probably only be talking with you in February.

And we're going to have a lot of things to discuss in February. So stay tuned and keep paying attention because we move fast. Even though not everybody does the same, but we still keep pushing. I really appreciate your interest in Cleveland-Cliffs, and I wish you guys have happy Thanksgiving. And because we're not going to be talking between now and then, Merry Christmas. All the best. Bye now.

[Operator]

Thank you. This does conclude today's teleconference. We appreciate your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Enjoy the rest of your day.