Hello, and welcome to MMG's 2021 second quarter production report teleconference. This report and today's discussion cover the operational performance of MMG's assets for the June quarter of 2021. Joining us today is Chief Executive, Geoffrey Gao, and MMG's executive team. I will now hand over to Geoffrey, who will discuss the highlights of the report, after which there will be an opportunity to ask questions. If you wish to ask a question, you'll need to dial star and then one and wait for the operator. Over to you, Geoffrey.
Thank you, Grant. Hello to everyone who has joined us today. At MMG, our first value, as always, is safety. Our year-to-date operations recorded a total recordable injury frequency rate of 1.17 per million hours worked, which is an improvement on the 2020 result of 1.38. While we will never stop our efforts to eliminate injuries, I am pleased that we continue to benchmark at the very bottom end of global peers on injury frequency. I can also report that we continue to deliver stable operations at all of our sites, with production in line with our budget in the second quarter, despite the ongoing COVID-19 impacts. Pleasingly, this stable operating environment, combined with strong commodity prices over the first half of the year, has resulted in a record profit for the group.
As disclosed to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange last week, we currently expect to report a net profit after tax attributable to equity holders of around $400 million for the first six months of 2021. In addition, our net debt has reduced by around $1.2 billion, our balance sheet is now in a much stronger position to deliver growth and returns for our shareholders. Now to address the operational performance. In the second quarter of 2021, MMG produced over 93,308 Ibs of copper and 58,137 Ibs of zinc. On a full year basis for 2021, we expect to produce between 360,000Ibs and 370,000 Ibs of copper and 240,000Ibs and 260,000 Ibs of zinc. Las Bambas copper production in the June quarter was over 80,000 Ibs.
This represented an increase of 25% on the 1st quarter and 37% on the prior year, which was impacted by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite escalation of the third wave of COVID-19 in Peru, we continue to effectively manage this situation. Mining volumes improved significantly this quarter due to higher workforce capacity and improved equipment productivity. Regarding Chalcobamba, I wanted to provide update on the status of this development. As you would be aware, Las Bambas had anticipated regulatory approval for the development of the Chalcobamba pit in the first half of 2021, following submission of original application in February 2019. Despite assurances from the outgoing government, this approval has still not been received, with a combination of lengthy community consultations, administrative delays, and the 2021 national elections prolonging this process.
Looking forward, we will continue to work with the government of Peru and the Huancuire community to advance this critically important project. We welcome the recent confirmation that Pedro Castillo of the Free Peru Party will start a five-year presidential term on July 28th, 2021. We look forward to holding constructive dialogue with the new government regarding the future development of Las Bambas and the significant contribution of Las Bambas and the Peru mining industry to the growth of the Peruvian economy. Our project is a significant one for the economy of Peru, and will support additional social contribution and financial and business opportunities for local and regional communities. Moving on to Kinsevere. copper cathode production of around 12,600 tons was also in line with expectations. New throughput was stable, but like last quarter, the processing of lower-grade ores resulted in production being lower than last year.
Following a temporary suspension of mining activity in 2020, the majority of new feed came from low-grade stockpiles and third-party ore. In terms of outlook, we continue to undertake detailed engineering works in anticipation of the next development phase at Kinsevere over the remains of 2021 and 2022, which will see a shift to the mining and the processing of sulfide ores and the introduction of a cobalt circuit. I will now move on to our zinc operations, Dugald River and Rosebery. At Dugald River, zinc production of 40,000 tons was 18% below the first quarter due to short-term constraints in the South mine and a planned plant shutdown in June. However, we expect to see improvements in mining performance, with better extraction methods to reduce waste, as well as strong recoveries over the remaining months of 2021.
With ongoing work to debottleneck the mine and optimize the plant, we remain confident that from 2022, we can deliver on our target of over 2 million tons of mined ore per year and annual zinc production approaching 200,000 tons. At Rosebery, zinc equivalent production of almost 44,000 tons was 6% higher than the prior period, consisting of 18,000 tons of zinc, 6,800 tons of lead, 430 tons of copper, and 11,900 ounces of gold, displaying the benefits of the polymetallic nature of the Rosebery ore body. During the quarter, resource extension and near mine exploration drilling continue to indicate further extensions to the resource and mine life. We are also investigating the potential for short-term capacity increases at existing tailings storage facilities, while studying and permitting a proposed site for a new tailings storage facility. We are confident in further extending Rosebery's 85-year plus mine life.
In summary, the overall result of the second quarter is positive, and the record profit performance in the first half demonstrates the underlying strength of our portfolio. With debt reduction of $1.2 billion following the strong financial performance and the recent $300 million equity raising, MMG looks forward to delivering on its next phase of value accretive growth for shareholders. I am now happy to take your questions. Please, can all questions be directed to me in the first instance? I will call on members of the executive team to respond. I will hand over to the moderator now.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Lawrence Lau from BOCI. Please go ahead.
Hi, Jeff. Can you hear me?
Yeah.
Hello. Hi. Okay. Just two questions. First of all, it seems that you have revised down your output target for Las Bambas for this year because of the delayed approval of Chalcobamba. Now you are looking at 310,000 tons. What's your assumption behind the approval time of Chalcobamba, and will this delay affect the output in 2022? Second question is regarding the hedging. I see that you are actually employing hedging quite a bit in the first half. Can you tell in the first half profit, does it include any floating gain from the hedging contracts? Thank you.
Thanks for the question. I will ask Jianxian Wei to answer the first question regarding the delay of Chalcobamba approval. I will have my CFO, Ross, to answer the second question that is regarding the account impact of the hedging activities. First question, please have the first question translated into Chinese.
I already translated this question to Jianxian Wei.
Okay. If that has been done, then Jianxian Wei can answer the question.
At Las Bambas team, I anticipate the review of approval for the Chalcobamba in the first half of this year, because we already submitted our original application in February of 2019. However, the delivery of the required permits has been delayed because of the main community compensation, administrative delay. Also, we have been impacted by the 2021 national elections. There is a delay in our approval process. At Las Bambas, we look forward to working with the new government to advance the development of Chalcobamba, because this is a significant project for Las Bambas, and also is a significant one for the economy of Peru. We want to give our additional support through social contribution and give more financial and business opportunities for local and regional communities.
Right now, we are changing mining sequence to mitigate the impact for 2021. Full year production for 2021 is now expected to be around 310 some thousand of copper. That is in the lower of the previous guidance range. When approval is received, Las Bambas will move forward significant development of the pit, investment in the mine fleet and the mill, which will increase the production to an average of around 400,000 tons per year.
I would just want to clarify one point, is that if this Chalcobamba still not get approved within this year, will it affect the 310,000 tons output target for this year?
Just give me a second to check this question.
We have the interpreter to do the translation. Just make sure, Jianxian Wei, you got the question? I make a comment here. Yeah, I make a comment here. Because of the coming change of the new government later this week in Peru, and right now, it's very uncertain.
For the management to have a good estimate of when the Chalcobamba approval can be granted. At the moment, we cannot give a reliable estimate of the possible impact of the delay. As Jianxian Wei mentioned, in 2021, we are looking for rescheduling the mining sequence and doing some optimization works so we can still maintain the production guidance. Even now, we say it's probably around the low end of that range. As to the impact on future years' production, we will work together with the new government to get better understanding of the possible timeline of the approval, and then we can give the market updates about the impact on future years. Is that answering your question?
That's probably the best you can do now.
Yeah. Something like that, yeah.
Thank you. Your next question-
Okay. Yeah. Now I can have Ross to answer the question about hedging.
Thanks, Geoffrey. In the half year results, we actually had about a $35 million hedging profit. That's not the total hedging gain because some of the gains are hedge accounts that don't come through to the P&L. The $35 million was in Las Bambas, so it essentially means, based on those numbers that we've circulated around the profit attributable to equity holders, that MMG shareholders will get 62% of that.
Okay. Thank you, Ross.
Thanks.
Your next question comes from Jack Shang from Citi. Please go ahead.
Hey, Geoffrey, Ross. Hey, hear me okay?
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah. I would say thanks, and we appreciate your efforts in the first half in changing all the mining sequence and all the efforts on the ground. Good work. Several quick points to follow up on Las Bambas. One is that when the new office, the new administration comes in, when do you expect they come in? Will the new government be very efficient in appointing the mining minister, all these administrative processes of putting people in place? Will that be on time? When they get into office, which I guess would be end of this month, what are the next procedure requirements? Will they require, say, to start over again? That will be pretty downside scenario, bear case scenario. Based on your communication so far with the incoming administration, will that be a friendly conversation? Are they being held already?
We are uncertain at the moment what kind of stance that the new government would take, I guess, on the procedural wise, what are required and so what are the expectations there on the next steps of gaining the approval or getting close to get the approval? That's the first thing on the approval front. The second is, I noticed that in the first half, I think Jianxian Wei mentioned by changing the mining sequence, right? I noticed that the average ore grade are actually higher than last year's level. How long can you mine relatively higher grade ore at Chalcobamba? How long that can last? Because earlier in the year, I think in March, in your presentation, annual results presentation, you had a chart of the split between the contribution of copper output for Las Bambas.
I can tell from the chart that your plan is Chalcobamba would contribute 20% of the copper this year at Las Bambas, and it's going up to 40% by 2023. My question would be that, in the bear case, if without Chalcobamba approval, say, in the rest of the year, and even, say, a very bear case scenario that you don't get the approval, what are the backup plans and how long that Chalcobamba can last and at what production scale? Thanks.
I may take the first question regarding the new Peruvian government, and I will leave the second question to Mr. Wei about the production profile from Chalcobamba if the Chalcobamba approval is further delayed. Regarding the new government. The election result has been confirmed. We have the new President-elect, and on Peru time, July 28th, Pedro Castillo will take oath as President. We were told that probably one or two days after that, the new cabinet members will be appointed. That means the new government will be in place very soon. The new cabinet will need to be voted for confidence by the Congress. That will be in about 30 days. That means, around end of August, the Congress will vote for confidence for the new cabinet.
That's one thing that basically the new government will be in place very soon and start to govern. Regarding the possible attitude approach towards the permitting, there was little information during the campaign of election from government. We really don't know. We need to find out by working together with the government. As I mentioned before, we will try our best to have the approval of Chalcobamba granted. Now I will hand over to Mr. Wei to the question regarding the production profile.
There's the translation for the answer from Mr. Wei.
Because of the delay of the Chalcobamba, the Sandvik team is already developing the option for our mining production. First, we will give a priority for the [distortion] site through the pre-stripping. The second one, we will put more focus in phase III to advance the mining segments in Chalcobamba.
For this year production, the high grade from Chalcobamba will be enough for this year.
Okay. Thank you, Jack. Maybe for next question.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star then one and wait for your name to be announced. We'll pause momentarily if anyone else wishes to enter the queue. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one and wait for your name to be announced. Your next question comes from Chris Xu from Horizon Asset. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you very much for the presentation and congratulations on the great results. I've got two questions. The first one is, regarding the first half debt reduction, right? I mean how much of debt is coming from the sale of the excess inventory during the first half. How much CapEx has been spent in the first half? That's the first question. The second question is regarding the next phase of Kinsevere development. We note that the board approval has been delayed from last year to this year, so it has been already almost one year of delay. I'd like to understand more about the reason behind that. Is there something to do with the government's approval, or is it just more of an issue with the internal studies? Thank you.
Thanks, Chris. I will ask Ross to answer the first question, and I will take the second one. Ross, over to you.
Thanks, Geoffrey. Hi, Chris. Chris, we're not really in a position to specifically answer your question yet, because we're obviously still finalizing our financial accounts. The debt reduction was really a combination of the equity raise, the much stronger copper prices in particular than what we expected, plus the sell-down of the inventory. When we come to the half year presentation, we'll make sure that that's clear for you, and we've got precise numbers.
Okay. Chris, regarding the KEP approval, as I mentioned, we are still optimizing the engineering studies of this project. I think two things behind prolong this process. One thing is, in this project, we plan to use Chinese factors as much as possible. In fact, we established a project team mainly comprised of Chinese managers, Chinese engineers, and we are looking for Chinese design, Chinese equipment, and even Chinese construction services. This all Chinese factor to make them fit in MMG's existing system took longer than we expected. That's one complexity. The second one is, during the studying process, in fact, we had risk of the capital expenditure overrun because of the booming commodity prices related, steel price, equipment price, other things.
We took another round of optimization to review the CapEx and make sure we can have as low as possible CapEx budget to support this project. We are still in that stage, even though I believe we are very close to the end of this work. Next step is to look to seek the approval from the board and then get this project implemented.
Thanks. Understood. Thank you very much, Geoffrey and Ross. Thank you.
Thank you. Your final question comes from Hannah Yang from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, Geoffrey and hi, Ross. This is Hannah from Morgan Stanley. Just have a quick follow-up question on the policies in Peru. We have been hearing that the next possible finance minister in Peru had been saying that taxes will go up, but in a moderate way, no matter the company have the tax stability agreement on hand or not. Just wondering how you see the likelihood of the tax increase, or if the new government team breaks the tax stability agreement, what the company can do to mitigate the potential risk from the higher tax. Thanks.
Thanks, Hannah. I'll pass this question to Ross. Ross?
All right. Yeah, thanks, Hannah. I think at this stage it's obviously quite unclear as to what's going to happen. We're obviously sort of considering all scenarios, but we really just have to sit back and wait and see what the government announces. The copper industry is one of the biggest industries in Peru, so it is a big risk for them to particularly have a mining-related tax. Certainly if, depending on what the taxes are, if we do end up having our stability agreement breached, we have options of international arbitration as a potential to break that stalemate. Yeah, it's obviously a concerning situation. We're trying to do what assessment we can, but it's still very early days with the new government not in place, and I don't believe the finance minister's been formally appointed yet either.
It is just an unpredictable situation at this point.
Oh, sure. Thanks. Just wondering if, except the international arbitration, what else we can do about the tax increase, if possible?
Well, yeah, international arbitration is the most likely outcome. I guess, going back in history, back in 2011, they had a similar situation where there was a bit of a Resource Super Profits Tax that was in place during extremely high prices. We really have to wait and see what the government proposes. Obviously, with having the stability agreement, we're not going to agree to something that's, or if anything, that's going to hurt us too much. Arbitration, and then there's bilateral trade treaties as well, which may come into force, too. At this stage, it's options for us, but a little bit too early to tell.
Oh, yeah.
Thank you.
clarify that the arbitration, or it's something we can look at, that's a possible option. Right now, as Ross mentioned, because the new government hasn't been in place and we are waiting for the proposal or the requirements from the government. Then we will decide what will be our next move. It's, at the moment, too early to be certain on any move or any action. Just to clarify. Thanks. Okay. Sure. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question is a follow-up from Jack Shang. Please go ahead.
Hey, thanks. Thanks, Geoffrey and Ross. A quick one for Ross. I want to clarify the nature of the hedging gain for the company. That $35 million at Las Bambas level, was that as a result of the actual, say, price of copper is actually lower than the hedge level of copper price? Does that mean that if actually copper price shoots up in the rest of the year, that would potentially, in the meantime, cause some hedging losses? Just want to understand the nature of this. On a separate note, what's the company's overall stance? I noticed that you've hedged 40% of the volumes from February over December. At what copper price level did you decide to do that, and at what level would you potentially open to hedge even more, to make even more hedging?
Your overall view on copper price and your hedging policy going forward. Thanks, Ross.
Yeah. Okay, Jack. Jack, those hedging gains that you'll see when we release our half-year results, they're actually forward hedges on existing sales that we made in that February to June period. Some of them had a four-month QP period. What we effectively did was brought the four months back to one month at a fixed price. We did that because we had absolute certainty over those hedged volumes. Then obviously, I think that some of the hedges were put in place up around $4.50- $4.70. Then there was all the talk of the Chinese releasing strategic reserves. We thought it was prudent to just lock in those QP periods on the existing sales. That's what they are. Now, the bulk of our hedging are actually collars or caps and collars.
I think you'll see in the documentation that we've got quite a broad price range.
The floor price seems to be around $4.10. In some cases, the collar price is above $5. We probably, in reality, don't expect there to be too much room for hedging gains or losses because it's around about $1 a pound that we swing within the collars. For us to incur significant hedging losses, that would mean that the price would have to be well above $5, which would be an exceptional outcome and we would still have the other 50% of production that we'll be getting the, well, roughly 50% that we'll be getting the full market proceeds for. Yeah. It was really, last year we did some hedges that obviously incurred a loss. This year, even though we're using forward contracts, this year we've gone to the cap and collar situation where we're really within quite a broad range.
Yes, we wouldn't expect there'd be significant hedges, hedging gains or losses for the rest of this year or early next year.
Okay, great. Thanks, Ross.
Yeah.
Thank you, Jack. Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back for closing remarks. Oh, okay. Thank you everyone for time and support to the company, and I look forward to providing further updates when we do our mid-year result announcement. If you have any further questions, please follow up with our investor relations or corporate affairs top teams. Goodbye. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect