Hey, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Kazatomprom's 2022 Analyst Day. My name is Cory Kos. I'm the company's International Adviser to Investor Relations, and I'll be jointly presenting alongside Botagoz Muldagaliyeva, our Director of IR. We're running today's event, as you can see, from Astana, Kazakhstan. You heard me right. It is Astana, no longer Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan. The Kazatomprom office has not been moved. We're in the same place we always were, but the city's been renamed back to what it was. In reality, it's not too much of a change for most folks here because Astana in Kazakh does mean the capital. The capital has been renamed back to the capital. It's a beautiful city that you see behind us, and welcome to everybody that was able to come here in person.
To introduce today's hosts from the management team, first of all, we have our formal introduction of our new CEO, Mr. Yerzhan Mukanov. He's been in the role for about a month now. We have our Chief Commercial Officer, Mr. Askar Batyrbayev, and we have our Chief Financial Officer, Mrs. Kamila Syzdykova. From our Board today, we have our Board Chairman, Mr. Neil Longfellow, as well as the group here, we also have our Independent Board Members, Mr. Russell Banham and Mr. Marc Kasher. The usual warning that I have to give is that please note that this will include some forward-looking statements. Statements are including all matters that are not historical facts. By their nature, they involve risk and uncertainty, and they're not guarantees of future performance.
The company does not make any representation, warranty, or prediction that the results of such forward-looking statements will be achieved. This event is aimed at the investment community, of course, and that FLI warning, I think, is particularly relevant for today's discussion because we've intentionally called this an Analyst Day because of the somewhat modeling component we will have involved just to address some of the confusion, some of the specific questions that we've heard over the past few years. That piece of it will use some disclosed CPR information, which we will highlight. In terms of long-term modeling and interpretation of the specific context of the question that we're covering is important because you have to take everything we say in the context of our overall value-focused strategy.
Aside from the information we disclose on guidance for the current year, we don't disclose specific guidance beyond that, aside from the production strategy for 2023 and 2024 as you've seen. Just note that there will be information presented to you and discussed today that is from the CPR, which is not considered a part of the guidance, I guess. The plan this afternoon is to have the management team take us through a series of presentations, including the consolidation workshop at the end, and we'll conclude with a Q&A with our team today. Before we begin, in recognition of Kazatomprom's 25th anniversary, which was this past July, I give you 25 facts about Kazatomprom, a short video we have.
As you can see, the company's come a very long way since producing about 800 tons, which is about 2 million pounds, back when it was established in 1997. At this point, to formally kick things off, although the entire event is intended to be somewhat informal, we have Mr. Neil Longfellow. I'll pass to him as Kazatomprom's Board Chair for his remarks.
Thank you, Cory. Thank you very much. That's a great video, isn't it? 25 facts of superb performance as far as I'm concerned, and very proud to be part of that business. It's a great business and a great place to be. Thank you everybody for coming today and online. It's great that we managed to be here in person, particularly the Independent Directors, as Cory's introduced them as Marc and Russell. We're gonna have, you know, the opportunity to discuss anything that you wish, informally and formally. You know, these guys have got great brains and have lots of intelligence to answer the questions that hopefully you'll bring to us. You know, it'll be. I'm really looking forward to the day. I really appreciate your time.
I think, you know, starting back from that video, you can see that we've celebrated 25 years anniversary in past July. We'll be also, which is critically important, marking four years as a public company on November 14th. That launch at the LSE, I was there. It was absolutely a great time and opportunity for Kazatomprom. Without any doubt in the last four years, it's clear that the Board and the Management team, we've remained dedicated to that transparency, building credibility, keeping an open dialogue with the stakeholders. All the team worked really hard doing that. Most importantly, following through the strategy at the time that we laid out of the IPO. That's critical to our success.
We review that value -focused strategy on a frequent basis, particularly with the industry developments over the past couple of years, volatility that we've witnessed over the last several months. It's vitally important for us as an organization that we focus on that. We also monitor on a regular basis any growth opportunities in other segments of the fuel cycle. Just as a side issue, for those who don't know me, I've worked in every part of the fuel cycle, from, you know, mining now, but all the way through operating a nuclear facility to reprocess and decommissioning. It's great to be in the front end. Within those growth opportunities, you know, an example is in the conversion market, pricing has reached historic highs, and it's something that we're, you know, we need to keep a close eye on.
It's a key part of the fuel cycle, and without it, we wouldn't operate this scale of nuclear reactors across the world, which we're the biggest seller of uranium into. Without any doubt, I believe we can confidently say that our current mining-focused strategy remains just as appropriate and valid today as when it was established four years ago. It's at the center of the five pillars supporting that strategy. We signal the focus on our core business of uranium mining. Today, that focus remains totally unchanged, absolutely critical in terms of success. Despite recent economic improvements and supply-demand developments across each component of the nuclear fuel cycle, there's no doubt in my mind, in the Board and the Company's mind, the greatest value continues to be found in Kazakhstan's low cost, in situ recovery uranium mines.
Our position as a national operator with priority access to the country's uranium deposits continues to be a key competitive advantage, which is expected to continue driving substantial value for our shareholders. I think we've proved and demonstrated that in terms of the value of the dividends that we've paid. Our focus on the business of uranium mining, we naturally laid out our plans with the strategy to optimize value for those assets by allowing market conditions and our sales portfolio to guide our production plans, which we believe is the right way to do this. We began by implementing a three-year plan to maintain a decreased annual production level, reducing by a maximum of 20% allowed under the subsoil use contracts with the Kazakh government.
That decrease played a major role in bringing global uranium supply back into balance, with demand gradually pushing it into deficit to work through the inventories and oversupply that built up in the previous decade. Again, critical to success in our mind, and our strategy has been wholly focused on that. While some parties may have initially questioned our commitment to that strategy and the market conditions changed, we've proven that we're a company that does what it says it will do. As you know, we delivered on that plan, but subsequently extended that -20% production strategy to 2021, 2022, 2023. The Board approved that. In 2024, we're also pleased to announce that we've approved a shift in this production strategy to a decrease of 10% against the subsoil use agreements.
We again believe that that's driven for the right reasons and the right market position. The key factor that we assessed in making that decision was the market condition and the Company's success in building a strong sales portfolio. As it is the sales book that is driving our production and not the other way around, which I think is, you know, really important. Inventories are important. We need to maintain that, but the sales book drives our production. We are adjusting production according to our pipeline of negotiations and the value-added middle and long-term contracts we've successfully signed with utilities around the world. Askar just flown back in from America again with, you know, more success in his pocket.
That is to say that additional production has a place in the market, and we're not undertaking the unhedged approach of hoping sales will come to us if we produce more. The overall value strategy to be effective, we needed to expand and build new customer relationships, requiring a concerted effort to enhance our marketing sales activities. You can see from the video how many customers we've achieved over the last four years. The strength of our marketing team and their interaction with the market has matured substantially under the strong leadership of Askar. Through the team's effort to engage broadly with the nuclear utilities from around the world, the Company is delivering on our target to long-term value growth. In fact, the shift of production volumes up to -10% in 2024 is only possible thanks to those contracting successes.
While production and sales have driven Kazatomprom's economic success, there's little doubt none of this would be possible without the efficient business processes and a corporate culture defined by robust safety as priority number one, environmental, social, and governance programs that meet international standards and expectations, critically important to us. With the new global attention on nuclear energy, its supply chains, its new categories of ESG and sustainability-focused stakeholders have set a high expectation for non-financial metrics. ESG has been well integrated into our business for a long time, with strong programs and high standards that reinforce ESG alignment and efficiency. Since the time of IPO, we've continued to do more and will continue to keep doing it.
Environmentally, our mines employ the best-in-class in situ recovery mining method, which is the most environmentally friendly uranium production method that minimizes impact on the environment, biodiversity, water resources, and public health. Socially, with all of our operations located in Kazakhstan, the country and the Kazakh people have continued to benefit from the significant resource base that underpins our place as the largest low-cost producer in the world. As Chair of the Board, I have prioritized, along with the other independent directors, strong governance and alignment with international best practices in our strategic discussions, policies, and decision-making. In terms of specific recent progress, in 2022, Kazatomprom became a full member of the United Nations Global Compact, the world's largest corporate sustainability initiative. We're in process of completing the development of medium and long-term ESG goals with specific quantitative and qualitative targets.
The company continues to work on obtaining an independent ESG rating with a plan to have that rating in place in the very near future. Although four years, it's not really all that long in time, especially in the context of the nuclear industry, we are operating in where midterm can be nearly a decade. The Company's indeed made a great deal of progress and come a very long way. Going forward, we expect to continue growing our business to generate long-term value while maintaining a disciplined commercial approach, striving to exceed expectations around HSE policy, sustainability, and corporate governance. At that point, I'd like to thank you all again for joining us today and look forward to our discussions. I'll hand back to Cory. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Neil Longfellow. Thank you to the other Board Members who were able to join us in person here today as well. Focusing on our agenda now, we'll move into the corporate presentations, and we're gonna start with Mr. Mukanov, who will then hand off to each speaker from there on. I myself, I'm just coming up on 20 years exclusively in the nuclear industry, spanning a career in exploration geology, corporate strategy, ERM, insurance, now Investor Relations. As the IRO here at KAP, I was extremely pleased to see the appointment of Mr. Mukanov as our new CEO, as his background is similarly diverse across different roles in the sector. Just a quick background on Mr. Mukanov. He took the CEO position mid-September, as you know.
He did so after being our Chief Commercial Officer since March. A Kazakh citizen, he graduated in 1999 with a degree in metallurgy and completed related postgraduate studies in 2003. In 2009, he graduated from Paris School of Mines , majoring in Economic Assessment of Mining Projects. In 2021, he completed an Executive MBA. He worked in a number of academic and technical roles prior to joining the Kazatomprom group in 2006 as a process engineer at JV KATCO. From 2012 to 2014, he worked as a production development coordinator at Areva Mines in Paris, and then returned to Kazakhstan, holding several senior positions at a few of our Kazatomprom operations, including JV KATCO, Kazatomprom-SaUran, Karatau, and Semizbay-U. I'll hand off to you, Mr. Mukanov.
I appreciate that introduction, Cory. Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm pleased to welcome you in Kazakhstan 2022 Analyst Day. A special thanks again to those in the room. Despite the relatively short notice for this event and for ongoing global travel challenges, you made it here to visit us in person. Today marks the third time since our London and Astana IPO in 2018 that we have engaged with the investment community by hosting an event like this. In the fall of 2019, we hosted a Capital Markets Day in London. In March of 2020, we did the same for local audience in the Astana Stock Exchange. We had intended to make it an annual event, but we all know what happened after March 2020.
Our business, along with every business in every sector across the globe, was suddenly facing the pandemic risk. Regardless of how robust the enterprise risk management program and how carefully plans were laid, very few companies could have anticipated the deep impact, nor did anyone expect such an event to have lasted as long as it was. At Kazatomprom, our ERM system were activated, and we quickly adapted to protect the health and safety of our employees, while at the same time keeping our commitments to our customers and proving to be a reliable supplier. Despite the upset conditions, modest impact on well field development and production, we also continued to deliver meaningful value for our investors and stakeholders. In both 2020 and 2021, we exceeded dividend expectations and maintained a strong valuation.
More recently in 2022, we have faced new challenges as a country, as a company, and across the nuclear industry. In January, the tragic events in Kazakhstan drove speculations that Kazatomprom could fail to meet its obligations, which I can proudly say was not the case. The Company once again adapted and succeeded. Although the events had little impact on the Company itself, it was an extremely difficult time for our people, their families, local communities, and the nation as a whole. It shook global perception regarding social stability in Kazakhstan, and as a National Company operating in the country, Kazatomprom saw a greater focus on perceiving ESG related risks. On a positive note, we have seen some good changes in the country as a result.
Shortly afterwards in late February, the world saw the Russian conflict began in Ukraine, where even now 244 days later, 45 days later, we are still witnessing senseless and hearts breaking pain and suffering on a daily basis. The conflict has driven regional tension to unprecedented high, and once again shifted regional and industry risk profiles and increased economic uncertainty all over the world. As was the case when we were managing through the pandemic, the supply chain shocks that followed and the January events, Kazatomprom finds itself having to remind stakeholders that we will do that what is required to meet expectations and commitments. We have put a significant amount of time and effort into establishing a strong reputation for transparency and credibility.
We believe that throughout these challenging developments and unprecedented conditions, we have proven to our investors, customers, and all stakeholders, time and time again, that we will deliver on the value strategy that Neil highlighted. Our governance system ensures our decisions, actions, and disclosures are aligned with the high standard expected of any international public company. However, we are also well aware that geopolitics have had a significant impact on stakeholders' perception of Kazakhstan, and that translates to concerns about Kazatomprom's operating environment. I cannot sit here today and claim these risks and concerns are completely invalid. We have all seen how difficult social conditions and unrest can develop in even the most stable nations. Every stakeholder will have a different perspective and a risk tolerance based on their understanding and experience.
Therefore, from a communication perspective, our job is to repeatedly share our strong belief that the balance of risk and reward has shifted significantly in favor of Kazatomprom. The Company has an exceptional opportunity to fuel nuclear power's revival as a critical contributor to the global clean energy revolution, which is well underway. Neil provided an excellent summary of our production and sales strategy with a focus on health and safety. Under the value strategy, no company in this sector stands to benefit more from improving sentiment and higher uranium prices than Kazatomprom. With a well-established and transparent dividend policy, our shareholders can expect to benefit from that improvement as well. Our commitment to delivering on that strategy should be clear, and that drives Kazatomprom's value proposition in investment thesis. Similar to the strategy, the investment thesis has not changed significantly since the IPO.
We are the world's largest producer, with over 40% of the world's primarily mined uranium coming from our mines. From our share of joint ventures and our 100% owned assets, we provide about 25% of the world's uranium, and we are delivering the tons from our low cost operations that all use a flexible ISR method, which can quickly respond to changes in market conditions. As a national operator, we have priority access to Kazakhstan's uranium reserves and resources, which is the largest reserve base in the world that can be extracted by ISR method. We continue to successfully expand our portfolio with the new and existing customers from all over the world, and we remain well-positioned for continued growth with room to expand production in line with sales.
Our strong financial position is expected to become even stronger based on the positive sentiment in the nuclear and uranium markets. As I said, we are committed to sustainable returns. Our HSE records is among the best in the mining sector, and we continue to strengthen our ESG related programs and policies. Finally, we take pride in the high governance standards that have guided our decisions and actions over the past four years. We continue to adjust and improve those standards as our operating environment evolves. We firmly believe those investors that see value in the uranium sector and believe in the very positive prospects for the future of the nuclear industry can recognize that taken all together, these elements create opportunities for Kazatomprom to capture significant value. This and those opportunities outweigh even today's increased regional risks.
Thank you again for your audience and for your attention. I would like to invite our Chief Commercial Officer, Askar, who is also now in charge of strategy and ESG. Mr. Askar, to take the floor, please.
Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Mukanov, for your introduction and for your presentation. Before going into the discussion over the market and over the transportation issues, which I think now is of the most interest for everyone, kind of I'll just briefly show a couple of slides on my new role, about strategy and ESG, which is the part of the strategy and sustainable development of the Company. As was noted by all the previous speakers, Kazatomprom has joined the UN Global Compact in March 2022. We highlighted or identified six priority directions which we are going to focus. You can see all of them on the slides.
You know, being the part of that UN Global is a big event for Kazatomprom, and we will keep that high part that we've committed. On the next slide, we will see the key figures of our ESG. We have a strong ESG performance. We have been highlighting this for 10 years after we came on IPO. We've been disclosing most of that factors there, but it was in the different sectors of our annual financial report or integrated report. This year we will be doing our best to acquire the first ESG rating. We already have a contract and contact with the company which we're working with, so these figures will be the foundation for that, for applying that ESG rating.
On the next slide, that's the Q3 update, which we're showing in our trading update. I mean, we would most probably make a better and bigger report whenever we acquire an ESG rating, and then we will show the qualitative metrics, what we're having now and where are we going throughout the global plan, which Kazakhstan will also have in terms of decarbonization by 2060 as the government and as the Company will definitely satisfy some of those parameters that the government will be taking as well. With this, I mean, we will definitely go for the market now. Again, as was indicated many times, we are committed to the market discipline, what it has given for ourselves.
We made an approach and made the first announcements back in 2017 that we will be decreasing. It wasn't, you know, the reaction of the market was when we made our first mentioning about decrease of the uranium, I mean, the price didn't move a single digit at that time, so no one has actually believed that we would be doing this. After we made an IPO and made a three-year plan, we've made a decrease within the subsoil use contracts at the maximum allowable level of -20%. We showed the commitment within three years and extended it for the next three years or 2021, 2022, and 2023, as Neil noted. Again, we've added a 2024, but already at -10%.
All these efforts in total, I mean, we removed like 44,000 tons of the uranium. We removed and we will be removing by the end of 2024. I mean, it's equivalent to like 70% of the global demand by nuclear power plants annual demand, which is a huge amount. I mean, no other companies in the world did the same thing. We, as responsible producers, had to do this step to make sure that we will have a healthy market in the future that will benefit for all the, kind of, participants of the market, especially for utilities and for producers as well. Kind of a little bit showing up for the decision of 2024 for -10%.
Again, as Neil and as Mr. Mukanov noted, we did it just for the reasons that we were talking about with all the investors for so many times. We had a good impact on our sales portfolio, which was the main trigger for us to increase the production, which is still decreased in comparison to subsoil use levels. We're seeing good signals from the market in terms of supply and demand, but also we are seeing the interest from utilities, which is transferred in increased contract portfolio for our side. We have shown that shift in the sentiment of utilities in our production plans for 2024. We hope that maybe we'll have a better impact in 2025, but we'll see. We have a good belief.
What we were telling to the market, how we were acting, actually we're showing that consistency in all our guidances and plans. In terms of supply and demand, which you're seeing here, we've engaged UxC and asked their permission to share the kind of their supply and demand outlook as long as we are not using our outlook, and we are not sharing it as the biggest producer. We are using a third-party data. All of you know UxC is a credible, well-known company along with TradeTech as well. What we're seeing and what we can tell now for sure is the oversupply period is over. That's done.
We have some small shifts in terms of supply and demand but generally, I mean, we can see that there is no oversupply on the market already. That's a good sign. We're moving along with the demand. The gray area which you are seeing there is actually so-called secondary demand or unconventional demand, as we're saying. It's coming as an interest from financials. Whenever in any market we see an interest for financials, that means that the product is becoming hot and becoming interesting not by those who use it, but by those who also see a very good potential of the growth of that market.
I mean, our internal view here is that secondary demand from financials is a little bit more kind of pessimistic from the UxC. What we hear and what we see on the financial part of the market is actually it has much more demand on the uranium than it's shown here. We had a lot of conversation during various conferences, and I mean, the WNA conference this year had, I think, the record number of financial institutions attending and requesting meetings and requesting kind of exposure to natural uranium.
I might guess that with their arrival to the market and kind of capital markets being back and they are being able to raise the capital there, I mean, they could create much more demand and excitement over that midterm. I don't think that it will be for the long term, but in a short and midterm, I'm pretty sure that they will have or they will create a great competition to utilities in terms of any available pounds on the spot market. Which will also kind of most probably push utilities to consider a long-term supply kind of securities that they have to make in order to make sure that they will have an operation that cannot be interrupted for the future.
Generally, that's all for the supply and demand here. As long as we've mentioned the kind of secondary demand, one of the latest and we are receiving a lot of questions from all the stakeholders about the announced physical uranium fund in Kazakhstan. The ANU Energy Fund has already been established. It's at AIFC, Astana International Financial Centre. The first stage has passed. They have attracted $74 million from the cornerstone investors, and now they are engaged with the different discussions with other private and small investors, considering a different type of the attracting investors with the private ones and going for IPO as well. What we would like to say, I mean, we are not controlling the fund. The fund is completely independent.
We are just an investor, cornerstone investor. What we would like to show here is not that we would like to sell all the balance material to them, but rather we would like to establish a similar uranium fund in Kazakhstan, attracting investors to Kazakhstan and helping them to grow here. Which makes sense as long as 40% of the global uranium is produced in Kazakhstan. They have their own website, they have a good team, they are already responding to all the investors and engaging them. What we can give as an update is that part, but we are not aware of where they are now, how much they attracted. They have their own team. You can access them and discuss. I think they have an office in Nur-Sultan or in Astana here.
Yeah, we're also still managing this part. If you have any questions, we would be very happy to give their contacts, link for their website. You can go to them. If you have an interest to be a part of their investment portfolio, we are more than happy to connect you to them. Another part that is not in the UxC's kind of model is also discussed, potential future uranium trading hub that was announced by CNNC at one of the conferences in 2021. They've notified that they will be building a storage, a huge storage, at the border of China and Kazakhstan. By 2026, that storage will grow to 23,000 tons.
Actually, their idea is not just having a storage or an inventory build up, as they were always doing, but also to create a kind of trading opportunity for all the participants there. I mean, we all know that China is one of the biggest at the moment, but will become the biggest market in the future with their construction tempos that they have with the nuclear power plants that they are building, and they already got all the approvals. They will become the biggest market, and that single point on the map that you are seeing there is actually having much more material passing through that point on the map than globally in the world, I guess. It's just a comparison. It's very interesting how they will be able to adopt the trading idea there, how it will work.
I guess that they will need to change a lot of the laws, and allowing the investors to come and hold physical uranium is still not very well known. What we can also update is they have already completed the first stage, which is construction of the area for 3,000 tons. It's been done, and actually the storage area is already full. They've put their own material there. Now they are in the process of building or expanding the area for 13,000 tons, which is already huge. I mean, it's 4x more than they already have there. Actually, by the end of 2023, they are considering to bring that idea of trading hub, and that might add an additional demand in terms of what we had seen on that model.
Kind of competition for the free volumes, I guess, would be very tough and very interesting. We're waiting with excitement to see what this idea could be. In terms of nuclear fuel procurement, that's also well shared by UxC. I mean, you can see that the kind of procurement of conversion and enrichment is much better than the procurement volumes of natural uranium. It makes sense, especially in the current geopolitical context, when the consideration of the utilities to replace Russian capacities, they will definitely start from the conversion and enrichment, and then the turn will come to natural uranium. It's not a secret that natural uranium is available in the world.
There is no shortage of that, but the issue is the price of recovery of this uranium. Whenever the issue of securing the volumes for conversion and enrichment, especially if the decision is taken to replace the Russian capacities, is solved, I mean, the high demand will come to the primary producers to secure the volumes to substitute or even to reach those volumes. We're seeing that the actions from the utilities in terms of making a security of supply for future is already started, but they have a long way to go to make sure that they have these volumes, especially after 2030.
The next decade would be tough for utilities, if we don't start this conversation in the middle of this decade. I mean, all producers have to make their investment program to make sure that we are well invested and well developing our resources to make sure that they have the fuel that they will need for the next decade and to fulfill the commitments that they have already taken in terms of decarbonization and kind of all the plans by 2050 and 2060. On the next slide, we would like just to show or give a very brief sales overview and see how we are trying to diversify our sales portfolio. It's not a secret that we have a wealthy geographical position in terms of our neighbors.
Kind of, what two big markets are actually our boundary neighbors, like China and Russia. The dependence on Chinese deliveries is understandable somehow, but we wanted to we went to IPO and tried to go for Western markets, we tried to diversify our portfolio as much as possible. You can see that, kind of in American market, if you take only Kazatomprom, we were like 10% of our sales were in U.S., and by 2021, we've reached 23% and we are trying to sign as much contracts as possible to make a portfolio well-diversified, not depending on a single customer or a single country. That work is still continued. We are kind of we are not sitting in Kazakhstan.
The whole marketing and sales team are meeting all the customers, and we would like to keep that portfolio as diversified as possible, especially in the current kind of geopolitical environment. With this, we would like to also show the price sensitivity table. What we would like to stress here is, don't use it as a prediction or as a commitment. It's the current portfolio, so whenever any new long-term contract is signed, it changes this. That's how it looks now. We have received a lot, some questions on the conferences, on the calls with investors, with some of our stakeholders that there is a decoupling of average realized price and the market price. On the next slide, we will show how the TPL is working.
Generally, at some point of time, there could be a sharp increase in the market price and some of the contracts could be already priced in the period before, which is causing that misunderstanding when actually it's like the price is going up and why is your average realized price is not there. If you look for financial results, not only Kazatomprom but Cameco, you see the same situation. It's the unique feature, I guess, of the market which we're having here.
Within the next slide, we've after we got all the questions from the investors, how the transfer pricing works, as we were saying that we are having market-related pricing, they were saying, "Well, we're not seeing it in your results, in your kind of sales." That's our transfer pricing legislation. We have the market-related contracts, but the set of the contracts is a little bit different. We have a short-term contract, which is using a market-related price at the time when you send an offer, and it's still market-related price. Some of the investors are calling it, I don't know, fixed price, but the price is fixed on the market basis at the time of sending an offer. Actually the delivery might happen within eight to nine months after the price is fixed.
That might cause a kind of different pricing, and it actually causes this difference between average realized price and market price whenever we can have some sharp increase at some certain period of time. This slide is available on our website. We are sharing it. If you have any questions, I myself or our marketing team can go into the details and explain how it works. On another slide, there's I think one of the top and hot topics after the February, so, and after the January as well. We were receiving a lot of questions about how we are going to secure or make sure that our customers will receive the product.
We were not till this year, we were not disclosing that we have an alternative route just because, I mean, we didn't need it to disclose, the normal commercial route via St. Petersburg was working perfectly and is working now. Our last shipment through St. Pete was done in July, and it successfully was delivered to one of the conversion facilities. However, from 2018, we're looking for an opportunities to see if there is any alternative. Considering the specificity of our cargo, which is Class 7 cargo, not every country or every region would accept or allow to make that transportation. There was a World Cup in Russia. For three months, we couldn't move our material through St. Petersburg because the venues had to close those areas and did not allow any Class 7 transportation.
It was applicable for ourselves, for all Russian producers and Uzbekistan. These are the three countries that were hurt by this decision. We started to look. There was already an established route from China to Europe, which was avoiding Russia, so it was Trans-Caspian International Transport Route. It was well established from 2015. It was accepting all general cargos. We just extended that route for Class 7 cargos. We explained to all the countries on the transit route that we have all the measures in place. We had a hard work in 2018.
By the end of 2018, we've managed to do the first shipment to Orano to France. Actually, we've seen that the transportation time through this route to Orano is actually much shorter than if you go through St. Pete. Since 2018, we've made at least one shipment a year, and we've made deliveries to all possible destinations that we could. After February this year, we decided to disclose and show how it is done, where it is done. On WNA, we showed some photos of the delivery process, what ferries, what vessels we use, where it's stored in the port of the Black Sea. This has been shared, so we would like to be as transparent as possible.
Also as a plan for next year, we are not just sitting and hoping that this would be just the only route or only alternative route, but also we are in close discussions with China for several years already to make sure that we could be using their territory to be as another alternative to make shipments of our material. Also in terms of Georgia and Black Sea, we understand that there is much more potential on Mediterranean Sea. Turkey, sooner or later, will become the country that will be using a nuclear power plant, so they will allow the nuclear goods transportation. We would like to help them and maybe just set up some legislative documents maybe a little bit earlier than it will be when they will have a first nuclear power plant.
We are in discussion with Turkey, maybe just to turn the route from Georgia to Turkey and go to Mersin seaport, which has much better location in terms of access to all destinations we would like to send. Also as we were saying on all last conferences, we are also considering the possibility to use air shipments. We have one successful air shipment in our history. I mean, with the current price improvement and with the current kind of sharp increase in the sea transportation fees that we're seeing across the world, I mean, these prices at some point could be comparable, and we might consider using an air shipment if that's required, and that would also give additional alternative and variety to our Company.
We have to remember that we also have the swap, location swaps, which is kind of normal or good practice in our industry. It could be, let's say, delivered to China with one of the customers giving the similar volumes at one of the western converters, which is normal thing and which we are using at least for the last 10 years. In that sense, we are very well diversified and kind of feeling comfortable to make sure that we will be delivering the quantities to our customers. For me, the last but not the least slide is just kind of short slide on our FA plant. We are also well diversified within the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle.
We also have fuel assembly plant which already made the first delivery of the fuel assemblies to Chinese customer. We made a successful delivery to them. I think in our annual report, we'll disclose much more information. We're also keeping our feet in every part of the nuclear fuel cycle in case it becomes hot and interesting, and we'll have a long-term interest from other industry participants from the utilities. If that interest will have some long-term commitments from them, we might consider going into other parts of the nuclear fuel cycle. As Neil said, especially kind of currently, we're seeing a spike in conversion. We have a conversion technology. We have a possibility to build a conversion plant.
If that's translated into the great value, we might be coming to the board to discuss this issue. With this, I would like to pass the floor to Kamila, and thank you.
Thank you, Askar . Hello, everyone. First of all, I would like to thank you all for coming to our online and offline audience. It's really great that you shared your time with us. I must say that, for us, for the team, your interest is one of the biggest motivation and drivers behind our operational changes. Thank you very much. I think, I will start from is just really briefly what our business is all about. It's our 14 mining entities that are located where we have 24 deposits in total. All of them are located in the southern Kazakhstan, and all of them are producing uranium, natural uranium using ISR approach.
The basic idea and our Chairman and CEO noted about the ISR approach is that we would inject low acidified solutions on the ground, dissolve the uranium and pump the pregnant solution up, process it, and then re-acidify the solutions back and inject them back. It's really closed circulation process. We have the studies proving that upon decommissioning the groundwater they return to its pre-mining chemistry and, you know, through natural process. Basically, today, we will walk you through some financial modeling that hints that can be useful for you. I just would like to start that part saying and reminding that Kazatomprom has 14 mining entities, each entity having its own approach to consolidation. Like mainly the idea that we have subsidiaries, joint ventures, joint operations and associates.
You are seeing the respective interest in each of the entity. There is a slight note that for Budenovskoye, maybe you don't see just the note, we will be starting full consolidation from 2024. On the dividend policy, since Company went public in 2018, we have developed a policy that would address the interest and balance carefully the interest of all the stakeholders. Basically, this is the main document, and for us, the main principle that guides our capital allocation decisions. I must say that it's a very careful and neat balance between current profitability and the really free cash flow that company generates and our future growth needs and growth opportunities.
As Neil and Yerzhan point out, our strategy is to maximize value and benefit from significantly raising uranium prices. Dividend policy is the core instrument that would allocate those free cash flows between Company and its stakeholders. Here also on the slide, you can see very impressive picture of how dividends more than doubled in three years. Company initially promised at the time of IPO to pay not less than $200 million, and we have exceeded it right away from 2018, paying KZT 227 billion for our 2021 results. Just today, we have announced our Q4, or sorry, Q3 highlights, and I don't know if some of you had a chance to look at it.
Basically, the idea is that on a production level, we are almost at the same level as for the nine months of the last year, doing more than 15,000 tons on a 100% basis. The small deviation is mostly because we are still experiencing issues related to the shortage of some of the key components such as sulfuric acid. We also have a lower attributable production, and partly it is due to the fact that Company has changed its structure by selling Ortalyk, so attributable production would change as well. For the sales volumes on a group level, we have 58% more sales for this year than for the same period of the last year. On headquarters levels, it's almost 80% higher.
The main idea is that we work according to the customer request, so as the request change, the deliveries would change as well. On the realized price, Askar really did a great job explaining how our contracting strategies and pricing strategies work. We had a higher 40% increase in our realized price, and we had 55% increase in the related spot price. As you know, for the quarterly result, we mostly report on the physical numbers, not the financial indicators. On this slide, I just would like to take this opportunity to remind one more time how strong financially Kazatomprom is. For six months, Company reported a net cash position of almost $600 million.
As a CFO personally, and we have been discussing this with many of you, I admit that capital structure isn't really ideal in terms of the WACC, I mean, the Internal Rate of Return. At the same time, we've very carefully balancing and reviewing the investment projects to make sure they're compelling enough and the returns they generate would satisfy all of our stakeholders. At the same time, I think I would take this opportunity to say that we are considering a couple of projects along the supply chain. Last week, our CEO has introduced a new sulfuric acid plant project to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
We are going to build a sulfuric acid plant in Turkistan that would allow us to secure supply of this key component that is required in our production process. We will be announcing more details on the required capital expenditures when we receive the project design. I just can say that the expected duration of the implementation of this project is four years from 2022 to 2026. We also have in mind one important project where we would modernize and add additional processing facilities to UMP, to the uranium processing plant. Basically the idea is to increase capacity, but at the same time change the technology so that we would minimize the liquid waste from the uranium production at our UMP plant.
This is after TVS was announced, this is the second biggest project that will be implemented at UMP, and this is very important development from ESG perspective as well. Again, once we finalize the details in terms of the cost structure, we will announce it separately. Also you should know that every year along the line, respective share of the capital expenditures will be included in the annual guidance as usual. Reiterating 2022 guidances, we are almost close to the year-end. Again, we are reiterating our commitment to develop strategy. Mostly our guidances for this year stay unchanged. We on C1 level, we expect to stay closer to the lowest part of the range, yet might be just slightly within the range, but closer to the lowest part of it.
The only guidance we have reviewed this time in the trading update we published today is the capital expenditures. We have revised them downwards by KZT 10 billion, and it is mostly related to the fact that, as I explained before and as I mentioned before, we have an issue related to the shortage of the sulfuric acid. Sulfuric acid is used in our acidification process that is treated as capital expenditures. Those expenses are capitalized. That's why we have lower expenditures there. There are also some delays in the modernization projects that we have. Basically that leads to the slight revision of the capital expenditure guidance downwards.
I think, with that, I would like to complete the introductory part related to Kazatomprom's financials and overview of this. In the following presentation, we will be doing the analysis and give you some hints on the financial modeling. Before that, I would ask IR to start that part of our presentation. Thank you.
Thank you, Kamila. Good afternoon, everyone. As you know, my name is Botagoz. I'm the director of IR here at Kazatomprom. Before we start the actual workshop, we'd like to give some background. As you see on this slide, in 2021 we conducted a perception study, and I think some of you actually participated in it. As you can see, we obviously can't disclose the full results of the perception, but we wanted to highlight some key areas that the investment community was focused on related to the importance of ESG, which Askar and our Board Chair have already addressed, and the clarity of our strategy and capital allocation. While geopolitical risk remains the most important concern, we as a Company obviously located where we are located, we cannot avoid it.
We have been focusing on communication, as Mr. Mukanov pointed out, and working on other areas that we have the ability to address and improve. Since that perception study was conducted, as was noted by Mr. Longfellow, Kazatomprom has always focused on ESG, but we are constantly working on improving, formalizing, and adequately disclosing our ESG data. Today what we would like to introduce that now ahead of receiving our first independent ESG rating, we have our ESG data book, which is launched on our website and is now available under the sustainable development section. Going forward, all the data was already in the integrated annual report for each year, and you can see where the annual reports are.
Now for the convenience of the investor community, now all the data starting from the IPO period is available on our website, and the Excel data book with ESG data will be downloadable Excel file will also be accessible soon, probably even by the beginning of the next week. Also in March, we published our first IR data book with all key financial and operational metrics since IPO to make the modeling easier. I think it's actually available on our website since March, but for some reason not everyone saw it and we kept receiving the question where to pull out the data. Here you can see where the actual file is, and it is updated regularly every quarter. We try to update it based on our financial results.
Also, you can see the CPR report where you can find it. In the CPR report, it's basically the key information on production and resource, which is very vital for modeling. Just so you note, when you're looking at the production profile, please note that the data is not intended as guidance. It is just for convenience of the investor community, and it shows the summary of the subsoil use production data taken from 2021 CPR report and is subject to change based on the actual plans of the Company. It reflects the approved decision on production in 2022 and 2023 only. The 2024 level, which is shown in the data book, is still at a 100% level. As you know, the decision has been only made, so we have to take it into account.
Beyond that, the information just shows 100% subsoil use contract values as per the CPR reports of 2021 and 2018. The investment community is welcome to make their own assumptions on how potentially the Company might decide in terms of its production strategy. With that, I will now pass back to Kamila to take you through a very detailed questions. That you understand, we would like to remind you that, and we'd like to stress that the information provided in this section of the presentation should not be considered as a Company guidance. We're not guiding you on any of the numbers. We're just showing you the trends and how to understand the information that is provided by Kazatomprom.
Just the way how we structured the presentation, it is based on the most frequently asked questions, which we realize are not really clear to our investors and analysts. Kamila?
Yeah. Thank you, Bota. Now, like, we're turning to the technical fancy part, so I hope it's gonna be interesting for you. Just a reminder, the basis of preparation of our financial statements, they are IFRS-based. I just explain how each entity is consolidated under what rule into our financial statement. Our functional currency is tenge. In the OFR, we provide information also in U.S. dollars for your convenience. We have four general segments, and Uranium One is the main segment that generates revenue. It accounts for less than 90% of the total Company's revenues. Today in our modeling section, we will mostly be concentrated on how to approach the uranium segment.
As just Botagoz mentioned, we have pulled together in our IR data book the production profile of the Company from CPR for your convenience. Here on the slide, it's an illustration of how much Company reserves. We have 625,000 tons of the uranium reserves, and they all are distributed among existing mining companies. We also have resources amounted to 784,000 tons of uranium, and the difference is made up from the greenfield projects that are not online yet, and then they are not included within the current operational profiles. This information can be obviously used for the modeling purposes. Whenever you do the analysis on JV on the company basis, then you have the information to pull in terms of the production volumes.
As just Bota said, it is CPR data from 2025. It assumes we go to subsoil use level, but if it changes, we provide information on a timely basis. Question number one, if demand increases and KAP's contractual commitments increase, how much of the production can be added? This is the question we receive probably the most often. In this slide, we try to pull together what the upside potential is. First, as Askar mentioned in his part, total from the period from 2018 to 2024 inclusive, we will be taking out of the global uranium supply 44,000 tons of uranium. At the same time, if the previous slide, we had the contractual volumes, and they would end till year 2057, roughly.
On this slide, we are showing that potentially this, the existing legal allowance of 20% could add up more, but would lead to early depletion of the mines. We would expect that if such decision is taken, that depletion would occur somewhere around 2050. This is how we can be addressing the need if it's required. Well, obviously, we should take into account current operational issues. Like, you know, since pandemic, we have had more issues related to operational constraints, but yet the company has been successfully able to overcome them. This is how much theoretically could be added up to the supply from Kazatomprom. At the same time, we are demonstrating this difference.
Remember, I told you in between reserves and resources is basically three greenfield project, East Zhalpak, blocks two and three of JV Inkai. For blocks two and three, Kazatomprom already doing exploration. For East Zhalpak, we have a firm commitment and plan to apply for the exploration license there. In total, it would make up of additional 160,000 tons of the reserves that could be added when and if necessary. But this is really far along the line. This is, like, theoretically, we'll just keep up the production at the time when the old mine production depletes. Question number two and this is probably the most complicated one is how to model and how to estimate your cost of sales.
I admit, this is a complication, and it is mostly due to disclosure restrictions we have. We are not disclosing the structure of our portfolio. We're not disclosing the sources that go in. Conceptually, I would like to state one more time, as we've explained, post-IPO, that there are three main sources of the uranium in our sales blend. This is the uranium that comes from subsidiaries and joint operations, and this uranium comes at all-in sustaining cost. This, like, this is at what price we receive it. This is the uranium that we purchase from our joint ventures and associates. We would usually purchase according to our equity stakes and, at a spot less applicable discount. There is a short fraction of our purchases from the market.
They can be assumed at spot. We are not disclosing and we're not giving guidances on how much Company will be purchasing from the market. Just theoretically, I mean, looking backwards from the historical information we provide, you can estimate how much we have purchased in the past based on the simple inventory roll forward formula, like beginning plus purchases from joint ventures and subsidiaries that we report, less the sales of KAP and the THK that we also report, then the ending inventory and the balance would be purchases from the market. Again, the limitation of this approach and formula that it can only be applied retrospectively to the historical, and it has no reference to the future.
If you need to model the cost of sales, it is better for you just to use assumption as to what this blend could be. Just from the information we have, the highest portion would be from our own uranium, and the rest is split in between uranium purchased from joint ventures and associates and the market transactions. In this slide, we reiterate one more time again the structure of our costs, but also our C1 and all-in sustaining cost. We have provided for your convenience the historical retrospective, like when we started, when Company went public in 2018. I remember how during our road shows, we would say that our CapEx per pound is $4.
When tenge depreciated heavily in 2019 and 2020, that amount decreased, plus in 2020, we had less spending due to COVID restrictions that we had to stop well field development works. Now, for 2021 and 2022, we are back to that amount of $4-$5 per pound. It is driven by inflation mostly, and I also explained the main drivers during some of our calls, like increasing prices of pipes, sulfuric acid, et cetera. In terms of the structure, when you look at our total cost, 24% will be made up from material, 21% is the salary, then it's processing cost and all the other components. From material side, it's the sulfuric acid. It's probably the most expensive part in terms of our cost component.
In this slide, we have provided some additional information for you, and as Askar mentioned, many potential transportation opportunities available to us. In this slide, we're demonstrating how much it actually costs today for us to transport the uranium. We have done some analysis in terms of blended cost of transportation, which is the part taken from C1 plus headquarters transportation cost. That would make slightly more than $1 per pound, $1.1 per pound. This is how much it costs today to transport the uranium on a 100% basis, on a holding basis, take into account all the approaches that we use, like swaps, routes, existing route, etc. You always have this information available. If you need us to maintain the structure in the future, you can let us know.
Generally, just stating again how our cost structure looks at JV level. This is like basically the mining cost, I mean. Question number three, very important, conceptual for modeling purposes, is how much CapEx we need and how adjustable and what is the scale up and scale down in terms of the capital expenditure cost. Here I would like to say that first of all, if I didn't iterate it too many times, I will repeat one more time. This is not a guidance. This is for illustrative purposes only. We just really wanted to share and do some correlation analysis for you. Here in the gray area is the actual number of the drilling wells we have.
This bar represented with yellow and blue is actually all-in sustaining cost, with yellow part being that, capital expenditures part of that. As you can see, when production moved down in 2019 and 2020, the cost per pound decreased as well. In 2022, the increase I wouldn't really take this into account related to the volumes, because from 2021 to 2022, volumes didn't change much. This increase is mainly attributable to all the shortfalls that we have experienced in 2020 and inflation.
What I really want to demonstrate on this slide, that changing from 2023 to 2024 to bring up additional 10% of the production that we have announced for 2024 makes up approximately 25% of additional capital expenditures per pound. As I have been explaining during our calls that it is very important to understand KAP's CapEx profile, because the idea is that we incur cost in advance, like a year in advance. When the actual volumes come in, then the cost per pound will smooth out again. This is exactly as you can see in the slide. Provided that after 2024 production profile stays flat, then cost per unit after 2025, 2026 and 2027 will smooth out a little bit.
This is basically the idea of how a KAP operates in terms of its capital expenditures. We're also receiving a lot of questions on, like, how much it would cost to bring up new mine. This is very relevant question, taking into account the greenfield reserves we have. We have provided some benchmarks based on the existing projects we have. Basically if we have projects roughly around 500 tons, then we would expect the capital expenditures of $30 million-$50 million. For 2,000 from 70 million-1 00 million. For 6,000 tons, it's like $120 million-$150 million. This is based on current estimates we have. Like, no guidance as to what this may be, may look like in the future.
Yet, I think it provides you with some useful information based on your models, what demand you forecast. If you see if there are additional need to bring up new volumes, then you can see, like, approximately how much it would be required to spend. I also would like to note that those expenditures, it is mainly processing capacity, all the required infrastructure, like power grids, all the pumping infrastructure, but it does not include the well field development costs. On this slide, just a reminder that, like, historical data is always safe one.
We have developed a special note disclosure in our consolidated financial statements that allows users to make the estimate of the EBITDA at each mining unit level, and then come to the estimate of the adjusted attributable EBITDA. This notion has been implemented by Kazatomprom since 2018, and we keep maintaining this information. It is really another way of looking back at how a Company performed in terms of its adjusted attributable EBITDA. I would like to conclude my part with that. Is KAP's current market value fair?
Well, I think I might not be objective here, so that's why I want just to illustrate the KAP's share performance since Company went public in 2018. We did our internal analysis, and just sharing it with you that for the first year and a half, we really saw almost no correlation between the share price and the price of the U3O8, and it was mostly attributable to the internal discounts applied to company's price based on you know that we had yet to prove that we are strong on committing on our strategy and delivering the results. In the second half of 2021, with the increased focus on the uranium market and this so-called uranium renaissance, we started to see higher correlation.
Actually we saw, and many of you have enjoyed this with us, that price peaked almost to $48 per share, indicating high correlation and higher investment belief and sentiment in the uranium market, and Kazatomprom is one of the biggest player in that market. However, since January and following by February Russian-Ukrainian conflict, you know that discounts related to external factors appeared back again. We saw increasing like gap between organic correlation between share price and the price of the uranium. Even though now we see constantly increasing price of the uranium, it's not reflected in our share price because of the high geopolitical risks and the current environment.
We believe that this just gives you better understanding that what kind of factors drive the share price now, and I'm sure most of you have better analysis on this in terms of the equity markets in general. With that, I would like to conclude my part related to Company's valuation and would be happy to take any questions. Again, thank you very much.
Thank you, Kamila. I think it was very, very useful, and I believe that everyone thinks the same way. We will start our Q&A session now. The first we would like to start with the questions from the audience here in who are present in the room. Then, for those who join us via the Zoom or YouTube, for the Zoom participants, please just raise your hand in Zoom and make sure you're in a queue, and we will give you an opportunity to ask a question. For those who join through YouTube, also, you can either provide a Google Form or type the question in the chat box. Same for the Zoom participants. You can also type the questions in the chat box, and we will take them from there.
First, we would like to start with the questions from the audience. Just raise your hand and you'll be provided with a mic. Yeah.
Yes. Good evening. Thank you for your presentation. I have two questions, if I may. First of all, does your major shareholder, Samruk, namely, have any plans for further placements of the stock this year or maybe next year?
If I may take this question. There are no current plans to increase Company's free float. We have been mentioning during our calls that according to the current legislation, 75% of Company's ownership are within Samruk-Kazyna strategic assets. Even if they wanted to increase the free float, they would have to change it first, and we obviously would be informing of that. As far as we know, there is no current plans to increase the free float.
Okay. Thank you. The second question is, considering that your production profile will go in line with CPR. Well, let's consider that scenario. In this case, if you would like to kind of keep your production levels at peak of 40,000 tons
Would you have to increase your CapEx levels from current levels to maintain the production profile? Or will it be broadly in line with current levels?
Well, in terms of the well field development cost, as I just said, at the time when we actually decide to increase, there is gonna be one-time increase related to the fact that we need to keep up our coefficient of the reserve preparation. Once the volumes are there, then the cost will smooth out, I mean, and somehow offset. In terms of the processing capacities, it actually may require, and as I mentioned in my presentation, there is one project at UMP that we are considering to be implemented by the end of 2027. 2026, 2027. Basically, this is one of our ways to mitigate the risk if we would need to go as high and would require additional processing capacity.
Actually, processing capacity could be a bottleneck, but we're already thinking about that, and this new investment project that we will be announcing soon is one of our ways to address it.
Thank you. In long term, for the next, like, 20 years, if you would like to keep your production levels as high as they will be in 2025, 2026, will you have to invest a lot more, or will it require only, like, small investments to further explore it and then continue production on current tests? I wouldn't require an exact number, just overall understanding.
Well, first of all, I would like to say that if you saw the CPR profile, keeping the same production for 25 years, probably wouldn't be visible. I mean, unless we add additional exploration projects to the pipeline. This is first. Second, really hard to say. The benchmarks we have provided in the presentation is how much it would cost to do the infrastructure. Let's say it's 6,000 tons, then we would say it's $150 million. For well field development cost, let's take a proxy of current $4-$5 per pound. But again, all of that is market-driven, so it is really hard to say that production profile will be just staying flat for 25 years. That's why you will see some adjustments.
There might be actual adjustments that would increase the price because production will go down. I would say that such kind of estimate at this stage is just not possible to do. For your modeling purposes, you can refer to the benchmarks we provided.
Thank you.
Thank you, everyone. It's great to be here, first of all. Sort of two questions from me. The first one was regarding the sort of correlation, the market value correlation to the spot price. It was quite clear that that had really changed at the start of this year. You can probably conclude that there's a geopolitical risk obviously associated with that. With that in mind, would the Company ever consider self-sanctioning, if you were able to increase the quota through the Trans-Caspian route to a sufficient volume to be able to supplement St. Petersburg? Then a sort of follow-up on that would be, how far down the line are you on those conversations in increasing the Trans-Caspian quota?
Yeah. Well, I don't know whether we will be considered self-sanctioning or whatsoever. I mean, what we have from the routes at the moment and for the energy sector globally, I mean, there is no direct sanctions on the energy sector, especially on the uranium. There is no restrictions in Canada and in European Union. There are exceptions made for the uranium shipments and for the vessels that are carrying any uranium products. There are exceptions in any sanctions which are there. Uranium could be freely coming. There are some bureaucratic things just to send pre-notice and so on. Currently, the St. Petersburg part is working. However, in case we will be asked by our customers or anyone else to send only through the Trans-Caspian route, it's also possible.
I mean, if you have seen our sales distribution. Asia, which is obviously China, is like 40%, and the rest is Europe and America. If we divert full quantities from what we're delivering through St. Pete to Trans-Caspian route, in the maximum capacity at the moment, it will be like 1,200 containers per year. I mean, that's the size of a big vessel, container vessel at the moment. It will not make a big impact in terms of the cargo turnover at the Trans-Caspian route. When we first approached and checked, it's not going to impact significantly the capacities at that route, and it will not create any bottleneck there.
In terms of the nature of our cargo and the discussions that we had, we have a firm belief that we will have a priority of delivery of our cargo, and we have well-established partners on the route. If that's required by the customers to deliver only through Trans-Caspian route, that's possible, and it's not going to make significant difficulties in terms of the capacity. The other part or the other side of that coin is, you know, it's hard to create a commercial route, if you know what I mean. I mean, we don't have a dedicated shipping line that's going to pick up the Class 7 cargo from a port at the Black Sea and deliver it to Canada as it is in St. Pete to Canada.
In terms of using Trans-Caspian Route, we always have a charter ship or dedicated ship, so that's the limitation. In terms of the capacity, we are not expecting any difficulties there.
Just one more, if I might, if I may. The current route from Baku up to Poti, and considering the ongoing conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, is there any anticipated conflict or any anticipated friction on that route given the ongoing conflict there or no?
Well, not to our knowledge. We were not notified by our partners on that route or by the governments of the transit countries. As for now, we are not expecting any kind of impact on the possibility to use that route.
Thank you.
Hi, Julius Böttcher from Fiera Capital here. Thank you very much. I thought that was a fantastic presentation. My question, Askar. You made some very interesting comments on financial buyers in the market and the potential demand. Then I think you showed the ANU Energy slide and the potential IPO or public or private sale of up to $500 million. I think ANU Energy are communicating that they have a framework agreement with you in place to purchase that material and that is at current price 10 million pounds. I wonder if you could maybe speak to that framework agreement and how you operate with that sort of overhang of maybe we buy 25% of your annual production this year or maybe we don't in place.
Well, for ANU's framework agreement, to the extent that we can disclose within the commercial contract that we have, I mean, what we can say is, the idea to become the cornerstone investor and helping to create a financial institution within Kazakhstan, what it gives to us is here we have an option to sell. If they will raise the funds, the first company they have to come to under that agreement is Kazatomprom, and then it's our choice or a decision. If we have volumes, then we sell it to them, and if we don't, then they go to the market or other suppliers to buy those volumes.
It's not like if they are coming with $500 million, we are going to sell 10 million pounds. We have contracts with utilities. We have a certain guidance in terms of our sales plans. We're not going to kind of boom and exceed everything just because they came. We are the priority seller there. At the same time, we have restrictions and limitations within the framework that make sure that this material is not going to return back to the market and compete with ourselves, or it's not going to flow back to the market. There is a certain period where they cannot sell back the material, and if they are going to do so, we have the priority right to purchase the material.
Also they have a cap, annual cap to sell, which is limited to the price and the kind of this holding period that they have to hold so. Whenever the period is passed and the price is right, they have the right to sell some certain amount to the market if they decide to do so. We have the priority right to buy these volumes to make sure that, kind of, it's not going to create the same environment as we have seen after Fukushima, kind of, period when there was a lot of uranium. These mechanisms are there. That's kind of that was the conditions for us to set up this kind of framework agreement with ANU Energy.
Thank you. That's very clear. One follow-up, if I may, because that is quite a substantial amount. I wonder in your budgeting, are you taking that into account at all?
No. I mean, none of the financial players are in the budgets, not Yellow Cake, not ANU Energy. So kind of they have to raise the money, and if they do so, then they come to us to discuss the possibilities to buy the material. We have another possibility to approach the market ourselves, buy from the market and sell it to them if we see the arbitrage opportunity as well. I mean, we've experienced and we've done that sale once to Yellow Cake already.
Thank you.
Any more questions in the room? If not, oh, one more here. Go ahead.
Hi, Kirill Tachennikov, Investment Bank Sinara. I have a question related to your sales volume, which has spiked like 60% in nine months of this year. The question is, do you think it's still not clear to expect higher revenue this year related to the sales growth, given that the price has gone up significantly, tenge has devalued to U.S. dollar plus sales volume has increased, while the revenue guidance is stating for just 50% increase? And also, what were the factors driving this, apart from higher demand, of course, but I mean, was it mainly related to the market transactions where you were buying it from the volume from the third parties and this translated into higher sales volume?
Yeah. Thank you. I think I will start and ask Askar if you wanna add. Well, first of all, this 58% should not be really misleading because for the annual guidance, the volumes, total sales volumes, they almost unchanged. Basically what happens that we would deliver according to customer's request. Basically the idea is that last year, the delivery request was shifted for Q4, while this year we had the shipment request falling, more shipment kind of falling within the first nine months of this year. This is first. Second, the reason why we have not restated the guidance for this year is because when we were budgeting and providing the guidances, we already accounted for a higher price that we should expect for the uranium and the volumes.
We didn't really see much reason to increase. I mean, we might see actually higher amount, but the, it is not really drastically how so that it would change total investors perception how much Company would earn in terms of its revenue this year. Maybe if you.
Well, I mean, Kamila, very well said. In the presentation now, we should not be misled by that increase. It's all the customer requests. If in previous years you had seen that the fourth quarter in Kazatomprom was historically very, kind of very busy with a lot of sales, that was just because most of the customers were willing to put the sales in the Q4 with the seasonality of our market and expectation that the market price would be maybe lower. In the current environment, with the changes on the market, more utilities would like to shift it earlier so that they would try to capture the lower price because the price is. If you see the trend of the price is actually going up.
I guess that's what had driven the utilities to seek for the deliveries earlier this year than it was in the previous years.
Understood. Thank you. In other words, basically we should expect to see a much weaker fourth quarter this year in terms of volume, sales volume as compared to the previous years?
Yeah. When we will report Q4 this year, Q4 last year, the sales volume should be lower, but we also will be reporting same time 12 months this year and 12 months of the last year, and it should be approximately the same based on the sales guidances we provided for the year of 2021 and 2022. Yeah.
Okay. One more follow-up question. This 60% increase in sales volume will not translate into the corresponding increase in EBITDA, right? Because significant part of this volume was basically a trading activity, am I right?
Um.
Like we saw similar to the second quarter numbers when the margin has gone down a bit because of that, I guess.
Yeah. This is exactly what I've been talking about on the modeling section part that, you know, the EBITDA is a driver of what we record as our cost of sales, and cost of sales depends on the mix. I can't tell if this like nine months result gives us any indication of like what impact should be on Q4 on an annual result. Generally, we expect strong result and strong EBITDA based on the price. Based on that, we are able to keep our cost guidances. That's probably all I can tell in terms of the expectations of EBITDA. The only thing I would like to stress one more time, that the shift in the sales schedules doesn't have a direct impact on the ultimate annual EBITDA expectation.
Okay. Thank you.
Perfect.
Any questions from the room?
Nothing in the room. Maybe a reminder if anybody on the Zoom call wants to raise their hand or if there's anything up right now. No? On the YouTube side, maybe just a brief broader question, perhaps for Mr. Mukanov and Neil, from a strategic perspective. With the change in CEO and of course CEO guiding and leading the strategy overall, do you expect any change in the overall value strategy that you have been focused on since the IPO?
Okay. Thanks for the question. Yeah, as CEO of Kazatomprom, in general, the role of the CEO, it's to implement the global strategy that's in general to be validated and approved by the Board of Directors and as to the Chairman, as the Chairman of the Board of Directors, Neil?
Yeah. The answer is no.
Excellent.
Okay. Another one that, I mean, one that we also, I guess, hear on the road, fairly often at the moment, again, back to Askar is, what is the status of the current shipment that is on the way on the TITR? We did disclose some information on that today in our trading update, but maybe just a bit of direct follow-up.
To the extent that we can disclose, first part of the cargo of the joint cargo. As I said, we are chartering a vessel, so to make it economically interesting, we have to have a minimum number of containers to make sure that the economics are right there. The first part of that delivery, based on what we have disclosed today, which was owned by ourselves, is already sitting at the Black Sea, and we are waiting for the second part of that cargo, joint cargo, which is actually the share of one of our partners. That has created a little bit of additional questions from the authorities issuing the transit approvals.
We are kind of working together with our partner to submit all set of documents that is required by the authorities. We are expecting that that part will be also resolved very soon and kind of we will receive the second part of the cargo, which is currently just awaiting the permit at Baku Seaport. Once it's done, it will join our cargo and we will start the sea transportation from the Black Sea.
Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you. There is a question coming from Zoom from Chintan. If the operator can unmute Chintan. Chintan, please, go ahead with your question.
Hi there. This is Chintan Khamar from Credit Suisse. Can you guys hear me?
Yeah.
Yes.
Great. I just want to echo earlier comments. Thank you for the presentation. It's been great. Thank you for taking the time. My question was again on the transport. I noticed in the Q3 report this morning that you have a quota for 3,500 tons right now. In terms of increasing this quota, is it a commercial negotiation with the parties involved in the transport, or is it with governments on the transport route?
It's with governments on the transport route. We applied for this quota well before all the events in kind of January and February, before geopolitical issues. That's the initial quota we've got, and it well covers the amount that we were planning to deliver through Trans-Caspian route, regardless of the geopolitical. That could be increased. We have to send an additional note and additional pack of documents to do so, as we did for our partner to help them. It's been discussed there. I mean, with the previous question from Cory, the confusion is that this is the share of the second shareholder within the material, which is owned by Kazatomprom or going to be sold by Kazatomprom.
We have no particular issues, and we have the approval in place. We can increase it, but it might be done for the next year, because for this year, I mean, we are quite comfortable with the quota that we have.
Great. Thank you. If I could maybe just follow up with one kind of broader strategic question. Looking into the future, do you see value in entering other parts of the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle, such as maybe conversion?
As Neil mentioned, as I also said, it might be very attractive to go to conversion, but we shouldn't be misguided by the current price. The current price is mainly because the conversion became a bottleneck at the moment. But we have to see, and we have to bear in mind that ConverDyn is out of the market now. Orano has some reserves that they might add. I think Cameco is also already started the discussions about increasing their capacities within the existing plant. With all the existing players kind of returning back or putting all their expansion plans in place, if we see that the market is still attractive, we might come there.
We would like to see the long-term commitment of the utilities to incentivize us to build a conversion where we have a technology. If we see that it makes value, similar value to what our production of natural uranium does, I mean, why not? We are open to consider this.
Yeah. I think that's a good way of answering. I mean, a watch in brief is the way I would put it, that we keep a close eye on the market and what the movers are, and as Askar rightly pointed out, the people who were in conversion that came out of it are now looking to go back in. So while there's a current shortage, that might not be the case in twelve months time. But without any doubt, we would keep an eye on it. And that's very important for us.
Thank you very much.
Okay, again, one more chance here. Maybe call it one last chance for anyone to raise their hand in the Zoom queue. On the YouTube side, just maybe one last question is from an M&A perspective, is there ever any consideration given to investment in M&A outside of Kazakhstan?
Yeah. I might try to start. Well, if we're considering, I mean, production, we know that the best values in the world are, is our values in Kazakhstan. As we've communicated when we were going for IPO, it doesn't make sense to invest into other productions which have less value than the ones that we have in Kazakhstan. In other parts of the nuclear fuel cycle, I mean, we're also looking for any potential possibilities, but I think it's too early to say something on that part.
For sure.
Yeah. Just to add to that whenever we consider M&A deal, it's not just really about like selling or buying the mine. It's about the combination that gives us some anchor into some strategic aspect that would allow us to develop around it in the future. The Ortalyk example is the deal that would like combine together mining, that fuel fabrication like offtakes. That kind of M&As that we would particularly be focused on, especially when, as Askar said, we're talking about entering mining that is definitely less competitive than our current mining.
Thank you, Kamila. There is a question from Anna Antonova in Zoom. Please, Anna, unmute yourself and you can ask your question.
Good afternoon, good evening. Thank you very much for the presentation and very detailed comments on the markets and the Company. It was very useful. Maybe a quick question from our side. Could you please maybe comment or shed some additional light on the current situation in Kazakhstan? I remember your comments on the full year results call in early spring this year after the recent events in the country and with political reforms gaining pace and overall governmental stance shifting with changes in taxation for the sectors, different social events, et cetera. Could you please comment whether your earlier comments still hold?
Well, how do you expect the situation within the country to evolve going into 2023, including any potential additional changes to tax regime, including to the uranium mining sector specifically? Whether you would expect any additional social obligations or expenses on top of what you currently have? Any color or guidance on this front would be much appreciated. Thank you very much.
Hi, Anna. Yeah, sure. I think I was giving this comment in March, so I'll just follow up on that. From taxation point of view, the framework has been defined, and it will be applied since January of the next year. Basically, within the new taxation framework, MET would be charged on top of the spot, and it's 6% rate. In absolute terms, provided the current high spot price, we expect that in absolute terms, the MET charge would increase. At the same time, we think it's a better framework. It is more fair in terms of the distribution and comparability between our mines. Because under old scheme, the high cost mines would be charged even more, making them incomparable in terms of that profitability. This is regarding framework. We have certainty on this.
Regarding my comments in general, yes, January has been a very difficult times for our nation, and I believe we are recovering from that. Situation, as I mentioned, has stabilized at that time, and it keeps stabilizing over time. We expect with the upcoming elections, it's gonna be, you know, the more stability in terms of the, you know, the usual question that relates to our region is like the transition of the power. With that, we expect that issue to be resolved and like actually even more stability in terms of the improved investment climate coming to the region. Well, at the same time, we understand the geopolitical situation is difficult in terms of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. With that, we would really abstain from making any forecast and comments for.
I think it is clear why, because we all do, we hope for the soonest and peaceful resolution. As a Company, we are building and enhancing our risk mitigation plans to make sure there are different type of risk that would potentially stem from the current situation. We have our internal plans on how to address each category of the risk. With that, Anna, I think the general situation since January is definitely much better. We have much more stability and clarity on the overall policy and the global situation, we're all aware of that. As a Company, we are prepared to mitigate those risks. Yeah. Thank you.
Very clear. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Anna. No other hands raised, and if there's nothing else in the room, thanks, Bota. Thanks to the team. I think good discussion. Anyone on the line, again, if you didn't get through or if technology was a limitation in terms. Oh, one more? Absolutely. Beniam, go ahead. Give. We have one more in the room, and I think we'll conclude with that.
Yes. Hi. Just a quick question on your dividend policy and maybe relevant to ask for the board. In what situation or scenario would you consider paying a higher dividend as a percentage of your free cash flow from the minimum level? Like, in what situation would you consider paying higher dividends, given as you've mentioned, you have some projects you're looking at, but any other factors that you would take into consideration?
Yeah. Thank you, Beniam. It's a good question. I think that current payout ratio, to be honest, is the maximum one. Even though it's stated as the least, and I'll explain you why. Because dividend policy is not only including Company's consolidated free cash flow as a base, but it also includes the dividends that we receive from joint ventures and associates, and it's quite a big chunk of it. It means that in the free cash flow, we are not eliminating share of minorities who we consolidate, but we're adding the share of dividends that we receive from JV and associates. I mean, this is a very important adjustment. Basically the idea when we developed the policy was that Company distributes the actual cash it receives. If we talk about cash, then the.
We should have potentially adjusted this free cash flow, but it's not possible because there should be some measurable metrics, which is the consolidated free cash flow. From that extent and from the current perspective, again, I would really think as a CFO of the Company, that current policy is really well-balanced and is maximizing the value to its stakeholders and the same, leaving the Company with some proxy to keep its operating activity, to ensure it is able to face any challenges and upcoming investment opportunities. At the same time, we always need to make sure that, you know, the last thing we would want to do is to borrow debt to pay the dividends.
We always, like, in terms of our internal analysis, we would always look into how much we're actually distributing to shareholders from the dividends that we receive from JVs and associates. We are not offsetting the part that is included into our free cash flows that is actually relating to the other minority shareholders. I think this is very important. Maybe technical, but yet very important consideration. That's why this current percentage, in my opinion, as a Chief Financial Officer, is really balanced.
Great. Thank you.
There's a question from Alexander Nefedov in Zoom. Alexander, please unmute yourself and go ahead with the question.
Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you for such a detailed presentation. I have three questions. One is about P&L. You mentioned that CapEx guidance was lowered by 6%. Could you please tell if the Company now expects some risks to profit guidance in 2023, 2024? Meaning could be there a 6% downside risk to output outlook? This is the first one. The second one is if the company plans to participate in expanding Trans-Caspian route infrastructure. The last one is about Company's plans relating to electricity generation. Does the company plans to enter this market? Thank you for your answers.
Thank you for your question. Regarding the production plans and the risk and 6% lack of CapEx. No. For the coming next year, we are still keeping our production goals the same as we already mentioned it. We have mitigation plans that are already in place, and we put all our efforts to meet the production goals for coming years and meet all our customers, clients, and stakeholders expectations. Regarding increasing of transportation.
Yeah.
I think.
Well, in terms of participating in increasing infrastructure at Trans-Caspian route, I guess that's the government level of issues. I mean, with our volumes, maximum volumes that we might transport, I mean, there is no sense for ourselves to invest into infrastructure because we are just
A small part.
Small part of that increase. Generally, we are not going to participate in increasing infrastructure because we quite successfully fit into the current infrastructure levels. I guess that's more a government level. In terms of going to electricity business, I mean, we are not going to dilute our strategy. If the customer would be the electricity company that has a partnership with the nuclear power plant, who is our main customers, that could be some sort of the consideration to have that electricity generating company as our customer, but not as a part where we're going to invest. As a customer, yes. As a investment opportunity, I don't think so.
Good. Thanks. I'll just throw in there as well that, in the disclosure today, when we're talking about the CapEx, we did note that there is risk obviously, from underspend, how it impacts future years. Future guidance, specific detailed guidance on the ranges for production, that's obviously something we do on an annual basis, so that's something that would come out in our first quarter trading update, or I guess our Q4 trading update that would come out in 2023. Thanks, Alexander. Thank you everyone in the room. I guess we're gonna conclude with that.
I would like to thank everyone who is in the room with us today, everyone who is watching live online, and anyone who picks up this workshop and our investor day or Analyst Day in the days to come and watches it online. I think it's becoming clear every single day that the market environment that we're seeing today for our nuclear fuel products is more positive than it's been absolutely for over a decade. In some respects, we're hearing it a lot at the industry conferences that by many who have been in the industry for a long time, it's better than it's ever been before. We believe at Kazatomprom we're positioned, very well positioned to benefit from that positive sentiment like no other company in the sector.
I believe that there's an exceptional opportunity for investors who take the time to fully understand our Company, our place in this market as the market leader, the factual developments around the risks specific to Kazatomprom in Kazakhstan. I think there's an exceptional opportunity here for us. Thank you again. Thank you everyone, and have an excellent day.