Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal, the world's largest steelmaker, has announced its financial results for 2015. ArcelorMittal said that, due to order books and the time lag required for lower raw material costs to positively impact the cost of sales, EBITDA is expected to sequentially decline in the first quarter of 2016. Based on the assumption of prevailing raw material costs and spot steel spreads, the company expects EBITDA to be in excess of $4.5 billion in 2016. This guidance does not capture any upside to current market conditions.
In 2015, ArcelorMittal registered a net loss of $7.9 billion, up from a net loss of $1.1 billion in the previous year. During the given year, the company's sales decreased by 19.8 percent year on year to $68.6 billion, primarily due to lower average steel selling prices, down 19.7 percent, lower steel shipments, down 0.6 percent, and lower seaborne iron ore reference prices, declining by 43 percent, offset in part by higher market-priced iron ore shipments, up 1.4 percent, all year on year. Total steel shipments amounted to 84.6 million mt in 2015, declining by 0.4 percent year on year. In the given year, ArcelorMittal's EBITDA decreased by 27.7 percent to $5.23 billion, compared to 2014.
ArcelorMittal's crude steel production amounted to 92.5 million mt in 2015, down 0.6 percent year on year, while its iron ore production decreased by 1.7 percent year on year to 62.8 million mt.
Meanwhile, ArcelorMittal's Flat Carbon Europe segment has reported an operating loss of €465 million for the fourth quarter of 2015, compared to an operating profit of €122 million in the fourth quarter of the previous year. The fourth quarter performance was impacted by impairments of €366 million, primarily in connection with the temporary idling of ArcelorMittal Sestao in Spain, as well as €316 million of inventory write-downs following the rapid decline of steel prices.