ArcelorMittal said the European Union’s new import regime and carbon border levy should lift domestic utilization and margins this year, while North American shipments and realized prices are set to rise in the first quarter after Mexico-related disruptions were resolved, the company said during a fourth-quarter earnings call on Thursday February 5.
“We have idle capacity in Europe that can be brought online quite quickly. The signpost is very clear: customer demand. We don’t want to bring in capacity just for the sake of it, earning a healthy and sustainable return on capital employed is key,” Aditya Mittal, chief executive officer at ArcelorMittal, said during the call.
ArcelorMittal estimated that the EU’s tariff‑rate‑quota tool (TRQ), together with the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), will cut steel imports by around 10 million tonnes versus 2024.
“About 8 million of [the 10-million-tonne reduction in imports to Europe] is flat products. We are already working on tools and bonuses in Poland and elsewhere, and we are in a good position to meet demand without significant additional [capital expenditure],” chief financial officer Genuino Christino said during the earnings call.
CBAM is the EU’s instrument to curb carbon leakage by placing a carbon cost on imported steel; from January 1, 2026, importers must surrender CBAM certificates for embedded emissions, priced in line with the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) and adjusted to benchmark levels.
“In Europe, we will of course also see higher shipments, which are to some extent seasonal. We will also see prices improving to some extent, but I would say that this is really more a second order phenomenon for us,” Christino said, adding that the company’s raw materials and carbon emissions costs will rise under CBAM.
In North America, Christino said operational issues in Mexico had been largely resolved and flagged a better near‑term run‑rate. “We will see a recovery in volumes in North America in Q1. As we know, prices have been moved up. So we will be shipping more at higher prices.”
ArcelorMittal reactivated the blast furnace at its Lázaro Cárdenas steel plant in Michoacán, Mexico, in late January after a prolonged outage and maintenance cycle.
Elsewhere, Christino described Brazil as “relatively stable.” Shipments there increased on higher slab exports, offset by a weaker mix, while the company pointed to steady conditions in its mining division.
In Liberia, ArcelorMittal reported record annual iron ore shipments in 2025 and said the amended Mineral Development Agreement extends to 2050, reserving rail capacity up to 30 million tonnes per year.
