Granges AB

STO:GRNG

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q3

[Jorgen Rosengren, executive]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome to this third quarter presentation of the results for Granges. My name is Jorgen Rosengren, I'm Granges's CEO, and I'm joined here also by Oskar Hellstrom, our CFO, and we'll take you through the third quarter result for our company. We'll be referring to the presentation that you can see on screen, but it's also available on our homepage under the Investor Relations tab.

So, in summary, for the third quarter, we saw, in fact, a very stable sales volume of 120,000 tonnes relative to 119,000 tonnes last year. And it's a sign of strength we feel that our different regions or different segments compensate for each other. We saw, of course, continued strong demand in Americas which has been the case for many quarters on now. And also, I'm very -- we're very happy to be able to say that we saw a very strong recovery after the post-COVID shutdown -- after the COVID shutdown that we had in the second quarter in China, and that more or less compensated for a slight slowdown in the European theater. So, in total, that evened out to a uneven volume development.

On this stable volume, we had a very good operating profit development. The adjusted EBIT is up almost 60% to SEK 345 million relative to SEK 219 million last year. And that, of course, represents a very strong margin improvement. And we're proud of that because it comes despite very, very large cost increases that we've had to tackle over the past 12 months and have tackled with a combination of cost productivity, of course, but also price increases.

We're also happy to be able to report a good cash flow in the quarter of SEK 441 million relative to negative cash flow last year. And that cash flow helps us, of course, to also reduce our leverage, which is now down to, I believe, 2.1 or so, close to our target range. And while dealing with all these short-term things, we also are executing on our long-term Navigate plan, and have some good progress also to report there.

Getting back to volumes then. If we look at the overall picture, our larger segments to the right of this picture are Automotive and HVAC. And in both cases, we had stable, in fact quite good growth. And that also reflects the situation in our 2 largest segments. Automotive is driven mainly by Granges Eurasia where we saw strong growth, and that strong growth in the quarter was very much driven, of course, by the recovery in Asia that I reported on before. But it also reflects a relatively stable demand situation in automotive, which is influenced and bolstered I guess by the pent-up demand that is there after the delivery problems that that industry has experienced in the past year or so.

In Granges Americas, we had a very strong demand in HVAC which we endeavored to fulfill so far as we can. In Granges Americas, as we are and have been for a long time now, constrained by our production capacity. And that is also visible in the Granges Americas numbers where our specialty packaging is down a little bit. That's not really due to demand, but rather due to the fact that we're scrambling a bit to keep up with demand, which is I guess a luxury problem to have. In total, the Granges Americas volume, as you can see, landed more or less on the same level as last year.

In Granges Eurasia, the strong development in automotive was unfortunately then negatively affected by, or compensated for, if you like, by a negative growth in some other segments, and that's mainly in Europe where we have some shorter-term business in areas such as -- driven by such things as construction and so on, also packaging, as you can see. And there we've seen, of course, an effect now of the rather extraordinary situation in Europe, but on balance it evens out also there, so we have in fact the ability to report growth in Granges Eurasia. All this boils down to year-on-year flat volumes for Granges, which we're relatively happy with in these turbulent circumstances.

Looking at margin then on Page 4. The margin, in fact, this year has been verry, very stable. It's, of course, helped to a large extent by the strong margins that we have been able to generate in the Americas. The margins in Eurasia are a little bit lower and also went down, as you can see, in this particular quarter for the reasons I've already mentioned, so the energy cost, of course, is the biggest factor there. But in total, Granges delivers a stable margin for the third quarter in a row and also on a high level. And that's also what makes the operating profit to date this year the highest we've ever been able to generate.

Turning to Page 5. We, of course, as you know, most of you, we have a very strong focus on sustainability in Granges. And this year we are continuing to show good results in that area. We're planning also for even better results long-term, but also this year good results. We've committed to climate neutrality by 2014, and we have committed to the Science Based Targets initiative and are in the process of calibrating our targets to make sure that we fulfill those requirements. Reaching these targets will require a lot of partnerships, both upstream and downstream, and in this particular quarter we signed a long-term partnership for delivery of renewable energy to our Newport site in the U.S.

In the quarter itself, we had unfortunately an increased carbon emissions intensity from 8.9 tonnes CO2e/tonne last year to 9.5 tonnes CO2e/tonne this year. That's mainly due to a mix change between our regions. But on the other hand, if you look at the long-term trend, it's favorable. Our year-to-date carbon emissions are the lowest we've ever had and are down very significantly relative to our reference year of 2017. And the same thing is true for recycling, where we have the highest ever recycling share and also recycling volume for Granges year to date.

A interesting growth area for us, our battery materials. As you know, a lot of investments are taking place, not the least in North America and in Europe, to supply batteries to the electric vehicle industry. And we regard that as a very exciting growth area for Granges. We see a lot of customer interest in this from customers across the field, both in our cathode foil capabilities, but also in other components for electric vehicle batteries. And we feel that we have structural advantages in this field. We have the good footprint in Asia, of course, which is good because that's where this industry is focused, but also in North America and Europe where the most of the growth is expected to come in this industry. We have the technology and the ability to serve automotive customers well, and we have the sustainability that is both the ambition and the performance which are going to be very critical in this industry.

We've started a systematic investment program to supply these customers and have started deliveries already this year of battery cathode foil in China. We then plan to start deliveries in Europe in 2023 and in North America in 2024. In fact, we believe that we will be the first to market in the U.S. with domestically produced battery cathode foil and that is an achievement that we firstly are proud, of course, but also positions us, we feel, well with many of the global customers in this industry. But based on the latest signals we've gotten from our customers and from the market, we're also taking steps to accelerate this development and strengthening our team among other things.

So that was like a helicopter view of the third quarter and the developments in it. And now I would like to turn over the word to Oskar to take us through the numbers in more detail. Oskar, please.

[Oskar Hellström, executive]

Well, thank you, Jorgen. So let's see if I can provide some more details then on the developments in the third quarter. So if we start with the sales volume, we can see that increased with about a 1% to 119,800 tonnes there as you heard from Jorgen earlier. Net sales, on the other hand, increased by 34% to SEK 6.2 billion, and the main reasons for that, the net sales increased while the sales volume was fairly stable, are the higher average year-on-year aluminum price that is still impacting in the third quarter and increased fabrication price. In addition to this, the net impact of changes in foreign exchange rates was positive SEK 795 million compared with the third quarter last year. That's also a big driver of the increase in net sales. In addition to this, I should mention that the net sales includes revenues of SEK 74 million related to insurance compensation for the fire in Konin that occurred in May. This does, however, not have any impact on the operating profit in the quarter as the assets that were damaged in the fire are impaired with the same amount.

Looking at the earnings, I should maybe start by saying then that the SEK 345 million in adjusted operating profit in Q3 is the third highest we've ever seen in an individual quarter. So we continue to perform well, and I would say especially so under the current quite challenging circumstances. The adjusted operating profit per tonne increased to SEK 2,900 compared to SEK 1,800 in the third quarter last year, and the key driver behind the strong earnings is the continued margin recovery as price adjustments or compensating for significant external cost increases that we see.

And on that topic, we actually continue to see almost all cost items increase year over year with the largest increases related to energy and that's really our European operations that are most impacted from this. In total, for the group, external costs increased by close to SEK 400 million in Q3 compared with last year and this now does not include the cost for aluminum that is directly passed on to customers. In addition to the improved balance then between price and cost, net changes in foreign exchange rates had a positive impact of SEK 48 million in the quarter. And this is primarily the translation effects of the significant appreciation of the U.S. dollars against the SEK . And over the coming quarters, we expect to see increasing transaction effects as well as the effects of currency hedges are currently or gradually wearing off.

Depreciation, amortization, and impairment charges increased with SEK 63 million in total, and this now then includes the SEK 74 million related to the impairment of the assets damaged in the fire in Konin that I mentioned earlier. The reported operating profit of SEK 269 million in the quarter further includes items affecting comparability of negative SEK 76 million. And this is related to a loss on an open aluminum position in one of the Granges subsidiaries. And the reason for the loss was a wrongly stated and therefore unhedged exposure in combination with extremely high volatility in the price of aluminum during the second quarter of this year. Now this is an unusual type of event for Granges. And as a consequence, we have reviewed and improved the processes in our subsidiaries to ensure appropriate risk management throughout the group.

The profit for the period increased to SEK 156 million and earnings per share increased to SEK 1.47 in the third quarter. During Q3, the financial net debt decreased slightly to SEK 4.3 billion. Driven by the earnings improvement, the leverage did however also come down to 2.1x EBITDA on a rolling 12-month basis. And as you can see on this slide, the adjusted cash flow before financing was strong in the quarter, totaling SEK 441 million. And as you may remember then, we saw a very large buildup of working capital in the first quarter this year due to the dramatically increasing aluminum price at that time. With the metal prices now having come down again, we see the reverse effect of this. So sequentially lower aluminum price impacted the working capital positively in the quarter.

Now the effect from the lower aluminum price is partly offset by buildup of inventory and then that's primarily related to safety stock in our Polish operation. And this will mitigate the effects of potential natural gas shortages over the coming months. But the result of this is that the working capital remained fairly flat from the second to the third quarter. We also continue to invest in total SEK 129 million in the expansion of the Granges Group in key areas, such as more sustainable and circular products. The majority of the spend in this quarter relates to the 2 new recycling centers that we are currently building in the U.S.

Finally, I think it's also worth to comment on the large currency translation effect that impacts the net debt in the quarter, and this is primarily related to our dollar-denominated debt and the strengthening of the U.S. dollar against the SEK in the quarter. Even though the currency maybe is working against us a little bit on the debt side, I think it's very positive that we continue to see the strong cash generation and we continue to reduce the leverage in the quarter.

Let's now take a closer look at our business areas and start with Granges Americas. In Americas, we heard from Jorgen that we continue= to experience a strong market demand from all our segments with the exception of automotive there, which is continuously negative impacted by component shortages and high inventory at customer level. In addition to this, we -- a gradual ramp-up of the Salisbury facility there after the stop in June, restricted the production capacity with about 3,000 tonnes in the quarter, and this had a negative impact on the sales primarily to the specialty packaging market. But we expect the Salisbury operation there to be back at full capacity as of first quarter next year. The adjusted operating profit increased to SEK 254 million, which corresponds to an adjusted operating profit per tonne of SEK 4,000. And also here then we see the main part of the positive effect of the FX. So net changes in foreign exchange rates was positive SEK 39 million in the quarter.

Continuing with Granges Eurasia. And here we experienced this mixed market development, as Jorgen talked about, the 2% year-over-year sales volume growth in total. And it's a combination then of strong demand in automotive in Asia as China recovered and Asia increased with a total of 32% in the quarter. And then that was offset by 12% lower sales in Europe, and that's really driven by 2 things: well, first, the general negative market sentiment in Europe, I would say; and then second, high inventory levels as an effect of new antidumping duties.

In July, the European Union imposed antidumping duties on the import of rolled aluminum products from China, and this has been known for a while. And in anticipation of this decision, European distributors basically built up significant stocks of Chinese products in, for instance, the general engineering and building and construction markets. So inventory levels are currently high in Europe, and maybe we should say that over time, the antidumping duties are expected to have a positive impact on Granges's European business, but short term then they provide a challenge due to this inventory buildup. The adjusted operating profit for the quarter increased to SEK 87 million corresponding to an adjusted operating profit per tonne of SEK 1,400. Also here, we see a little bit of positive impact from FX of SEK 9 million in the quarter.

Going back to the group level, again, as some of you may recall, we updated our financial targets earlier this year. And although we're currently not meeting the targets, we delivered sequential improvements on both profitability, profit growth, and capital structure in the third quarter. And as you can see on this slide, we're now very close to meeting the targets of at least 10% average operating profit growth, and we're almost back at our target range of net debt to EBITDA below 2x. Of course, this is something we're very pleased with and especially so in the very turbulent environment that we're currently in. And speaking of the turbulent environment, that's something we expect to continue to have to tackle in the fourth quarter, especially in Europe, where we see challenges both in terms of increasing costs and falling demand. But maybe to start on the positive side, we expect a stable year-over-year development of demand in North America and increasing demand in Asia in the fourth quarter.

In Europe, we expect the demand from the automotive customers to continue to be stable, but basically most other markets to be very weak. Further, our sales will also be negatively impacted by continued high inventory levels at customers in Europe, as I just mentioned. In total, we expect a slowdown in Europe to bring Granges Group sales volume for the fourth quarter down to a similar level as for the fourth quarter last year.

On the margin side, we intend to continue to offset cost increases with productivity and price increases as we've done throughout the year. With the extremely high energy prices we see in Europe and the market dynamics currently in play there, we do, however, expect a time lag before the new price increases come into effect. And this is currently expected to impact sequential margin development negatively in the fourth quarter.

That said, we should not forget that the macroenvironment is currently highly uncertain, and basically, there could be both downside and upside potential to our current view.

With that, I'll hand over back to Jorgen to summarize the third quarter before we open up for questions.

[Jorgen Rosengren, executive]

Yes. Thank you, Oskar.

[Technical difficulty]

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from unknown.

[Karl Bokvist, analyst]

It's Karl Bokvist at ABG. So, my first question is on the contribution from your ramp-up volumes. You say that you're impacted by supply constraints in the Americas, but still it would be interesting to hear how far along you've come in all regions basically within your projects.

[Jorgen Rosengren, executive]

Yes. Karl, this is Jorgen speaking. I would just like -- we had a technical glitch. I would just like to summarize the quarter before answering the question, okay? So hang on. So, in summary, for the third quarter then we feel that the third quarter was a very stable one where we proved again that we can meet the external market conditions with things like price increases, mix changes, and so on to provide a good result. And as a result, in the year-to-date, we have the highest ever operating profit and the lowest ever carbon intensity.

We feel there is a strong interest in the battery products and that the outlook, though uncertain, is something that we will have to deal with in the same flexible way that we've done before. And that's why we also say that our plan and ambition are unchanged. Now it's possible to ask questions. You just got instructions from the operator.

And now turning to your question then about the investment projects that we have. We are making good progress on those -- in every instance, I guess, except one. So, for instance, the large investments that we're making in remelting, recycling in the U.S. are very much on track and intended to come online exactly as forecast in the respective press releases that we made.

In Europe, as you're well aware, no doubt, we've had a setback in the form of the fire that Oskar referred to earlier. And we're still evaluating exactly what will be the -- when we will restore that capacity that was lost in that fire. But apart from that, the expansion plans that we have communicated earlier are all on track.

[Karl Bokvist, analyst]

Understood. Yes, sorry about that. I also had the technical difficulty here. But then also on -- you mentioned, one, automotive, and 2, battery demand. So on the first one, is it related to an automotive recovery in general or within this, do you, in particular, see a shift already now towards electric vehicles? And the second one is just where you are in the process within your battery ventures in terms of commercial stage or testing products and so on.

[Jorgen Rosengren, executive]

Yes. And I think the answers to those 3 questions are yes, yes, and good. Yes, there is a relaxation, we believe, of the supply chain constraints that have previously affected the automotive industry on one hand. On the other hand, of course, it would be naive almost to assume that these inflationary trends and the interest rates and so on would not affect automotive demand in the medium-term. But right now, we're still in a situation where we feel there is pent-up demand in the automotive industry, and that's why we're forecasting also stable volumes for the balance of this year. Further out, you have to ask somebody who knows more about the further-out forecasting than we do.

When it comes to battery then, we are entering this industry. It's a new industry for us and also, in fact, for many of the entrants. And for the people who have been in the industry a long time, they're expanding into new territories. So it's an industry in flux, you could say, with a lot of new partnerships and a lot of new opportunities, and we are intent on capturing those opportunities for Granges. And so far, we've -- at least from my perspective, we have had almost a surprising level of demand from very large global battery makers in what we can do for them in Europe and in North America, in particular, but also to some extent in Asia.

So we feel positive about that development. And like we said also in the report, we're working on what we can do to accelerate our expansion in this space and feel pretty confident. But it's not something that will affect growth in the fourth quarter or first quarter next year or something like that. It's a longer-term strategic initiative that we hope also will pay handsome dividends in the longer term.

[Karl Bokvist, analyst]

Understood. My final question is just on the -- and correct me if I misinterpreted you here. But when you said you intend to continue to build up safety stock or inventory to take into account a potential gas rationing in Europe, or did you say that you had already heard from governments or power supplies that there could be a shortage already in the coming months?

[Jorgen Rosengren, executive]

Yes. It's a good question, Karl. Maybe I was not entirely clear. We have built already additional safety stock in our Polish operation in order to -- if we end up in a scenario where there will be restrictions on natural gas supply, the primary part that runs on natural gas in our Polish operations is the recycling center and cast house. So we have basically run the recycling center in cast house and built up a safety stock after that production step, which means we can still run the rest of the production even in a scenario where there will be restrictions on natural gas supply.

That said, we have a high inventory at this point. I currently do not foresee that we will continue to build that. But we have it in case we end up in a situation where it's needed over the winter.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Kenneth Toll Johansson from Carnegie.

[Kenneth Johansson, analyst]

So I was thinking on the battery side, you said that you will probably be the first producer of battery materials in North America. But what about Europe? Do you have competitors that are supplying battery plants in Europe right now?

[Jorgen Rosengren, executive]

We have competitors in America and in Europe, but like you said yourself, we're planning to be the first producer of battery cathode foil in Americas for our customers there. We think that in both Europe and in North America, there are going to be obviously competitors, but we believe actually that in both geographies, we'll be extremely well positioned and that we're extremely -- that we're early out of the gate, so to speak. But it's a growth industry and it's very much in the news and so on. So, of course, there will be others who also enter this industry and try to compete in it.

[Kenneth Johansson, analyst]

Great. And then regarding the Konin...

[Jorgen Rosengren, executive]

I think we lost Kenneth. Are you still with us?

[Kenneth Johansson, analyst]

Or the long delivery times for such equipment, or what are your thoughts there? Is the process just standing still now?

[Jorgen Rosengren, executive]

I think we lost you there a bit, Kenneth. You had your technical glitch of your own there, but I think your question relates to Konin and the lead time on the equipment. Is that correct?

[Kenneth Johansson, analyst]

Yes. Yes, exactly. And yes, are you in a hurry to reorder something to get it going again, or what are your considerations?

[Oskar Hellström, executive]

I can start there and comment on some technicalities. We have basically finalized the work of dismantling the existing mill that was damaged in the fire. We've done that in the quarter. And as a consequence of that, then we are making an additional write-down affecting the third quarter, as I mentioned earlier.

Now in terms of how to best rebuild this mill, we still haven't made a final decision. This provides also an opportunity to tweak the specifications of the mill slightly should we want to do that. So that decision still has to be made. But that said, with the current lead times for components for the rebuild, we expect it will take about 18 months to get this rebuilt. So I would say, it's fair to assume that the new mill will be operational around mid-2024 or so at the earliest. I think that's probably the answer you're looking for there.

[Jorgen Rosengren, executive]

But I think it's also maybe fair to say that the extreme appetite for extra production volume in Europe is not quite where it was, let's say, a year ago or so, which I think underlies your question. And therefore, we're making sure instead that we will have the best possible solution for the demand picture that we see going forward, also taking into account the segments that we want to focus the most on in the Navigate plan and so on.

[Kenneth Johansson, analyst]

And then also in the report, you talk about higher energy costs that could be up to SEK 0.5 billion going forward. How do you see your position compared to competitors? Are competitors facing the same energy increase? And do you think it will be an industry thing to hike prices significantly due to higher energy costs? Or do some competitors have longer contracts, so they are more protected, or do they have other energy mixes? Or can you elaborate a little bit around that, please?

[Jorgen Rosengren, executive]

Sure. We don't, of course, know exactly what our competitors are doing in detail. But I think it's fair to say that the energy crisis is a pan-European crisis and affects everybody in Europe. But it affects, of course, those players more who are more exposed to -- in particular, to natural gas and who are the closest to the largest supply problems that we have there in Germany and to some extent also France and other regions.

And we -- so on balance, I guess it's fair to say that we're very hard-hit by this, but that our competitors are at least as hard hit as we are, probably maybe a bit more even. And that, I guess, goes to the heart of the question because we really don't feel we have a choice. We were faced last year by SEK 1.3 billion or so of increased costs, and we combated that by improving our productivity and raising prices. And now we have another hit here of about SEK 0.5 billion or so, which could, of course, be more or less depending on how the prices develop, and we're going to try to do the same thing exactly again to counter it with productivity increases and price increases. And because this is a trend -- the tide that lifts or sinks all boats, so to speak, we believe that we'll be in good company to [indiscernible].

[Operator]

The next question comes from Victor Hansen from Nordea.

[Victor Hansen, analyst]

Yes. Maybe to start off by following up on the previous question regarding the energy cost primarily in Europe. But I was hoping you could provide maybe a bit more color on this perhaps in terms of how many months, in general, it usually takes to offset this. And then if there are negative effect also in Americas and Asia, or is it only Europe that you see this?

[Jorgen Rosengren, executive]

No, I think we -- to answer the last part first, we have, of course, a negative effect also in Americas and also to some extent in Asia, although it's smaller there. So, it's a global phenomenon, but it's the least pronounced in Asia, a little worse in Americas, and worse still in Europe.

Regarding time lag, it, of course, depends on how we succeed with the price increase negotiations that are currently ongoing with the customer. It's a little early to say. But our ambition, of course, is to do at least as well as we did in the past 12 months. And there, we did have, to be honest, a lag between the time the cost increases hit us and the time we were able to forward them to customers of something like 3 to 5 months or something like that. And if we do worse than that, we will be disappointed. And if we do better than that, we will be happy.

[Victor Hansen, analyst]

Okay. Understood. And then how much of your energy need is hedged here for in Q4 and 2023?

[Oskar Hellström, executive]

I think the question we can ask there, I think, is from a European perspective because I think that's probably what matters the most here. As Jorgen said, the impact of this in the U.S. and China is smaller. But for Europe, we have hedged approximately 50% of our electricity need for 2023 and approximately the same or a little bit more, of course, for the balance of this year.

[Jorgen Rosengren, executive]

But energy for us is not only electricity, but also natural gas.

[Oskar Hellström, executive]

Very true.

[Victor Hansen, analyst]

Yes. Understood. And then perhaps on the safety stock that you mentioned in Konin, how many extra tonnes would you say that you built here?

[Jorgen Rosengren, executive]

I wouldn't be able to comment on exactly the tonnage there, but it's the main driver of the increased inventory value in the quarter there.

[Victor Hansen, analyst]

Yes. Understood. And the final one for me here. So you usually have the maintenance stops in Americas in Q4. How much do you expect it to impact sequentially in Q4?

[Oskar Hellström, executive]

As you know, we don't give guidance for individual segments volumes because that is -- that becomes quite detailed. So I guess you're going to have to make do with the guidance we do give, which we think is pretty clear on the total volumes of Granges.

[Operator]

The next question comes from unknown.

[Gustaf Schwerin, analyst]

Apparently, I am unknown. Gustaf Schwerin from Handelsbanken. So firstly, on the inventory situation in Europe, can you give some more color on how elevated it actually is? How long do you expect destocking to go on given the demand environment we are in right now? That's the first one.

[Jorgen Rosengren, executive]

Gustaf, you're not unknown to us at least. Well, in Europe, we don't see in total a strong inventory situation downstream. I think you're referring -- firstly, let me clarify that. You're referring to the downstream inventory that is in our customer downstream, right?

[Gustaf Schwerin, analyst]

Yes.

[Jorgen Rosengren, executive]

Yes. So it's not so that we see a large inventory situation in general downstream. This is an inventory situation that is in certain segments that are more short-term oriented, more spot market oriented. And in those segments, however, the effect is quite large. And since they are spot market oriented, the inventory situation also influences their buying behavior rather dramatically when the end customer demand changes, as it has in this case.

So how long that inventory will last, depends on the end customer demand, and we don't know what the end customer demand will be in all those segments. We don't also know to the last decimal how large this inventory is. But for sure, it will have an effect at least during the fourth quarter and possibly also during the beginning of next year, maybe a bit into next year. We don't know.

[Gustaf Schwerin, analyst]

All right. That's fair. Then secondly, on the automotive growth in Q3 for Eurasia, I know it's a bit tiresome to talk about HIS figures, but it's clearly lower. Any thinking here? Is this mainly an inventory effect, or is there anything else?

And then related to that, a follow-up on Karl's question, do you have a positive mix effect from more EVs and hybrids in this quarter already? Because if that's the case, the underperformance versus total production is higher.

[Oskar Hellström, executive]

Maybe I can start on commenting on the other one. Are you comparing our growth in automotive sales with external indicators like IHS or was that your...

[Gustaf Schwerin, analyst]

Yes, exactly. And I think it looks fairly in line in Asia, but lower in Europe. I'm just wondering if you have any thoughts on that.

[Oskar Hellström, executive]

I have many thoughts on that. But I think one thing to keep in mind here is that I think one shouldn't expect a one-to-one match between Granges sales to automotive and light vehicle production. That's the first one. And then obviously, this is a moving target. But I think if we look sequentially from Q2 to Q3, light vehicle production increased by 9% and our sales to automotive increased by about 8%. So if you take that perspective, it's a better match. But again, I don't think that these numbers will ever be exactly the same, right?

[Jorgen Rosengren, executive]

When it comes to the EV versus...

[Gustaf Schwerin, analyst]

And also mix effect.

[Jorgen Rosengren, executive]

Yes, exactly. So when it comes to EV versus combustion engine sales, it is definitely so that we see and believe to see even more of a shift, especially in China, a more rapid progression from combustion engine vehicle sales to electric power lines and also, of course, battery cars. So that's clearly accelerating, and we expect it to accelerate further. But in an individual quarter like this, the effect is -- that effect is overshadowed entirely by the effect of the COVID shutdown in the second quarter and the subsequent ramp-up again in the third quarter. So we can't really factor that out as an important driver in the quarterly situation.

But for the long term, however, it's strategically, of course, quite important for us to be strong in those platforms and with those customers who will grow the fastest in that segment. And that's also something we've been working on rather systematically in the past couple of years.

[Gustaf Schwerin, analyst]

Yes, right. And then lastly, and sorry for coming back to energy, but I mean what kind of levels are we hedged on? Can you in any way quantify the sequential risk in energy costs for Q4 as the forward curve plays out?

[Jorgen Rosengren, executive]

Well, it's such a moving target and such a complex question and also one where we're completely in very deep discussions with our providers of energy and our customers and so on. So it becomes quite difficult to get too far into the weeds there. You pick out a number out of those weeds, that number comes back to haunt you. But it's for sure so that we have a balance of unhedged cost, which is quite substantial and which we are going to have to offset by various productivity measures. So, for instance, decreasing the amount of energy we use to remelt metal or decreasing the amount of energy we use to slit the metal and so on, on the one hand. And on the other hand by, unfortunately, rather substantial price increases to a majority of our customers. And the only little sunshine in all that is that we believe that this is something that everybody else will have to do, too.

[Gustaf Schwerin, analyst]

Yes. But just to be very clear, the SEK 500 million you're talking about, that's taking 2022 and '23 hedges into account [ for Asia ]?

[Jorgen Rosengren, executive]

That's the effect on our cost. That could happen if nothing else happens.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

[Jorgen Rosengren, executive]

Thank you very much, and thanks all of you for joining this results conference for Granges, and welcome back to next time. Have a great day.