GrafTech sees FY25 CapEx $40M

The company said, “In 2024, steel industry production remained constrained by global economic and geopolitical uncertainty. As we enter 2025, industry analyst projections indicate a modest recovery in global steel demand is expected for the year. However, significant geopolitical uncertainty remains, including the potential impact of policymaking on the interest rate environment, global trade and decarbonization policies. As we closely monitor all of these developments and assess their potential impact on the commercial environment for graphite electrodes, our current outlook is that demand for graphite electrodes in the near term will remain relatively flat in the key regions in which we operate. For GrafTech (EAF), despite the industry-wide headwinds, we anticipate a low double-digit percentage point year-over-year increase in our sales volume for 2025 on a full-year basis as we continue to regain market share. This reflects our compelling customer value proposition and our ongoing focus on delivering on the needs of our customers. Of our anticipated 2025 sales volume, to date, we have over 60% committed in our order book following the successful completion of the customer negotiations that occur in the fourth quarter of each year. As it relates to price, challenging pricing dynamics have persisted in most regions and the pricing environment remains unsustainably low. As a result, we are taking further actions to accelerate our path to normalized levels of profitability and support our ability to invest in our business. As it relates to costs, we will continue to execute our initiatives to improve our cost structure. Reflecting these actions and the benefit of the anticipated increase in our sales and production volume levels, we expect a mid-single digit percentage point decline in our cash cost of goods sold per MT for 2025 compared to 2024. In addition, we will continue to closely manage our working capital levels and capital expenditures. For 2025, we expect the net impact of working capital will be favorable to our full year cash flow performance, although to a lesser extent than in each of the previous two years which reflected our efforts to align inventory levels with our view on demand. We anticipate our FY25 capital expenditures will be approximately $40M.”