Salzgitter says CBAM is already lifting prices and cutting imports

Salzgitter has given CBAM its most direct earnings-call endorsement of the 2026 results season. Presenting half-year results on August 11, 2026, CEO Gunnar Groebler told analysts that "The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism has started... We have seen already positive impact of the CBAM on the price side, and also on the reduction of imports", and pointed to a rise of roughly €30 per tonne in ex-works Italy hot rolled coil prices. The company swung to a €43.5 million net profit for the first half, from an €88.9 million net loss a year earlier, on EBITDA of €459 million.

For EU steel importers, this is the third installment of a consistent earnings-season pattern: European producers now attribute measurable price support and import reduction to the mechanism itself, not only to the tariff-rate quota (TRQ) safeguard tightened on July 1, 2026. Two days later, Thyssenkrupp raised guidance while crediting only that safeguard.

What Groebler said on the earnings call

Salzgitter CEO Gunnar Groebler explicitly credited CBAM for both price support and lower import volumes on the August 11, 2026 earnings call, alongside a roughly €30 per tonne gain in ex-works Italy hot rolled coil. According to the earnings call transcript published by Investing.com, Groebler described the price effect in plain terms: "Plus EUR 30, if you look at ex works Italy for hot rolled coil", adding that the intended effects were already visible. On the trade side he added: "The new Steel Safeguard Measure has taken effect 1st of July this year. Also here, significant reduction in imports."

Groebler's framing separates three distinct effects that importers usually see blended into one price move:

• A positive CBAM impact on the price side, visible in ex-works quotations
• A reduction in imports that he attributed to CBAM directly
• A further, significant import reduction from the safeguard in force since July 1, 2026

The numbers behind the commentary support the turnaround story. Salzgitter reported first-half revenue of €4.6 billion, down 1.6 percent year-on-year, but earnings before taxes of €258 million and the swing from an €88.9 million loss to a €43.5 million net profit. The economics of that recovery run through the steel border regime: a blast furnace route tonne carries roughly 2.0 tCO₂ of embedded emissions, and the CBAM steel costs and compliance guide shows how every euro on the certificate price widens the gap between EU production and unpriced imports.

Thyssenkrupp raises guidance without naming CBAM

Thyssenkrupp's Q3 FY2025/26 statement of August 13, 2026 raised full-year adjusted EBIT guidance to €600-900 million from €500-900 million and linked the Steel Europe improvement to the July safeguard tightening; its published materials do not name CBAM. The company reported quarterly adjusted EBIT of €183 million, up €28 million year-on-year, on quarterly sales of €8.8 billion, up 8 percent. The safeguard it credits is the same measure Groebler cited: import quotas cut by 47 percent with a 50 percent out-of-quota tariff, in force since July 1, 2026.

The absence of CBAM from Thyssenkrupp's published materials is an observation about what the company chose to highlight, not a denial that the mechanism affects its markets. The difference is attribution: Salzgitter itemizes CBAM as a driver, Thyssenkrupp presents the quota regime alone. The split matters for importers because the safeguard is a trade instrument that can be adjusted or allowed to lapse, while CBAM is a permanent certificate-based mechanism whose cost coverage rises every year as free allocation phases out toward January 1, 2034.

The earnings-season scoreboard so far

Four major European producers have now reported results crediting the EU's border measures, and three of the four name CBAM explicitly. The August statements extend the pattern set in late July, when ArcelorMittal and Holcim credited the border levy for pricing power in their own results.

The scoreboard reads as company-level confirmation of the mechanism's design intent. CBAM exists to stop production shifting to jurisdictions without carbon pricing, and the guide to carbon leakage and why the EU created CBAM explains why import reduction plus domestic price support is precisely what the regulation was built to produce.

Import offers still carry a $30 CBAM line

Eurometal's market reporting of August 13, 2026 recorded European HRC prices mostly stable through the summer lull, with Egyptian HRC offered into Southern Europe at $760 per tonne CFR and dealt at $750 per tonne CFR, prices that continue to embed roughly $30 per tonne of CBAM-related costs. The daily index for August 12 put Northern European HRC at €717.00 per tonne ex-works and Italy at €713.75 per tonne ex-works, with Italian market activity near zero in the usual August pause.

The persistence is the story. Eurometal first reported the roughly $30 per tonne CBAM component inside Egyptian offers in late July; two weeks later the same line item is still there, which makes CBAM pass-through a standing feature of import pricing rather than a one-off negotiating posture. Egyptian suppliers have broader exposure than most: the CBAM Egypt country guide shows the country also sends 46 percent of its fertilizer exports to the EU, so building CBAM handling into commercial terms is becoming standard practice across its export sectors.

That $30 figure still prices in far more than the current-year liability. At the 2026 CBAM factor of 2.5 percent and the Q2 certificate price of €75.28/tCO₂e, the certificate cost on a blast furnace route tonne works out to roughly €4 in 2026. The gap between €4 of liability and $30 of embedded cost is a negotiating point, and the CBAM cost calculator gives you the actual figure for your CN code and origin before you accept a seller's number.

What the Salzgitter results mean for importers

For EU steel importers, Salzgitter's August 11 statement is the clearest producer-side confirmation yet that CBAM is doing structural work on both prices and volumes, and three practical consequences follow.

First, treat EU domestic price strength as policy-driven, not cyclical. A CEO crediting CBAM for a €30 per tonne ex-works gain, in the same half that his company swung from an €88.9 million loss to a €43.5 million profit, is describing a regime effect that persists as long as the regulation does. Sourcing models that assume a reversion to pre-2026 spreads between EU domestic and import parity prices need rebuilding, and the full obligation chain is set out in the guide to CBAM compliance for steel importers.

Second, expect the import mix to keep shifting. Groebler's "reduction of imports" is showing up in supplier behavior across origins: Korean producers face an estimated $4 billion of CBAM exposure and a narrow window to escape it, and origin-by-origin cost differences will increasingly decide who keeps offering into the EU at all.

Third, benchmark every CBAM surcharge against the real liability. The 2026 certificate cost of roughly €4 per blast furnace tonne rises each year as the CBAM factor climbs from 2.5 percent, so a $30 line in an offer anticipates costs that arrive years from now. Paying it today without negotiation hands the seller the difference.

What happens next

The next checkpoint is the Q3 2026 results season in late October, which will be priced against a certificate price already tracking six to eight euros above the Q2 average. If that premium holds, the pass-through component inside import offers has room to widen. Certificate sales open on February 1, 2027, and the first annual declaration covering 2026 imports falls due on September 30, 2027, so every quarter of producer commentary between now and then lands while importers are still building their certificate budgets.