Good afternoon, and thank you for holding. Welcome to Grupo México's second quarter 2023 earnings conference call. With us this afternoon are all of Grupo México's top executives, who will discuss the second quarter 2023 financial performance of the company, giving you a summary of the latest news, and address any questions you might have at the end of the call. Sorry. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that information discussed on today's call may include forward-looking statements regarding the company's results and prospects, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially, and the company cautions not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Grupo México undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. All results are expressed in full U.S. GAAP.
The presentation may be followed through our webcast. If you wish to ask a question during the Q&A session, you need to do so via phone call by pressing star one, one. A copy of the slides that the company will be reviewing today is available on the website at gmexico.com. At this time, I would like to remind everyone that your lines must be in listen-only mode until the question and answer session. Now, we'll begin with Ms. Marlene Finny.
Hi, good morning, and thank you for joining us today for Grupo México's second quarter earnings conference call. Joining me today are all the top executives from our three divisions: mining, transportation, and infrastructure division. As usual, during our call, we'll be following the presentation found on our website or on the webcast. Going to slide number three, you'll find the content for today's call. I will start with Grupo México's main highlights. I'll be going through our main ESG achievements, scorecard and financial highlights. Mr. Oscar González Rocha and Mr. Leonardo Contreras will be discussing and provide detailed information regarding our mining division, commenting on the industry's economic environment, the division's financial highlights and our projects. He will be followed by Mr. Isaac Franklin, who will go through the transportation division's financial and operational highlights.
Finally, Mr. Francisco Zinser will comment on the financial highlights and relevant events for the infrastructure division. As usual, at the end, the line will be open for your questions, and we'll try to answer the best of our way. Now, going to our main ESG highlights, it's on slide five. As you all know, one of the main points we have worked on is Risk Management. We are very happy and very proud to announce that all the operating units of our mining division have successfully obtained ISO certification, certification in environmental management, and also the ISO 45001 in occupational health and safety. This is a huge milestone that we have reached and have been trying to reach since 2018.
Along this line, we have seen that safety and health have also been a top priority. Therefore, we have invested over MXN 16 million in infrastructure dedicated to the reinstatement of several level crossing, level crossings in Mexico, and over MXN 280 million in 2018, as part of our effort to achieve the accident reduction objectives, and continue to protect the communities we operate in. Building on this, we are taking an important step towards the recognition of our responsible copper production to be in the framework of the Copper Mark certification. Also in line, our biodiversity efforts, is the 464 hectare areas per during the quarter. That's 10x the surface area impacted by our mining operations during the same period. As we have disclosed, we are committed to gradually, gradually reduce our historical environment footprint.
Lastly, we are happy to mention that our rural drinking water and sanitation projects in Yacango Village in Peru were recognized as successful by the state agency, ProInversión. This project was done under the scheme of workforce taxes. Now going to slide number six. Here you can find the scorecard, which portrays our progress during the year. As you can see, higher copper production is total 5,512,000 tons. Record metrics in the transportation division and the great financial performance in our infrastructure division, enable us to reach over $7.3 billion of sales during the first half of the year. This is a 5% increase when compared to the same period of last year, and roughly 8% above the second quarter of last year.
Despite copper prices being 10.6% lower, lower than the first half of last year, and 11.3% lower than the second quarter of last year. Our operating income totaled just out of $3 billion, a 0.5% increase versus the first half of last year, while our EBITDA increased 3%, settling at $3.7 billion, despite the 10.2% increase in our net cash cost mining division, which ended the first half of 2023 at $1.6 per pound of copper. Even with this increase in our cash flow, we continue to be the copper producer with the lowest cash cost in the industry.
During the Board meeting, our Board declared a dividend of MXN 0.80 per share, which translates into roughly a 4% annualized dividend yield. Moving to slide number seven, you can find a summary of our financial highlights in case you need to, at any point during the presentation, go back to that slide, that effect. Going to slide number eight, you can see Grupo México continues to have a solid balance sheet, with low leverage and a net, and a net debt ratio of 0.4x . Our debt is mainly issued in U.S. dollars, representing 76% of our total debt, while the rest is denominated in Mexican pesos, mainly in the transportation and infrastructure division.
On this slide, you can also see the difference based on 2021 to 2022, and the respective annual and quarterly inside dividend yield, which is an average of 4.1% so far. As for our debt maturity profile, slide number nine, we continue to have a comfortable maturity schedule, with no payments of over $1 billion until 2035. Our cash position ended the quarter at $6.5 billion. That was all from my side for now. If you have any questions, you can receive them in the Q&A session. Now I will let Mr. Oscar González Rocha and Mr. Leonardo Contreras comment on our mining division's performance.
Thank, thank you, Marlene. Good morning, everyone, and thanks again for joining. As per usual, I will start with our view on the current copper market, shown on slide 11. During the second quarter of the year, the LME copper price decreased 10.9%, from an average of $4.32 in the second quarter of 2022, to $3.85, and COMEX fell 10.6% as well. We believe this primarily reflects the concerns about the impact of slowdown of China's economy, a possible recession in Europe, and a soft landing, or maybe even a light recession in the U.S. Current copper prices are at around $3.90 per pound, reflecting a less optimistic market than the last few quarters.
At this point, we see the following factors affecting the copper market: A reduction in global inflation, which may show the end of the interest rates hike cycle led by the Fed and the ECB. A strong recovery of mining production in Peru, which grew 9% from January to May of this year, reducing the uncertainty of current production, while Chile is still lagging, with a 5% reduction in copper production for the same period. Expectations of economic changes in Chile. The social circumstances in Peru are still affecting investments for future growth. These two countries represent about 40% of the global supply. The most relevant market intelligence houses for the copper market are now expecting a market surplus of about 100,000 tons for 2023, assuming a growth in demand of about 1% for this year.
In regards to copper inventories, they stood at 235,000 tons, a 42% reduction from the 411,000 tons seen at the end of the last quarter. This is the lowest inventory level since 2005. It is important to emphasize that copper plays a leading role in the global shift to clean energy, which correlates positively with our assertion that the underlying demand for copper will be strong in the long term. In this scenario, we believe the current cycle of low prices will be short-lived. Let's move forward to the mining division's operating and financial highlights on slide 12. The division's total sales for the first six months of the year totaled $5.6 billion, roughly a 1% increase when compared to the same period of 2022, despite the copper price reduction.
Higher production costs and lower zinc and sulfuric acid byproduct revenue credits affected our net cash cost, which ended the first half of the year in $1.16 per pound. Besides these pressures, we continue to be the cost leaders in the industry worldwide, and going forward, our focus will continue to be in cost control, as it has always been a key point in our business model. Our EBITDA closed the first six months of the year in $2.8 billion, a 2.8% decrease versus the first half of 2022, with a margin of EBITDA of 50.6%, reflecting these increases in cost. EBITDA was 9.8% higher compared to the second quarter of last year.
We're happy to announce that our year-to-date production totaled 511,783 tons of copper, a 6.3% increase versus the same period of last year, led by our Peruvian operations, which saw an 18.3% increase due to the normalization of the Cuajone operations and higher recoveries. Along these lines, production during the second quarter rose 9.2%, mainly due to a 20.5% increase in production in Peru, as a result of higher ore grades as Toquepala, as well as higher productions in Mexico and El Arco. CapEx totaled $550 million for the first half of the year. As we move forward to slide 13 and 14, we would like to share our project updates and highlights. Let's talk about first on our short and medium-term projects.
In Pilares, which is currently operating and delivering copper mineral to La Caridad facilities, we have already deployed 74% of the investment, $131 million out of the total $176 million in the budget. This project will improve the ore grade when mixed with the La Caridad ore grades. As per our Buenavista zinc project, which will allow us to double our zinc capacity, has a 98% completion rate, with the majority of $460 million already deployed. We have initiated vacuum testing at the plant, and we expect to initiate operations during the month of August of 2023. As for El Pilar, the basic engineering has been completed, and we continue developing environmental activities on site. The engineering project is being developed by top-ranked engineering and technology firms, and we expect it to be operationally soon.
Continuing with our long-term projects, we would like to talk about Los Chancas, Michiquillay, and El Arco. In Los Chancas, as of June 30, 2023, part of the project's land continued to be occupied by illegal miners, 75 of whom have irregularly registered their stakes in the Integral Registry of Mining Formalization, the REINFO. The company has requested, and the authority has ordered, the exclusion of these informal miners from the REINFO, so they are now all illegal miners. The company has also filed criminal complaints and other legal remedies to physically expel the illegal miners from the project and confiscated illegal mined ore. As per El Arco, our project located in Baja California, Mexico, we have completed the environmental baseline study, and we will proceed to submit the environmental impact statement to the corresponding authorities.
The company is currently preparing studies for the port, power pipelines, town sites, and auxiliary facilities. Lastly, in our Michiquillay project, as agreed with the Michiquillay and La Encañada communities, the company has begun contracting on skilled labor, as well as paying for the use of surface land. We continue with the exploration activities. Currently, we have 10 drilling platforms installed. On slide 16, you can see our robust pipeline of upcoming projects. I think having such a pipeline of organic growth really sets us apart to other copper companies. That will be all from our mining division's highlights. If you have any follow-ups, we'll be happy to address them during the Q&A session. Now, I'll let Isaac comment on the transportation division.
Thank you, Leonardo, and good morning, everyone. Let me start with the transportation division's financial highlights for the first half of the year, shown in slide 17. As you can see, GMXT continues to achieve excellent results, with most segments showing positive variations in both revenue and transported volume for the first half of the year. Our financials showed increases from top to bottom lines, where sales, which ended at $1.6 billion, increased a solid 19.6% during the first half of 2023. Along these lines, our accumulated EBITDA saw an improvement of 26.1%, hitting a new record, reaching $747 million, with a 47.5% EBITDA margin, at 250 basis points EBDA margin expansion. Net income totaled $232 million year to date.
Transported volume saw an increase of 7.2% in ton km, and 0.5% in carloads when compared to the first half of 2022, with the automotive segment leading with a bounce back of 36% the quarter, and a 26% accumulated increase. Committed to continue generating value for our shareholders, our Board approved a $0.50 per share dividend. Now, let's continue with the main variation for the quarter on slide 18. As I mentioned before, almost all of our segments saw positive revenue growth during the quarter. In relative terms, this quarter's top performance was the automotive segment, which saw an increase of 50% due to production increase, market share gain, and new import of Asian auto brands.
The other segments which saw double-digit revenue growth were cement, with an increase of 18%, where the revenue increase was due to volume growth from all major cement companies as demand in Mexico and the U.S. increased. Industrial, with a 14% increase, as new railcar production continues to grow substantially, and we were able to materialize market share gains in domestic distribution for retail due to new box car fleet. Chemicals grew by 12% due to more competitive prices in freight of plastic resin versus Asia, market share gains, and higher volume of fertilizers in Topolobampo, thanks to the terminal expansion and the harvest season in Mexico. With medium growth and showing single-digit increases, we have the methods segment increasing 7% due to increased import of slabs for steel production.
The agricultural segment, where the import increase of corn and soybean helped achieve a 7% growth, and the energy segment with a 5% increase as the import of refined products continued to grow. Lastly, the intermodal and mineral segments were the only laggards in revenue generation. The intermodal segment was mainly affected by a slowdown in the retail in the U.S., translating into a 5% decrease, which was partially offset by an increase in domestic distribution due to new capacity. The mineral segment saw a 10.2% decrease, mainly affected by the shutdown of one of the largest producer of steel in Mexico and the maintenance shutdown of another of the major producers.
Before I touch our operating metrics, I'd like to mention that the operating practices implemented by GMXT, which are aligned with the industry standards in North America, have strengthened the competitiveness of our service. Moving on to slide 19, we show our operating metrics for the first half of the year. Our average train speed showed an increase of roughly 4%, reaching 332.6 km per hour, allowing us to provide an efficient and timely service for our customers. Similarly, dwell time improved by 17%, decreasing to 21.4 hours. As a result, car velocity increased by 6%. Train length and gross ton per train decreased 6%, partially because of the change in traffic mix, while crew starts increased 14% on the cumulative basis.
Nevertheless, the efficiency of our train operation allowed the utilization of horsepower per ton to improve 3.4% compared to the previous year. In general, the performance of these indicators resulted in sound operating results, especially while showing 7.2% increase in volume during the first half of 2023. In the second half of the year, we will be focused on keeping our productivity levels and preserving the efficiency we've reached. Moving forward, for our CapEx for 2023, shown on slide 20, we expect to invest around $448 million, where $246 million will be invested in maintenance projects such as rails and ties and locomotive overhauls.
$130 million will be invested in growth projects, so as the Pesquería project, the intermodal terminal, and the Jacksonville-Sumter double track, as well as the equipment to be able to capture increasing volume. $50 million will be invested in special projects, such as the rehabilitation of El Mexicano Tunnel and the Celaya-Monterrey bypass. Lastly, $18 million will be invested in our efficiency programs, including track equipment, construction, and reconfiguration and yards and digital infrastructure. This concludes the general overview of the transportation division. I will now let Francisco comment on the Infrastructure division. Thank you.
Please remain on the line.
Y our conference will resume shortly.
Okay, so you, you're still in the, the mute. Can you-[Inaudible]
Go ahead, try it. Take yourself off mute.
Yeah. Can, can you hear me? This is Francisco speaking.
There you go. We can hear you now.
Okay. Thank you. Sorry, sorry for the technical difficulties. Again, thank you very much, Isaac, and good morning to everyone. I will continue today's call by going through the financial highlights of the infrastructure division, which are shown in slide number 22.
The division's solid performance has allowed us to generate outstanding results, surpassing our expectations across all our different business units during the first half of the year, both compared to the same period of last year and better than expected results compared to our budget. Thanks to our continued commitment to operational excellence, improved cost efficiency in the energy business unit, higher traffic volumes and tariff adjustments in our toll roads, the daily quota increases of our six drilling rigs, and the successful integration of our new real estate operations, our year-to-date revenues total $335 million, a 6.5% increase when compared to the first half of last year. Along these lines, our EBITDA reached $162 million, a 28.2% higher when compared with the same period of 2022.
To finish this slide on an even better note, our net income totals $37 million for the first six months of 2023, an outstanding 48% increase compared to last year. Let's move on to slide number 23 to talk about some of the most relevant events in the divisions. I want to start by highlighting Perforadora México's remarkable operational efficiency of 99.2%. Cost reductions and continuous improvements in profitability, which allowed the business unit to reach net sales of $102 million, and EBITDA of $54 million, an increase of 34% and 57% respectively. Our toll roads business unit continued to show extraordinary results, where sustained growth in the daily traffic, along with a tariff increase due to inflation, led to a substantial upswing in revenue, reinforcing the overall profitability of the business unit.
To conclude, I would like to proudly announce the successful integration of Planigrupo to our new real estate business unit, which was completed on April 19th, and has led so far to the consolidation of $14 million in revenues and $9 million in EBITDA by the end of the second quarter of 2023. Year to date, the business has improved substantially, recording a 20% increase in revenues due to higher rental income and an improved occupancy rate of 94.6%, very similar to pre-pandemic levels. These are the Infrastructure division highlights. I will let Marlene proceed with her closing remarks.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Leonardo, Isaac, and Francisco, for your comments, and everybody for joining us today. I hope today's presentation gives you a better understanding of the most important events and general dynamic of our division. Now, we will open the line for our Q&A session.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, just press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. One moment. Our first question from the line of Thiago Lofiego from Bradesco BBI. Your line is open.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. Two questions. Raul, if you could please comment on the environment in Peru and Mexico from a political, regulatory standpoint, and also a bit about the relationship with communities. I think the goal here of this question is trying to understand, you know, your growth pipeline, which is, I understand it's very robust, it's more like longer term-oriented at this point. How are, you know, those factors, you know, taking a or playing out in your decision to eventually decelerate or accelerate your growth execution? The second question is back to supply and demand, more specifically on the supply side. There are some projects ramping up in the next 18 months, right?
What, what's your view on, on the supply story for the medium term for, for copper? What are other factors that you have been looking at? Yeah, so those are my two questions. Thank you.
Okay, thank you very much for your question. Regarding the social environment in Peru, what we're seeing, it's a significant improvement since the end of Mr. Castillo's government in December of last year. We have had several intents by radical groups to create an environment of unrest, and they have been not, not good. I mean, they were unsuccessful, to be more, more proper. Regarding our projects, we are seeing a renewed interest of communities in working with the company. In some cases, as in the Los Chancas project, what we're seeing is that, generally speaking, the police is currently helping the company to remove these 75 illegal miners that are inside the premises of the concession.
That is something very positive, we see a clear change in, in, in view coming from the police regarding this, this matter. I believe that, that the country it's moving forward to promote private investments. As, as we are meeting now, today is the National Day in Peru, the president is giving her speech to Congress. Congress, two days ago appointed a new president, and it's the, the, the new presidency as the last one, it's coming from the center to the right parties that has majority in Congress. I believe that, that the country will move on towards a more peaceful environment. That, that is something that is very positive for us and particularly for our projects.
In the case of the copper market, well, I mentioned that we're expecting demand to grow by about 1% this year. That number has been reduced. If we see what we thought about at the beginning of the year, we were expecting a 2% growth in demand. Now, it's 1%. On the supply side, we are seeing a recovery of production, particularly in Peru, and as the social environment becomes more favorable, obviously the projects will have a much more better possibilities. In general terms, we're seeing now it's a significant drop in inventories. I mentioned a 42% drop at the Southern Copper , and the same was mentioned by Leonardo Contreras a while ago.
We believe that current levels of inventories are extremely low. If you divide that by the numbers of days of consumption, it's, it's a very small and very limited amount of days, that 2-3 days, that you have in inventories. I think that that will give support to prices, as long as the rest of the I mean, the major, three major economies of the world, the U.S., Europe, and China, are, are, somehow leaving recession territory and moving into growth.
Okay, thank you all . Thank you.
You're welcome.
One moment for our next question. Our next question comes line of Rafael Barcellos from Santander. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning, and thanks for taking my question. First question is about dividends and, and capital allocation. I j ust would like to understand the reason why you reduced the quarterly dividends this quarter. I mean, copper prices remain at solid levels. The company does not have any other big M&A in the pipeline, so I just would like to understand the rationale behind it. The second question is about costs. I understand that, you know, labor inflation remains high, and the recent FX appreciation does not help your, your mining costs, right? Could you please give us more detail on your expectations on costs into the second half of this year? Thank you.
Thank you so much, Rafael, for your question. I will be answering the first one. As you know, and we have always mentioned this, the dividend is revised during the war on a quarterly basis, so it depends on cash generation, let's say, what we're going to spend in terms of CapEx and et cetera. Based on that, the Board decides on a quarterly basis the dividend for the quarter. If you see in, in dollar terms, it's pretty much the same amount as last quarter, but that's mainly a Board decision. There's nothing else going on.
This is Leonardo, Rafael.
Leonardo.
If I, may I, interject on, on costs?
Yeah, go.
Okay. Regarding our mining division, what we're seeing is, in the case of the Mexican operations, the exchange rate has appreciated significantly, and that is creating some cost increases, particularly as you well mentioned, labor. We're seeing, as I said in the Southern Copper's presentation, we're seeing better costs for explosives, grinding media, and diesel, as long as we are at the Peruvian operations. In Mexico, there were some subsidies that were taken away last year, and that has created a slightly increase in diesel prices.
For Mexico as well, power, it's at a lower level now, and there are some significant savings in there because last year we had, since we import natural gas from the U.S., we had a significant increase in the price of gas. Now, our energy cost in Mexico has decreased by 18%. In the case of the Peruvian operations, we're seeing lower diesel costs by 6% and lower cost for grinding media, as well as explosives as well. For the second half of the year, we are expecting to produce much more copper than the first half, and that plus the significant contribution of our by-products in terms of volume, which will increase for silver, zinc, in the second quarter. In the second half, t hat will give us some, support for lowering our cash costs in the second part of the year.
Thank you.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question will come from the line of Carlos de Alba from Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.
Yeah, thank you. Good morning, good morning, good afternoon, everyone. I have three questions. The first one, maybe for Isaac. Isaac, could you please comment broadly on the impact of the agreement that the company reached with the government regarding the piece of trail track in Mexico southeast? Basically, what is the MPV situation with exchanging, you know, a piece of track and extend versus extending the long-term concession? Also, you know, the short term, how much, if anything, material, the EBITDA loss would be from losing that extension of your railway?
Jeff, thank, thank you for your, your questions. Regarding the agreement with the federal government, the most important thing is to continue to provide service to all our customers in that stretch of the track. What was negotiated besides the concession and keeping the same conditions till the end of this concession, giving eight more years of concessions in the same terms. What we agreed is the trackage rights to attend each and every customer, in terms of service, everything remains exactly the same as it is right now.
The only big difference is that the, all the maintenance of the track will be in charge of the ferrocarril , they want to take, and we will be paying trackage rights for passing and servicing. In terms of service, everything will remain the same. We will continue to provide the service and, and generating revenue and EBITDA for, for this track. We really are not expecting any changes regarding our service over there. Well, we have eight more years in all the Ferrosur's concession. Thank you.
Thank you, Isaac. Leonardo, if you are back on the line, I would like to ask about the ASARCO, the outlook for ASARCO in the second half of the year and in 2024, regarding production and cash costs before byproducts.
Yes, hello, Carlos. In terms of the next half, we're expecting for ASARCO is around 60,000 tons of copper, and the cash cost should be around the level that, that we're in right now. We're at $2.73. We should be around $2.75 at the most, the next semester for ASARCO.
Any comments, Leonardo, thank you, on 2024?
I think, let me do the homework and probably the next quarter I can give you more details on that.
All right. Fair enough. Then my last question, thank you for accommodating the three of those of them. For Marlene, I understand what you or I heard what you said on the dividend, but presumably a transaction that the Grupo was analyzing is now not going to happen soon. The company has accumulated a significant amount of cash in the balance sheet. What would prevent the company to distribute this to shareholders and I guess, avoid, you know, concerns that it might be used in a way that might not be aligned with all of the shareholders goals for the company or for that cash?
Sure, Carlos, I understand, and it is a very good question, but I really have nothing much more to add because it's a Board decision. It's a Board decision, and we take into account all your comments and we'll have that.
All right. Understand. Thank you very much, everyone. I appreciate it.
One moment for our next question. Our next question will come from the line of Alfonso Salazar from Scotiabank. Your line is open.
Yes. Thank you, everyone. Can you hear me well?
Yes, we copy you well.
Excellent. Thank you. The question, I think, is for Isaac, and it's regarding, and how did you envision, the business of, transportation 10 years from now, because of the implications of nearshoring? Let's, let's leave aside all the challenges that companies trying to nearshore to Mexico are facing, including water scarcity or potential shortages of clean energy or insecurity. Let's say that everything moves ahead according to, you know, what we have seen so far. 10 years from now, how is it going to change or evolve because of nearshoring? The question has to do because to the fact that if one of the reasons why this nearshoring is taking place is to decouple with China, probably we're going to see less imports and less volumes coming to the ports in the Pacific, and there's gonna be more cross-border traffic in with the United States.
Just want to hear your thoughts on how you think this is going to materialize.
Thank you. Thank you, Alfonso. As, as we were mentioning, along the, these years, we have track capacity and the ability to keep moving higher volumes. Our investments were focused on the origins and destination in which we, which we know that we have opportunities to keep growing capacity in both ends, in, in the origin and in the destination. Because of all the, all the efficiency measures that we have been taking along these years, we have the capacity in our lines to keep moving and to grow.
What we're seeing is, at least for next year, and regarding the nearshoring, they were announced around $35 billion in foreign investments for nearshoring or for growing, and what most of them are located in our influence regions, in the states in which we provide the service. What we are, what we are looking is to keep growing. We know that all our traffics will be growing in the different segments, and we have the capacity. It will be terms of mix. Also, our average length of haul will increase since will be cross-border. What we're expecting is to keep growing and investing according to the needs of the market of our, and our customers.
Okay. do you think it's gonna move north, your volumes and transportation, meaning closer to the border and north of the border instead of coming from the Pacific? How do you think that is going to change?
No, what we're seeing is the most of the investments are located some on the northern part, but, some in the center, maybe in the southeast. You know, the government has its own development, and social development for the southeast. It will depend where the facilities will be located, where they may find all the utilities, the electricity and gas, and skilled labor. What we are really seeing is that all over Mexico, we'll be seeing some of these investments. Since we cover 80% of the country, we are sure that the most of these investments will be located in the states that we cover.
Yeah. Fair enough. Thank you very much Si r.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Alex Hacking from Citi. Your line is open.
Hi, thanks for the call. I guess just one question for Raul. Raul, we've heard, you know.
Hello?
Sorry, can you hear me?
Yes, we do.
Okay. Sorry. We've heard a lot of large companies talk about how they're exploring, you know, new leaching technologies, in order to potentially increase production. You know, do, do you have any initiatives on that front? You know, I'm not sure how suitable your ore and ore stockpiles are for that kind of technology. Thank you.
At this point, nothing, nothing, relevant to mention on this, Alex. We have been doing some tests with the, with the concentrators, test plant. That's very small one. This is more for to say so, a scientific kind of review, but that's it, it's not something that we're taking into our CapEx as a possibility at this point.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Thank you. I'm not showing any further questions in the queue. I'd like to turn the back the call to our speakers for any closing remarks.
Thank you so much for being here today with us, and thank you for all of your questions. In case you need anything else afterwards, please let us know. We will keep in touch and hope to see you next quarter. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.