POSCO Holdings Inc. (NYSE:PKX) Q3 2024 Results Conference Call October 30, 2024 2:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Jeong Kiseop - Chief Strategy Officer
Young-Ah Han - IR
Conference Call Participants
Park Hyun-Wook - Hyundai Motor Company
Kim Yoon Sang - HI Investment Securities
Eugene Lee - Yin Securities
Jeong Jae Heon - DBF
Jeong Kiseop
Greetings. I'm CSO of POSCO Holdings. My name is Jeong Kiseop. We have closed third quarter revenues and operating profits at levels very similar to the second quarter. However, steel price fell slightly deeper than we anticipated. In rechargeable battery materials, key raw materials prices continue to decline, creating a challenging business environment.
These challenges notwithstanding, we try to stretch profits as much as possible, especially in steel, WTP products, our high-end steel products that make up 32% of our sales, helped to secure a level of profit margin that sustained POSCO's operating profit.
In battery materials, lithium hydroxide prices falling below $10,000 per ton. Rapid price decline is exacerbated by the reverse lag created by the time difference between when they are bought and sold. This creates added challenge and disadvantage.
In addition, our brine and lithium production plants lined up to complete construct. Anytime a plant comes online, they entail initial investment and operation cost that add to the overall burden of expenditures. However, some have recently been commissioned. The fact that these new plants have been completed and initial pilot operation have gone into effect without a hitch gives us reason to be proud that our lithium production technology and facilities have arrived at commercial scale.
Before I give you -- give the floor to the Head of IR for more detail on our earnings, I'd like to take a moment to strategic alliance struck between POSCO Group and JSW Group, which released yesterday. In your deck it pertains to slides 5 and 8. With JSW Group in India, POSCO Group has signed an MOU to cooperate not only in building an integrated steel mill in India, but also to extend that collaboration into rechargeable battery materials and renewable energy sectors.
In steel, we're delving into the details of building an integrated mill in India with at least a 5 million ton capacity. The new upstream plant will have a 50-50 investment from POSCO and JSW Group, with plans to focus on premium automotive steel products. We have been proposed 2 potential plant sites that we are currently examining.