Good afternoon, good morning. I am Andrew Lindsay, head of Antofagasta's London office. Here is the agenda for our capital markets day. We'll start with two hours of presentations, followed by Q&A. Our CEO, Iván Arriagada, will give you an overview of the company and how we operate. He'll be followed by presentations by our senior management team on our operations, project development, exploration, sustainability, finance, and innovation. We'll also show you an interview about the economic and political situation in Chile today. After the formal presentations, we will then have a Q&A session, during which you'll be able to ask senior management questions. Anyone who wishes to ask a question will need to dial in one of the telephone numbers included in the announcement of this event. The numbers will also be made available during the webcast and at the end.
If you just want to listen, just stay on the webcast. The event will end at 5:00 P.M. U.K. time. Please now look at our cautionary statement, which you can also read at your leisure as part of the presentation slide pack, which is available on our website. A recording of the full webcast will be added to our website shortly after the end of the event. Welcome to our Capital Markets Day, our first for many years. I hope you find it interesting.
Thank you, Andrew, and welcome everyone joining us today. We're delighted to have you with us. Antofagasta is a pure-play copper producer with high-quality assets in Chile, supported by a team that delivers reliably and responsibly through the cycle. Over the next two hours, you will hear from our team as we discuss how we mine and what we're doing to progress the future of mining in a way that is sustainable and delivers value for all our stakeholders. You will also hear about the embedded growth options we have in our business portfolio and the levers we have to unlock that growth for many years to come. We're very excited about copper. It is an essential commodity for our daily lives and plays an integral role in our future, given its use in decarbonization and economic progress, especially in emerging economies as they transition to more advanced development phases.
It also helps to improve the quality of life for those parts of the world population which have yet to catch up with developed nations. The trend to a lower carbon economy is expected to boost copper demand via the electrification of energy supply, which already accounts for close to 30% of total copper use as clean energy becomes the dominant source of global power generation over coming decades. Copper used by the transport sector will grow even faster as electric vehicles, which only account for approximately 10% of the total transport market today, becomes part of everyday life. As you know, EVs use four times as much copper as internal combustion engine vehicles.
On the back of these trends, total copper consumption, which includes primary production from copper mines as well as recycled scrap, is expected to grow by an average of approximately 2.3% per year over the next decade, from 23 million tons in 2020 to 30 million tons in 2030. Notably, a significant share of growth in consumption is estimated to come from regions around the world other than China. The supply story is one of structural constraints as mines age and grades decline, and as permitting new projects becomes more onerous in every region in the world. It currently takes on average about 15 years from discovery to production, which means any significant supply side response to higher prices is not going to be immediate.
Supply will grow, however, with increasing scrap usage and as miners like Antofagasta deploy improved technology and innovation to unlock embedded tons, and you will hear more about this later. Antofagasta is in a prime position to seize the growth in demand. We have the embedded tons across our business, the ability to unlock them, and we are a responsible and reliable producer. Above all, we are a company that you can trust to deliver strong shareholder returns through the cycle while delivering value to all stakeholders, including local and national communities, while managing any environmental impact in a responsible way. Before we dive into the details and take you on a tour of our business, I like to spend a moment revisiting our purpose: developing mining for a better future. This is what drives us and motivates us all at Antofagasta.
Everyone at Antofagasta believes that what we do will enable a better world for providing the raw materials for a greener, lower carbon economy and to contribute financially and socially to our host communities where we mine to improve lives and livelihoods. We're making real progress to reduce our impact on the environment and expect 90% of the water we use to either be from the sea or recirculated water by 2025. We're also moving to 100% renewable power. We have the resources and technology to grow to ensure we're a sustainable partner, and we have the people and talent who are among the best in the world to deliver reliably and responsibly. Our purpose is underpinned by five strategic pillars of people, safety and sustainability, competitiveness, growth and innovation, and you will hear more on each of them in the presentations that follow.
Reliability to any company is a vital element of trust. We take our responsibility to be a reliable producer very seriously, and as our shareholders, our communities, our employees, our suppliers, and our civil society demand it. We operate in a way that allows us to deliver on our commitments year after year in terms of production, returns, and our commitments to the environment and our communities. We are proud of our track record of delivering on what we say we will do, and in terms of costs, we have outperformed guidance consistently. Not only are we a reliable producer, but we have a reliable growth profile that will allow us to produce sustainably into the future. We have a variety of exploration and late-stage projects, which are in different phases of evaluation and will generate organic growth for the company.
Excitingly, we have a huge mineral resource base of over 18 billion tons, of which some seven billion tons are in the Centinela mining district and six billion tons are at Los Pelambres, giving us the options to develop our inventory over a time when copper supply is becoming increasingly constrained. We also have some exciting greenfield exploration projects in Chile. We believe we have very strong organic growth potential, and alongside this, we will continue to remain alert to attractive external opportunities if they present themselves. This map highlights the key prospective geological regions in the Americas for copper, where our exploration team is working. On the map of Chile, you can see our huge mineral resource base that I was mentioning. We're confident that we have a portfolio of growth projects that allows us to remain competitive and develop sustainable operations in the long term.
On this slide, we show a five-year production trend projection, which highlights the growth we have embedded in the business. This is not intended to be a precise forecast, but to show directionally where potential production could come from in the next five-year period, provided the underlying assumptions and conditions are met. You will hear some more from the team today about these projects and how we will unlock the growth to create further value. We think this is an exciting time for Antofagasta. Next year, we expect to start commissioning new processing capacity at Los Pelambres, and also to add new copper supply from ore mined from the Esperanza Sur pit at Centinela and from chloride leach project at Zaldívar. Regarding the potential supply from the second concentrator at Centinela, it is at the very advanced study and engineering stage, but has not yet been approved.
If it is, we will have additional copper, which could potentially take us to approximately 900,000 tons of production by the year 2026. However, this is not a target, since we will only focus on value-creating production. It is no accident that our financial strength and balance sheet is in great shape to deliver this growth, and our CFO, Mauricio Ortiz, will outline our strategy of allocating capital to maximize return. He will also describe how we allocate capital to mitigate our risks to climate change, and how we're now incorporating carbon pricing into our evaluations. Alongside exploration and our growth projects, we also have an amazing team that constantly innovates, and it's transforming the way in which we operate, allowing us to unlock value throughout the business.
We have developed a patented primary sulphide leach technology called Cuprochlor-T, which, if it is successful, could allow us to bring forward the processing of ore otherwise scheduled to be mined in many more years, or will allow ore that was previously considered to be uneconomic to be profitably processed. On top of that, we have been introducing innovative changes that are changing the way in which we operate, such as introducing autonomous trucks at Centinela, establishing a remote operating center so our employees can work smarter and maintain a good quality of life, and setting up a Digital Academy to upskill all the talent and ideas across our business. This is a key part of Antofagasta's strategy. Before I turn over to the team, I would like to say how pleased we are to have Andrés Velasco with us today.
Professor Velasco is a former finance minister of Chile and is now the Dean of the School of Public Policy at the London School of Economics. He will be talking to us about the current economic and political situation in Chile. An interesting time, as the political sands are shifting and mining is inevitably being caught up in this. Antofagasta is in great shape to stand up to change and challenge. Our purpose is to develop mining for a better future by responsibly and sustainably producing a critical metal that plays a significant role in supporting local and global economic and social development, as well as the global transition to a low-carbon economy. We will continue to create value for all our stakeholders. I will now hand over to Hernán Menares, our Vice President of Operations, who will show you how we do that. Over to you, Hernán.
Hello, my name is Hernán Menares. I am the Vice President of Operations. I'm going to say a few words about strategy and model for our operation and how we execute them to ensure Antofagasta remains a reliable and responsible producer. You will also see how we are able to unlock growth, and therefore value in our operations. First, I would like to remind those of you who are less familiar with our company or our assets. In Chile, we have four mining operations. Three are in the north, in the Atacama Desert, and the fourth, Los Pelambres, in central Chile in agricultural region. Our mines primarily produce copper in the form of concentrate and cathode, as well as molybdenum as well as byproduct. Los Pelambres is our largest operation, and Centinela our second-largest, and between them, they produce over 80% of our copper.
As you hear from Iván, we have 18 billion tons of mineral resources across our portfolio, with seven billion in Centinela Mining District and six billion at Los Pelambres. These resources make up a robust foundation to ensure for our future growth in production for many years to come. In addition to our copper operations, we also have a transport division, Ferrocarril de Antofagasta a Bolivia, FCAB, which is based in the city of Antofagasta. FCAB provides rails and truck services to mining industry in the region, including to some of our own operations. We'll be showing you a short video so you can learn about what it does and what its future look like. The safety of our people, contractor, and communities remains our number one priority.
Our operations have high standards for safety, which we were able to sustain throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated restrictions, enabling us to meet our annual production and cost targets in 2020, while continuing to improve our safety record. You can see that since 2018, we have been using high potential incident as a leading indicator to our progress on improving safety, and this has steadily improved over this period. Despite this effort, after 33 months of being fatality-free, there was a fatal accident at Los Pelambres earlier this year. A full investigation was completed, following which all the identified learnings were implemented at all our sites.
Our current focus in terms of safety is to reinforce the key principles of our safety policy, as detailed on this slide, concentrating on our commitment to achieve zero fatality at our operation and continue to reduce the number of high potential incident, which ultimately will drive lost time incident down further. Antofagasta's operating strategy, consistent with the company's overall strategy framework, seek to position each of our mining operations to achieve excellence in safety, environmental protection, and production efficiency across our value chain, ensuring asset optimization is maximized, and the operation has a competitive position on the cost curve. We execute our strategy in three key stages. Firstly, to achieve and sustain stable operating conditions at nameplate capacity. Secondly, to seek further optimizations through continuous improvement, which now include using data analytics.
Lastly, is to capitalize on the success of the first two stages to create a platform for profitable growth, which will further unlock value from our operations. This will not be possible without the people behind our operations and the different skills they bring to the table. Our culture is based on our specific way of doing things and managing risks using shared value and our code of ethics to guide us. The key to success is the quality of the people, and we have the best in the industry. We drive our culture of continuous improvement through our operating model to realize the full potential of our operations while applying the lean management philosophy. We do this by seeking to reduce process variability and capture latent capacities.
This means we define each team member's role and responsibility so we can reach full potential across our assets and ensure sustainable production. We also believe in the power of innovation to increase our ability to constantly improve. You'll be hearing more on this later from Alan Muchnik. Let's now look at how we have successfully embedded our operating model across the group. Our main milestones have been creating roles with clearly defined functions, establishing an operational excellence standard so that our teams have a means to lock in the value of improvements, developing a portfolio of new initiatives which identify ways of reducing variability, and applying the lean management model. Here you can see examples that illustrate the success of our model.
The first is the tons of ore stacked on the heaps at Antucoya, which you can see has improved by 7% over the past three years. The other is the effective utilization rate of trucks at Los Pelambres, which has improved by 3 percentage points since 2018. All these improvements are critical, and collectively they keep our costs down and protect our margins. We see these continuous improvements as the relief of embedded growth in our operation that we have the levers to unlock. Our commitment to social value remains at the core of our business, and we seek to embed our strong ESG values across the business, including to our day-to-day operations.
This approach defines the way we develop and how we manage our risk, and also impacts how we contribute to the economic and social growth of our neighboring communities while addressing global challenges such as climate change. A constructive and collaborative relationship with our communities is vital for our ability to create shared value. These relationships are based on the principles of our dialogue, collaboration, traceability, excellence, and transparency. We seek to grow together with the communities, as well as to contribute to their own social and economic development. At the same time, we take care to prevent, mitigate, and compensate for any adverse impact that our activities may cause. Responsibility for social and community management lies with the general manager of each operation.
Looking more closely at the environmental objectives at our operations, exploration activities, and projects, we have a sustainability policy and an environmental management model that guide us and ensures we meet our objectives. Our objectives are detailed on the slide, and René Aguilar will go into more detail later. From an operational standpoint, we are focused on ensuring compliance with environmental permits and legal requirements and implementing all critical environmental controls, ensuring zero operational events, designing operational continuity, and development projects from a social environmental perspective. Responsibility for environmental matters lies with the general managers of each mining operation and their environmental teams. Together, they are responsible for monitoring and reporting operational events, environmental risk, and what is required to adhere to the environmental management model. At each mine, we have clear emissions reduction plans and targets. At Pelambres, we also have water consumption targets.
These emissions targets are KPIs for our teams and are an integral part of the annual performance bonuses of management and the staff. In every aspect of what we do across all our operations, we seek to unlock the embedded growth in our business through our operating model, while remaining a reliable and responsible producer.
The Los Pelambres copper deposit was discovered in the 1920s and is one of the largest copper mines in the world. It is a sulfide deposit and is located in the Coquimbo Region of central Chile at the head of the Choapa River Valley, 240 km northeast of Santiago. This is a region where mining coexists with agriculture, which is why our relationships and engagement with our communities are so important to us.
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We have a team of highly trained and committed men and women working with us. Taking care of their health and safety is our most important goal. Los Pelambres was the first Antofagasta operation to use renewable energy, and by 2025, over 90% of the water needed to produce copper will be desalinated seawater or recirculated water. The mine produces copper concentrate containing gold and silver and molybdenum concentrate by mining, milling, and flotation. These concentrates are sold to our customers around the world.
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Metal contained in the ore is moved from the mine to the processing plant by haul trucks, and then onto a series of conveyor belts. The conveyor belts use the change in altitude to generate 25 MW of energy, which is used by the mine, and transfer the ore to the processing plant. Once at the plant, the ore is crushed and milled, and then it moves on to the flotation tank, where the copper floats to the top and is separated.
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Today, the plant is processing 175,000 tons of ore a day. It will be expanding to its full permitted capacity of 190,000 tons a day in the second half of 2022. The first phase of the expansion project is already 65% completed and includes a desalination plant to ensure Los Pelambres future water supply.
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Once the copper and the moly have been separated in the flotation tank, the copper concentrates then travel through a 120 km pipeline to the Punta Chungo port in the town of Los Vilos. As they head to the port, they travel through the Choapa Valley, where some of our neighboring communities live and work.
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About 20% of our suppliers are also located in the Coquimbo region. While the concentrates move towards the port, the tailings travel 60 km through a separate system to the Mauro Tailings Dam, located in the valley of the Theuvio Stream. The water recirculated from the tailings, which collects on the surface of the dam, minimizes the operations freshwater use, allowing us to achieve a recirculation rate of between 80% and 85%. Once the concentrates arrive at the port, they are filtered and loaded onto ships, and then set sail to our smelter customers in Asia. Centinela's operations are located near Sierra Gorda in the Antofagasta region, at 2,300 m above sea level in the Atacama Desert.
This mining district has a series of ore deposits that we have acquired, discovered, and developed over the last 20 years, and which will be the source of much of Antofagasta's growth over the coming decades. The Centinela mining district has nearly seven billion tons of mineral resources at 0.37%, of which 2.1 billion tons are reserved at 0.41%. We are currently operating seven open pits, Esperanza Sur, Tesoro Central, Encuentro Oxide, Tesoro Sur, Llano, and Mirador. In 2020, we produced 247,000 tons of copper in concentrates and cathodes. Centinela uses seawater in its processes and was the first mining company in the world to use thickened tailings technology on a large scale.
These special thickeners were commissioned in 2016 and on average, recover 65% of water contained in the tailings, significantly more than can be achieved by conventional thickeners. From the beginning of 2022, the operation will be wholly powered from renewable sources, significantly reducing its GHG emissions. The Esperanza Sulfide operation has been producing copper concentrates since 2011, and next year, the concentrator will also start to receive ore from the Esperanza Sur pit. This will reduce the variability of the ore feed to the plant, which will help optimize its operation. To the south of Esperanza Sur, at the Encuentro deposit, the oxides are being mined and processed in the SXEW plant to produce copper cathodes.
If the second concentrator project is approved in 2022, it should be commissioning in 2025 and will be fed by ore from Esperanza Sur and Encuentro Sulfuros.
These two large sulfide deposits total about 4.1 billion tons of resources and will supply the two concentrator plants at Centinela for many years to come, as well as supporting further expansions in the future.
Hello, my name is Paula Aguirre, and I am the Deputy Leader of our project development team here at Antofagasta. Our team is made up of 200 people working across the project timeline from scoping all the way through to construction before we hand over to the operations team. Within our team, we have a core group of professionals who manage the projects and the engineering contractors appointed to build them. As the projects progress, we make sure to rotate members of the team to ensure the transfer of key skills so that we can build a body of knowledge across our entire projects portfolio. We are currently working on a number of projects, three of which are in the construction phase, four in feasibility study stage, and several others in earlier stages of development. I'll go into this in a bit more detail shortly.
First, I like to explain our approach to project development at Antofagasta, which is designed to ensure that we maintain a balanced portfolio with execution strategies tailored to the specifics of each project. This approach includes a number of different review stages to ensure we properly evaluate the quality and return of each project throughout the process, and also identify if any changes of approach or updates are needed. You can see this stage set out here on this slide. A good example of our approach is Centinela Second Concentrator project. Let's look at that now. Independent experts have carried out a series of reviews since the earliest stages of the project to ensure it is progressing successfully. These reviews have also identified updates for design optimization resulting from new innovation which improve the business case of the project.
For example, the automation currently being implemented at Centinela, which includes the introduction of autonomous trucks and the use of a new remote operating center currently being built in Antofagasta. The Centinela Second Concentrator project is currently in the detailed engineering stage, and the reviews at this stage help us as a team reduce the project's overall risk exposure by completing up to 65% of the detailed engineering plans. This increases the accuracy of the capital estimate by defining the construction and equipment cost and include the process of obtaining the key permits. At the end of this stage, the business case assessment and risk profile will be updated, and the project will be presented to the board to make a decision on the investment.
As you can see here, we have a pipeline of organic growth projects over the next four years and beyond, including those currently under construction, as well as those we expect to bring on stream over the coming years. Once completed, the projects currently under construction will contribute 80,000 tons-90,000 tons to our group production. If the second concentrator project at Centinela is approved, group production has the potential to grow to approximately 900,000 tons. One of the most important aspect to managing the development of project is being resilient and flexible enough to react to unexpected external events like COVID-19. The pandemic put pressure on how we manage our teams, and we had to change the shift patterns and introduce social distance measures to keep people safe and healthy while still advancing the project.
The recovery has now put pressure on the reliability of our supply chains. We have adapted and have been able to continue construction, and we will continue to adapt as necessary. Our current plans assume COVID restriction will continue for the foreseeable future, but as a managed health risk due to high vaccination levels in Chile. The Los Pelambres expansion project has two components to it, the expansion of the concentrator and the construction of a desalination plant. These are under separate contracts, and we expect the desalination plant to be commissioned in the second half of 2022, and the concentrator plant by the year-end 2022. The overall project is 65% complete, with the total cost estimate of $1.7 billion being under final review, given the challenges experienced during this year of higher absenteeism and worker rotation, as well as higher logistics costs.
At Esperanza Sur, the mining contractor will complete the pre-stripping in early 2022, and then the operation teams will take over and mobilize the autonomous trucks. At Zaldívar, the chloride leach project is well advanced and is expected to be completed in Q1 2022, when it will start ramping up the rate of copper recoveries as the new leaching process is applied. Our largest project is the second concentrator at Centinela, which I have already referred to. A board decision on the project is expected during the second half of next year. If approved, construction will start in 2023, with first production expected about two and half to three years later. The project includes a high-pressure grinding roll for advanced crushing, which uses significantly less energy and is lower cost than a traditional grinding mill.
It will also need a separate water system to bring raw seawater from the coast, a concentrator circuit, plus other associated infrastructure. The current capital estimate is approximately $2.7 billion. We have a lot of exciting growth projects in development and in the pipeline. With our rigorous approach to evaluation, we can deliver successful projects to our operations team reliably and responsibly. Moving further upstream to discuss more growth opportunity for Antofagasta, I would like to hand over to Andrónico Luksic, the Vice President of Development. Andrónico, over to you.
Hello, I'm Andrónico Luksic, Antofagasta's Vice President of Development, and I'm responsible for the company's exploration strategy. As you have heard from Iván, we have a strong embedded growth profile with a huge mineral resource base of over 18 billion tons. Today, I'm going to talk to you about how our exploration strategy is helping unlock much of that for the company, ensuring the sustainable and long-term growth of Antofagasta. In the 1980s and 1990s, exploration became an increasingly important part of the company's activities and expansion, with greenfields exploration extending beyond Chile and into the neighboring countries such as Peru, Argentina, and Bolivia. We also explored in Spain at this time. It was during this period that we acquired Los Pelambres, which then was just a small underground operation, and the company started to focus wholly on mining.
In the following years, we broadened our exploration activities at one stage conducting exploration in 5 continents, as you can see on the slide, in order to continue discovering resources to add to the group's overall resource base. Since 2015, we have tightened our focus to a few carefully selected countries in the Americas, including Peru, the U.S., Canada, and, in particular, Chile. Our exploration strategy is centered on building a portfolio of high quality, long-term copper projects. We focus on those targets that we believe can deliver at least a minimum of 50,000 tons of copper over a mine life of more than 10 years, and preferably with byproducts. We concentrate on those growth opportunities in stable and secure countries to reduce our risk exposure.
As I just mentioned, the main prospective belts that satisfy these targets' criteria for us at the moment are in Chile, Peru, the U.S., and Canada, as you can see on the map here. As we explore, our aim is to find those areas that can at least replace the mineral resources that are mined at our operations. We achieve this not just through focused exploration, but through acquisition as well, usually at the asset level, and we are currently looking for M&A opportunities and early-stage copper projects to work on, particularly in South America. Our strategic preference remains, however, to grow through discovery and land or resource consolidation.
We have had some considerable success with this over the years in Chile with two projects we're currently working on, and we will be ready to speak about this in the near future as we continue to consolidate the results from these targets. Importantly, our strategic approach varies depending on the country and the requirements, landscape, and infrastructure there. In Chile, our focus is on our predominantly brownfields exploration in the copper belt of the northern central part of the country, particularly in areas with high prospectivity for porphyry copper as well as manto and iron oxide copper gold-type deposits. During 2020, the early-stage programs we have in Chile completed more than 40,000 meters of drilling, which was less than a year before, but this was due to the COVID-19 restrictions in place.
Searching for satellite deposits near our existing operations is also a key part of our exploration program, and this approach has worked particularly well near our Centinela operation in the Centinela mining district, and I'll go into that case study in more detail shortly. In Peru, the U.S., and Canada, we concentrate on greenfield explorations. We have exploration offices in Santiago and also in Toronto and Lima, and each office manages the exploration programs in the respective areas. In Chile and Peru, we lead our own exploration efforts, but elsewhere, we prefer to enter into joint ventures with partners who hold interesting land positions and are able to bring local knowledge and experience. Our exploration strategy has translated into success for us, as you can see here on this slide.
Thanks to our successful resource development, most of which was a result of our exploration efforts, we have maintained the second highest rate of copper resource growth out of the major global copper producers, including in this study since 2003, with an annual rate of 9.5% per annum. This success has also translated into tangible growth for Antofagasta as a business. Over this time, the group's total mineral resource have grown from 23 million tons to 87 million tons of copper. As this slide illustrates, this gain has come primarily from organic growth. I'd like now to focus on our Centinela mining district, which we believe accurately captures the success of our exploration strategy over time. We built the district over several decades into a multi-deposit mining district containing nearly seven billion tons of mineral resources.
Production started at El Tesoro in 2001, and this production grew with the opening of Esperanza in 2011, followed by the opening of the Encuentro oxide pit a few years later. Early next year, we will complete the pre-stripping of Esperanza Sur pit, growing this district even further. During this time, we were able to discover and then maintain high levels of copper resources to add to our portfolio. In 2020, we have 24 million tons of contained copper and 22 million ounces of gold. In the last year, our focuses have continued to be on identifying new high-quality oxide leach targets in the Centinela district.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions in place at our various exploration sites, we concentrated on carrying out more desktop evaluations than in the years before, so that we could generate new land acquisition opportunities to pursue as restrictions ceased. These were done either by submitting exploration license applications or by entering into agreements with third parties. In order to maintain our success and efforts in exploration, we have remained committed to reliable expenditure levels, even in low price cycles. The majority of expenditure is concentrated on our exploration work in Chile, with a smaller portion dedicated to exploration in other countries. Exploration expenditure has been similar since 2018, only decreased due to COVID restrictions in 2020 as our activities reduced. Exploration is a long-term activity for us that has played a very important role in Antofagasta's evolution.
It has enabled us to grow into the company we are today and maintain the second highest rate of copper resource growth out of the major global copper producers. It will be a major component of the company's future as we seek to unlock the wealth of embedded growth we have in our portfolio. I'm incredibly lucky to be supported by the very experienced geology and exploration teams with deep knowledge of our prospecting regions and the ability to break exploration paradigms and to discover new reserves .
We will continue to focus on highly prospective regions in the Americas, both through our own efforts and through joint ventures and opportunistic M&A that fit into our strategy and current targets. As I mentioned, we are working on some exciting projects which we will tell you more about in the coming future. Until then, thank you very much for your time, and I will now hand over to René Aguilar and Alejandra Vial to talk to you about the sustainability strategy and how it's embedded in everything we do.
Hello, I am René Aguilar, and I am Antofagasta's Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Sustainability. Together with my colleague, Alejandra Vial, we're going to take you through a presentation that focuses on our sustainability approach. As you now have listened to some of my colleagues already today, our business strategy at Antofagasta is structured around five pillars that focus our purpose around developing mining for a better future. Sustainability is a core theme across our strategy, though in the frame of the five pillars, it is particularly important in regard to two of them. First, people, and second, safety and sustainability, which itself is a source of value creation in our culture at Antofagasta. At this point, it's a good idea to take a deeper look at how we consider sustainability at Antofagasta. Our approach is defined around being a reliable and responsible producer.
This approach is critical to us and indeed every business decision that we make. It's set within the context of our full commitment to mitigate the climate change, and indeed, for our comprehensive social agenda as well, which in our view, means that the communities in which we are part will benefit from our activities. To the detail, for us, there are five key focus areas, people, our economic performance, our approach to environmental management, social development, and an unwavering commitment to transparency. Let's take a look at each of these in turn. When it comes to people, safety is a priority across our business and for all our people, for both our employees and contractors. Indeed, you have heard much about our leadership in this area earlier from Hernán. For us, the well-being and development of our employees and contractors are crucial to our value proposition.
As mining becomes an even more sophisticated and technical industry, skills levels are increasing too, and this presents new opportunities and, at times, challenges that we seek to mitigate to ensure the safety of our workforce. We recognize the importance of diversity and equal opportunity, and so we are continually focused on fostering environments that facilitate collaboration in both the professional and personal development of our workforce as individuals and also collectively as teams. During 2020, we made good progress on improving diversity in our workforce with 50% of all new employees being women. So far this year, we are on track to achieve our goal, which is to double the number of women by 2022 to 17% from 2018. Across our workforce, we provide ongoing skills training and also build competencies in new engineering and technological developments as mining evolves for the future.
We do this at all levels, though in my mind, one initiative that has stood out for me this year is the introduction of a pre-apprentice level program that will encourage students to consider and prepare for apprentice-level opportunities. It's true that the pandemic has also allowed us to think in new ways, and indeed, that elements of mining in the future will be done from urban centers like our remote operating center in Antofagasta, as well as using different shift systems, providing a balance of working from home and site. We are also working to maximize the number of employees recruited locally, and that also includes a greater use of local suppliers. Our workforce is predominantly Chilean nationals, but looking at our regions, in 2020, the mining division employed 40% of its workforce from the Antofagasta and Coquimbo regions, where our mining companies are located.
In the transport division, that percentage was higher in 2020 at close to 90%. Our second pillar in our sustainability policy relates to economic performance, about which several other presenters are speaking about today. Sufficient to say that whenever we are talking about sustainability, economic factors are a key consideration. Moving to the third focus area, environmental management, an integral part of the way we do business. We view this in a three-state approach. First and foremost, prevent. Second, when this has not been possible, control. And of course, third, mitigate. We are constantly working to prevent, control, and mitigate our potential impacts and always seeks to use natural resources efficiently. At this point, I want to hand over to Alejandra Vial, our environmental manager, so that she can tell you more about what we are doing at this level. Alejandra, please.
Thanks, René. Let's get straight into the detail. At an operating level, I like to consider our approach to environmental management as one of a constant improvement. Our environmental management model is based on leadership, reportability, and risk management. It starts with committed leadership individual programs that we monitor, manage, and report on, which in turn inform us and allow us to make better decision, manage our risks, and enhance our programs. It starts, as always, with leaderships. Our board approved a climate change strategy, the aim of which is to address the challenges of climate change with a multidisciplinary approach. We are strengthening the group's capacity to mitigate and adapt to climate change. To achieve this, we have defined a strategy that includes five main areas. The first is development of climate change resilience.
We start with climate scenario modeling, gathering and generating the data and information for the evaluation of risk, opportunity, and reporting under national and international standards. We use this modeling to adapt and involve our critical infrastructure and processes based on the physical, acute, and chronic risk that we have identified. The second and the third are emission reduction and the efficient use of resources. We are managing our greenhouse gas emission, converting our mining operation to use only renewable power. I go into more detail on this shortly. The fourth is management of the environment and biodiversity. Finally, we recognize that we cannot work alone. We collaborate with other stakeholders to identify adaptation opportunities, but while also contributing to and working with others to assess the anticipated impact of climate change and transition plans. Water is a strategic resource.
We operate as efficiently as possible, minimizing waste and optimizing productivity. Water usage is of particular importance in Chile, and it has always been a priority for us, and it's becoming increasingly so with climate change. Now we are going to show you a video about our water management strategy and our effort to increase our water use efficiency.
Water is essential for every aspect of our lives. Without water, life and nature as we know it would be impossible. It is also essential for the production of copper, and the production of copper is essential to deliver economic prosperity and the transition to a low carbon economy. Yet climate change is bringing a greater risk to the availability of fresh water, especially in a water-stressed region like Chile. Our answer to this challenge must be to reduce our consumption of water and work closely with our communities and partners to do this and ensure they benefit. We recognize the need for a resilient water future in the 1990s, when we pioneered the use of raw seawater at our previously owned Michilla mine, which was our first operation in the Atacama Desert, the driest desert in the world.
Now, in 2021, 96% of the water Antucoya uses is seawater, and Centinela uses 86%. Not only does Centinela stand out worldwide in terms of using raw seawater, but it was also the first operation in the world to use thickened tailings technology on a large scale. This technology extracts most of the water from the tailings to produce a paste that is easily stackable and allows a higher percentage of the water to be recirculated back to the processing plant. This recirculation rate is significantly higher than the industry average. We are always looking to improve water use efficiency to lower our ultimate water use. Across all four of our operations, we can boast an average recirculation rate of over 80%.
Los Pelambres in central Chile is our biggest mining operation, and while it is not in the desert, it is high up in the Andes, where mining and agriculture coexist. This region has been suffering very difficult drought conditions for the past 12 years as a result of climate change, with the last year being particularly tough. Six years ago, Antofagasta took the decision to advance the research, design, and the permits needed to build a desalination plant for Los Pelambres near the port of Los Vilos. This desalination plant is vital for the expansion of the mine and is now 66% complete and will be commissioned in the second half of 2022.
We are proud to say that Los Pelambres will be the first mine in central Chile to use desalinated seawater, and we are currently progressing with the necessary permits to double the capacity of the plant, so that by 2025, more than 90% of the water it needs will be a combination of desalinated seawater and reused or recycled water. The fresh water that we don't use as a result of moving down the desalination route will be available for our neighboring communities to help them cope with the drought. We are working intensively with our communities and partners to help them manage the supply of drinking water in rural areas and the water that small and medium-sized farmers need for the irrigation of crops and livestock.
Our partnerships extend further to leading universities, study centers, and state agencies, where we work on finding ways to improve our water use efficiency through research and development projects. At Zaldívar, we only use continental water and have applied for an extension of our water permit from 2025 to 2031, which is environmentally sustainable.
Zaldívar's mine life extends to 2036, and looking beyond this date, field work and studies are underway on further extending the life of the mine by exploiting the primary sulfide ore body that lies below the current ore reserve. Water planning beyond the extension to 2031 is being evaluated as part of these studies. We know that water is essential for every aspect of our lives, and we expect that by 2025, some 90% of the water used by our mining operations will be seawater and reused or recycled water. Our lives and our world depend on it.
In 2018, we set a goal of reducing our GHG emissions by 300,000 tons of CO2 equivalent by 2022. By the end of 2020, we have achieved the goal with emissions reduced by over 580,000 tons. Early this year, we created a new target to reduce our Scope 1 and 2 emissions by a further 30% or 730,000 tons by 2025. In the long term, we have committed to being carbon neutral by 2050 at the latest, in line with Chile's own targets. Regarding Scope 3, we will continue to measure and report it, and we are working on setting a reduction target.
We are managing the environment and biodiversity near our operation, not only to reduce our impact, but in some areas to enhance it by managing special nature sanctuaries. Actions speak louder than words, and so I want to show you on this slide four examples of biodiversity programs that we have established. At Centinela, we are protecting a relict forest of Olivillo, which survives due to a specific climate condition in the semi-desert area. At Monte Aranda, there are Chilean palms, a threatened endemic species. Laguna Conchalí is a coastal wetland with a high diversity of bird species, and is the first private Ramsar site in the country. In La Quebrada Llau Llau, there is a sclerophyllous forest which has a rich biodiversity. Let me now pass you back to René.
Thank you, Alejandra, for the detailed look at our sustainability work. Let me take the baton back now as I want to spend the remainder of this presentation on social value and our transparency and governance framework. The social value model that we have developed seeks to generate economic, social, and human capital in our direct areas of influence. We initiate effective participatory and transparent dialogue processes with our different stakeholders in the regions where we operate, seeking opportunities to jointly address any issues and generate a shared vision of development. At the center of our strategy is our belief that social investment is meaningful and that we engage with the stakeholders transparently and collaboratively, not just our employees and local communities, but with our suppliers, government, and its agencies too.
Earlier, Alejandra mentioned that initiatives that we are involved with and how we align ourselves at the regional and national level. On this slide, there are many examples of such organizations from our social management perspective, where we are successfully engaging with our communities and other stakeholders seeking positive outcomes for all. We also make investments in communities across a range of projects covering, for example, education, culture, infrastructure, economic development, and health. In 2020, we invested $46 million in social projects. Measuring the impact of our social investment is vital as it's been cognizant of changes in the community's perception over time. We measure this impact to evaluate the contribution to people's well-being, and if necessary, we adjust our programs and projects. Finally, before we finish our presentation, I want to touch on our commitment to transparency in what we do here at Antofagasta.
We believe in the importance of developing effective, responsible, and transparent institutions, and we have guidelines and internal regulations to ensure we conduct our business in a responsible manner and behave in an honest, transparent, and respectful way with full regard to human rights and to all laws and regulations. We are proud of the external accreditations that we have received, and they are important to us to show that our work is making a difference. This includes the Copper Mark, which both Centinela and Zaldívar have achieved, and Los Pelambres and Antucoya have begun the accreditation process. We are also aligned with the ICMM principles and UN Sustainable Development Goals and are reporting against the TCFD recommendations.
We have covered a lot of ground today on our sustainability work and ambitions, providing a fuller appreciation of the extraordinary lengths that we go to at Antofagasta on sustainability and social management issues to ensure we remain reliable and responsible producers at all our operations. Now, I invite you to watch a video of our transport division, where Catalina is going to tell us about its history, challenges, and how the railway plays an important role for the mining industry.
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Hello. I'm joined here in London by Andrés Velasco, a former Minister of Finance in Chile from 2006 to 2010. During his tenure, he was recognized as Latin America Finance Minister of the Year by several international publications. Andrés is an economist. He was a professor at NYU, Harvard, and Columbia. He's currently Dean of the School of Public Policy at the London School of Economics. Welcome, Dr. Velasco.
Thank you. Pleasure.
I'm gonna start with a big-picture question about the political situation in Chile. We've just had the results of the congressional elections, which were held recently, and the presidential elections were held on the same day, and the outcome of that is we've now got two candidates, and it's a very close race between the far-left candidate, Gabriel Boric, and the far-right candidate, José Antonio Kast. What's your take on the political situation?
Chile used to be the country in Latin America with boring politics. We were the outlier in the continent. No more. Chile today is having rather rocky politics.
Some of the change is for the better, some of the change may not be for the better. I think that remains to be seen. Clearly the situation is evolving very, very quickly, and politics in Chile in the next 5 years will not be like politics in Chile in the past. What's changed? First of all, the political parties, the political leaders, and the political arrangements that governed Chile for the last 25 and 30 years, through what I think was a period of prosperity and progress. Those people, those parties today are not in fashion, to put it mildly. We look at polls, political parties, Congress, the government, the court system, business leaders, union leaders, nobody has 10% approval in the polls.
Second thing that happened is that Chile, which has been a fairly peaceful country, had an explosion of both street unrest and political violence in the last quarter of 2019. That violence sort of ended as a result of the pandemic, but it revealed a country that was deeply fractured, where a lot of people were not happy, and where a minority, but a very active minority was willing to engage in political violence to attain political change. That's new. Of course, Chile had a very bloody and nasty dictatorship under General Pinochet in the 1970s and 1980s. Since the 1990s, Chile had been a country where politics was done the peaceful way, not necessarily the violent way.
Fortunately, that street unrest was channeled politically into a process of writing a new constitution, and a great deal of the sort of change and frustration of that period has been usefully, I think, channeled in that respect, and the constitution is being written as we speak. I think it's good news in the sense that when you have political institutions which have lost a great deal of legitimacy, it is not a bad idea to rewrite the script and start again.
Yeah.
Of course, you know, it remains to be seen what the new constitution will bring.
Given it remains to be seen, and your experience in the political situation, can you give a sense from your judgment about what we might expect to see in the constitution?
I think it is easy to be misled by a lot of the noise and a lot of the symbolism around the first two or three months of the convention. Naturally, it is a new body. A lot of the people who are elected to the convention are not conventional. Clearly, in a country which is mostly centrist, the left is probably over-represented at the convention. The first couple of months of the convention led a lot of people to be worried about exactly what kind of a product will come out. Here's the bad news. There's also a bit of good news. I think eventually, and it's happening already, a group of people are beginning to think and address the fundamental issue. The fundamental issue is that we've got to rewrite the rules of politics.
Yeah.
Chile has two or three big choices to make. Will it remain a presidential political regime, or will it move to a parliamentary system like the U.K.? That's sort of one big issue. Secondly, will we remain a proportional electoral system like much of continental Europe, or are we going to move closer to something like the Westminster system or the American system of one sort of first past the post? Last but not least, Chile's been a very centralized country, where Santiago wielded a lot of power and the provinces did not. I think I know I could be accused of being naive here, but I want to be optimistic. I think that a consensus is gradually emerging about sort of building blocks of that.
In that sense, given the current degree of sort of distrust of political institutions in Chile, having a rewriting of that is probably good news. Now, what else will the constitution bring that, you know, what will be the regime concerning the environment, or concerning business, or concerning the central bank or fiscal rules? The honest answer is a lot of that is, at this point, very much up in the air.
What's the balance between the importance of the constitutional changes?
Yeah.
versus the impact of, you know, whichever presidential candidate is elected?
In the long run, the real big game being played today is the constitution. You know, the next president will be around for four years, maybe even less, because one of the things the convention could do is cut short the period and say, "We begin with a new system," say within two years. Of course, when you rewrite the rules of a political game, you know, serious countries don't change their constitution every two weeks. This constitution will be around for 30, 40, you know, maybe 100 years. I think that is the big show in town.
What's your sense of timing of when more details of that are going to emerge, given that there's a substantive program of reform?
Pretty quickly, actually.
Yeah.
The convention, you know, was brought into being by a constitutional reform, so the timing and procedures are fairly well set out. The convention is supposed to produce a draft within nine months, but it can ask for an extension. I think it'll probably be about a year. Sometime around the middle of next year, maybe earlier, we will have a pretty good sense of what that constitution might look like. Of course, you will have committees within the convention writing drafts, then whatever emerges from the committees has to go to the general body, and then there's a national referendum, which has to say thumbs up or thumbs down to the text. I think it's pretty likely that whatever comes out of the convention will be approved by the referendum.
The real struggle, if you wanna put it that way, the real conversation will be within the convention, probably sometime between, say, late February 2022 and the middle of 2022.
Actually it sounds like a very, you know, despite the sort of some of the news around, it's a very constructive and detailed process which is underway.
The way by which we got here was anything but, you know, easy. You know, the constitution—I mean, the reform to bring this convention into being was arrived at, you know, at 3 A.M. in November 2019 when Santiago and the country was being rocked by violent protests.
Yeah.
The process was difficult. As I say, when you have that degree of discontent, that degree of mobilization, when you have a government that is essentially a spectator because the government lost political initiative, the question is, will the outcome be violent, which would have been really terrible, or will the outcome be institutional?
Yeah.
The good news is that Chile chose the institutional route. The open question is when you put 155 people, many of whom don't have a lot of political experience in a room and say, "Write a new constitution," the outcome could be great or the outcome be not so good. If you look at countries in Latin America that wrote brand-new constitutions over the last say quarter century, some countries, Colombia and Brazil in particular, came up with workable arrangements. They're not perfect. They have a number of shortcomings, but they were workable. Other countries like Bolivia or like Ecuador wrote constitutions that were basically meant to keep the guy, you know, who happened to be in power then in power forever. Those were not particularly, you know, democratic constitution writing exercises.
I think the one in Chile is, you know, more like Colombia and Brazil, less like clearly Bolivia or Ecuador. Still, you know, the job of writing a constitution is a tough one. You know, the U.K. doesn't have one, you know. It's
Yeah.
You know, Britains know how tough it is, you know. They've stayed away from the job.
I'm gonna move on to another piece of drafting, if I may, which is concerning the mining royalty bill.
Yeah. Yeah.
In May, the lower house of Congress passed a new mining bill which would tax mining revenues at a sliding rate linked to the copper price, and obviously at the higher rates at very high levels. Since then, the Senate's been reviewing it and is expected to make some changes to moderate that.
Mm-hmm.
How do you expect this bill to progress? What's your take on, the sort of the latest news around it? Given that we're in a transition period, how should we be thinking about this?
I think it's pretty likely that whoever becomes president in Chile beginning in March of next year will want to revisit the issue of mining royalties. Now, will the current bill become law? I think chances are no, it will not. To understand the current bill, you have to understand two things. First of all, it was put forward by a bunch of members of Congress at the height of the primary season a few months ago. It is really a political bill, and pretty much anybody who knows anything about the subject understands that from a technical point of view, it's not a very sound bill. It is a fairly extreme bill. It is very unlikely to see the light of day.
Secondly, and this is a point that is not often appreciated outside Chile, the bill is completely unconstitutional because the Chilean constitution in force today gives the executive power the sole right to introduce bills having to do with taxation. The only way in which this bill could in fact become the law of the land is if the government actually sponsored it.
Yeah.
The chances that the current conservative administration would sponsor the bill between now and the, you know, the eleventh of March when it leaves office are basically zero. The current bill is very, very unlikely to become the law of the land. Come what may, you know, in March, other bills are likely to be presented. If Boric becomes the president of Chile, which is, you know, if you believe polls, more likely than Kast or even though it's a very close race, it is quite likely that the Boric team will submit a new bill, which I think will be less extreme than the current bill.
Just to be clear on timing, how soon do you think some bill will come back in some new drafted form?
You know, the installation of a new government is never an easy or quick affair. You know, the presidential period in Chile begins, as I said, on the 11th of March. I would expect the new administration, particularly if Boric is president, to send a tax reform to Congress, say, within the first 3 months, not the first day, but not much after that.
in terms of the impact on the industry, so the expectation is that something will change.
Yes.
Unlikely to be as severe as the currently drafted bill is sort of just to summarize your position.
I have spoken to a number of economists and a number of tax lawyers, you know, who are the local experts on the subject. I have yet to meet anyone who thinks that the bill as is makes any sense. The rates are too high. It is completely out of line with international standards. Again, if you look at countries that would be reasonable standards of comparison, whether that country may be Canada or whether the country may be Peru or Australia in particular, which is a country that a lot of Chileans look to because it's, you know, big mining power. You know, BHP, which is a big Australian company, is in Chile. There are British companies in Chile. There are American companies in Chile. Antofagasta, of course, a big player in Chile.
Compared to what you see in the international arena, that bill is completely out of line.
Yeah.
That bill as is will probably never really become the law of the land. Will there be a change? Will the issue of royalties be revisited by Congress in the future? I think particularly if Boric is president, the answer is yes.
Let's look more generally at sort of, as an economist.
Right.
You've written a lot about sort of economic policy incentives to which have an impact on people's livelihoods and on their lives. As you look at an industry like the mining sector.
Yeah.
How would you understand the impact that the mining industry can have to improve livelihoods and obviously has a significant economic impact, particularly in Chile?
Chile is a mining country.
Mm.
You know, a lot of the national symbolism is all about the countryside, but a lot of the GDP and a lot of the employment, directly or indirectly is generated by mining.
Yeah.
As a result, you know, mining will remain a very central force in Chilean economics and Chilean politics. I don't think any government, regardless of political preferences, would be likely to neglect the mining industry or would be likely to do something that sort of brings it to a halt. I mean, that would be really shooting yourself, not in the foot, but in the head. Having said that, I think the conversation will be, as we mentioned earlier, you know, are environmental standards or, you know, taxation standards comparable to those that you might observe-
Yeah
in other countries? Clearly now the world has shifted to the left. Chile has shifted to some extent to the left. What is expected, say, in terms of the environment, given global warming, given big issues with pollution of air and water in Chile, clearly standards will be more demanding. I think that's happening everywhere. It's happening in the world. That does not mean that I anticipate some sort of a radical regime that would sort of bring the industry or the sector to a screeching halt.
I just wanna come back to the question of the sort of congressional makeup. We obviously know what that looks like right now. What's your take about what that means and what it looks like?
The conventional wisdom after the protest, after the big marches, was that the Chilean electorate had moved radically to the left. That was more of a conjecture than a real solid finding, and I think the election just a few weeks ago brought some news. I think it revealed that the electorate is split, and that there's no one overwhelming political force that dominates Congress. That we're going to have a Congress that is on the one hand, more polarized than any Congress before, meaning the center is weaker and parties on the far right and the far left are stronger. It is not a makeup that tilts very heavily one way or the other way.
In the lower house, which has 155 members of the Cámara de Diputados, if you add up everybody who looks vaguely leftist, they have a slight majority, but not a, you know, very large majority. In addition, that is not one block because you have in that general area, Christian Democrats who are quite centrist, Social Democrats, Socialists, Communists, and then an array of left-wing parties, some of which are somewhat centrist, some of which are more and more extreme. On the right, you also have a panoply of parties, two or three larger ones and a bunch of smaller ones. This Congress in particular is unlike the previous ones in that are a lot more independent or a lot more new parties. Even the old parties don't have a lot of party discipline.
You know, so the sort of simple mathematics of saying block A has got so many and block B has got so many won't quite work. The basic message is in the lower house, a slight majority for the left and the center left. In the Senate, there is a 50/50 split, much like the American Senate.
Yeah.
Again, these may not be solid blocks. People may break away for one vote or another. The parties don't have a lot of party discipline, but if you do the basic arithmetic, it looks like a fifty-fifty split.
Great. Let's layer on top the presidential elections. We'll know the results soon. It's difficult to ask you this ahead of the elections.
Yeah
I'm gonna push you. How should we understand the race at the moment is between two fairly extreme candidates on the left and the right? What are the implications of whoever wins for, given that mix you've just described about the sort of slightly sort of mixed political environment on the congressional side?
The first thing to understand is that this is the first time since the return of democracy to Chile in 1990, that the main center-left bloc and the main center-right bloc have not made it to the second round. This election is unlike any other election.
Mm.
Secondly, whoever wins because of the mathematics we were just describing will not have a congressional majority. There's been a lot of discussion of what this platform and program says, what the other one says. Chances are that regardless of who wins, much of that set of proposals will never become law simply because no one really has the congressional majority. Thirdly, if you believe polls, this remains a completely open election. Chilean law, strangely, we may change this in the future, does not allow for the publication of opinion polls during the last two weeks. The last polls came out over the weekend, and they show candidate Boric from the Frente Amplio on the far left, slightly ahead, comfortably ahead in some polls, slightly ahead in some others.
The big question, of course, the two big questions that make those polls not particularly reliable. I'm not saying necessarily Kast will win, far from it, but because this election is unlike other elections, we have no idea how many people will vote. That's the first question. Chile has voluntary voting. Of course, the fact that, you know, we have a new variant of the virus circulating may mean we don't know that older voters may stay home, younger voters may come out. It is a summer on the other hand, so it's not quite as scary. Maybe everybody will vote. Secondly, it is very unclear what the supporters of some of the other candidates who came in third, fourth, and fifth will do.
Yeah.
The guy who came in third does not belong to either one of the main political blocs either. He's a strange populist who actually campaigned from the U.S. because he has a number of lawsuits pending in Chile. He captured 13% of the vote, and the truth is nobody has any idea where his votes are going. The expectation is that the bulk of the votes of the center right will go to Kast. The votes, you know, most of the votes of the center left will go to Boric, but even that is an open question. As a result, you know, the polls today are saying that the most likely president of Chile is Boric, but the election remains very, very close.
Just a quick follow-up on that. You mentioned the polls obviously making prediction. You obviously speak to a lot of people and your former colleagues in the sort of political sphere in Chile as well. What are they saying about the vote?
They-
Do they sort of have that intel, inside intelligence?
I talk to people all the time, and I'm afraid that all I can report that most people are saying election is too close to call. You know, if most pollsters had to put their money on anyone, they would probably put the money on Boric, but they would immediately add, "Well, we're not quite sure." Again, because, sorry to repeat this, the big parties are not in play, so this is much more volatile. Secondly, because of voluntary voting, you could have 40% of the electorate voting 50% or 60%. Nobody has any idea. That means that the composition of the number of people who will go to vote, will they be old? Will they be young? Will they be left-leaning, right-leaning? That remains very much of an open question.
Great. I'm just gonna come to a sort of broader question into the investment landscape.
Yeah.
As a place to invest in Chile at the moment, I just want to get your judgment about some of the risks and opportunities that you see ahead?
Chile was again, the boring country in which investment was very safe. Chile is no longer a boring country, so there are many more open questions and many things are changing. Everybody knows that, say, bond yields have gone up. You know, the premium associated with investing in Chile, whether buying a bond or buying a company, has gone up. Chile is a risky country, or at least that's the market perception. I think clearly the quality of politics in Chile deteriorated over the last decade. There's no question about that. Therefore, the quality of legislation that is coming through parliament, the ability of incoming governments to turn their programs into law has also declined. Fragmentation of politics is much, much larger. Demagogues of the right and the left are everywhere in parliament.
Again, that's not unique to Chile, right? You see that in the U.S. or the U.K. or Brazil or Mexico or so many other places. The good news, I think, is that this all could have gone terribly wrong if you know, violence had continued and if the outcome had not been institutional. There is some chance, it is not a certainty, but there is a reasonable chance that the Constitution will have. Again, it's not clear what the Constitution will say on economic issues. That remains an open question. Will the Constitution have reasonable rules of the game regarding politics, political system, electoral system, et cetera? We're not sure yet, but there's a consensus beginning to emerge that looks reasonable. If that is so, then maybe in five years we will look back and say, "That was a difficult period.
That was a very unstable period, but we pulled through. Am I sure that will happen? No, but I think there is a bit of a ray of light there.
I'm gonna leave that with a hint of optimism. Dr. Velasco, thank you very much for a very interesting conversation today.
Thank you very much. My pleasure.
Hello, I'm Mauricio Ortiz, and I am the CFO of Antofagasta. I have the pleasure of presenting our financial strategy and how we work to maintain a strong balance sheet and generate liquidity that can support our growth plans. All of which underpin our commitment to long-term sustainable value creation and shareholder returns. Over the years, we have built a consistent track record to create sustainable value and shareholder returns over the long term. We take business decision with a long-term view, and this is based on three fundamental objectives. The first, a rigorous focus on our operating cost. I will speak about cost in further detail later, but I would like to emphasize that this is something that we focus on regardless of the copper price. Secondly, our cost approach targets to manage our EBITDA.
Being in a cyclical business like ours, we protect our EBITDA margin in all price environments. Our cost and competitiveness program and our operating excellence are central. Lastly, capital returns. We have a minimum commitment of 35% of underlying net earnings that we pay out as a dividend, and any excess of cash that we define in our capital allocation model is allocated either to fund growth and development opportunities or return it to shareholders as dividend in excess of this 35%. At Antofagasta, our business strategy is structured around five pillars, each defined with short- and medium-term goals that enable us to achieve our purpose of developing mining for a better future. When it comes to competitiveness, our focus is to achieve productivity gains through cost control and streamlining our processes. That will enable and deliver efficiencies and savings.
It is important to us that our operating model accommodates the variability that is inherent in our production plans. We do this with a strong focus on operating excellence. Our ongoing success in this area is evident with our Cost and Competitiveness Program, our CCP, which continue to generate significant efficiencies and savings. As you have heard from Iván, we have a large corporate inventory to fuel future growth. From my perspective as CFO, it is my responsibility to ensure that we have the appropriate available capital at the lowest cost achievable that will facilitate that growth and allow us to maintain our leadership position for the long term. Let's now take a look in more detail at our cost base. I believe this is the starting point from which we create sustainable value at our operations and projects and shareholder returns over the long term.
Approximately 40% of our cost base is related to input prices. We have intentionally linked our supply prices of steel materials, explosives, fossil fuel-based energy, and other inputs to their respective underlying commodity to minimize the impact on our margins. However, as part of our CCP, we have been innovative and using competitive advantages with some of our input prices. Energy in Chile is a great example, as we have been negotiating down our energy costs by putting in place lower-cost renewable energy contracts. Next, our Chilean peso-based costs, which represent 40%-45% of the total. Examples of this are wages, maintenance, and other services. Our technology and organizational effectiveness initiatives are fundamental for the long term. In the short run, inflation associated with this group of costs is mitigated by changes in the Chilean peso exchange rate.
The last group of costs are spares and imported materials. Here, we're working to create partnerships with existing and new suppliers, so we can innovate together and improve their products' efficiency. All our cost optimization initiatives converge in our CCP. During the first half of the year, the CCP delivered savings of $43 million, which is equivalent to $0.05 per pound, resulting in a net cash cost of $1.14 per pound, placing us in the second quartile of the industry. I'm pleased to say that in 2021, we will again deliver according to the plan, and we are on track to achieve our target of $100 million savings this year. Our commitment to maintain production at a competitive cost through the cycle is paramount.
Our cost and competitiveness program is designed to optimize our cost base by ensuring cost discipline and structural savings across our operations. Cumulative savings are now over $900 million, and we continually seek to make cost savings to fully optimize our margins. Much of the progress we have made in recent years reflects not only our focus on cost, but also the culture of innovation that Antofagasta is building within the company. Let me share a few examples so I can bring this to life. In organizational effectiveness, a recent example is the simplification of our corporate functions, which produce annual savings of approximately $30 million. As technology and digitalization enable us, we are further optimizing functions and challenging the way we run the mindset as well.
A second area of focus is around how we continually strive to optimize our operations and run our mines and plants to their full potential. One good example is how, since late 2020, we have been running the Centinela concentrator beyond design capacity through machine learning and the milling circuit reconfiguration. This improvement will benefit Centinela for the rest of its operating life. Finally, goods and services productivity, essentially procurement. A good example here is our recent energy negotiation at Zaldívar, which shaved off $50 million from our annual energy cost. We have also renegotiated energy supply contracts at all our operations to decarbonize our supply and take advantage of the lower price of the renewable energy in Chile.
In the face of the ever-increasing cost pressures due to natural grade decline, at Antofagasta, we are taking a proactive lead in cost savings and operating improvements. This is something that we'll never stop doing, as it is central to our strategy. For Antofagasta, our capital allocation framework is fundamental to all our financial decisions. Everything is underpinned by our strong operating cash flow. Here is where our cost and competitiveness program and our capital allocation model are intimately linked. I would like to highlight this. We don't allocate capital to anything that the cost and competitiveness program hasn't already optimized. After this, we invest through the cycle in ourselves, through sustaining capital programs that will replace all plants and equipment.
We also invest in mine development, where we open up different phases of the mine to expose the mineral to be mined later. Next, we fulfill our minimum commitment to our shareholders by paying 35% of our underlying net earnings as dividends. With our excess cash flows, we consider and assess our organic growth project, which must be in line with our stringent return and risk criteria. If nothing fits our criteria, we return this excess of cash to our shareholders as part of our dividend policy. Central to our way of mining is to deliver on the value we have committed. Therefore, managing the climate change effects on our portfolio has become an important aspect of this assessment. We have taken many steps in this regard, which I will explain shortly.
I want to highlight that at Antofagasta, we are putting value optimization and climate resiliency together at the center of our financial decisions. We have introduced an internal carbon price and are evaluating the impact of the climate change variables in the life of our mines. This helps us to be better prepared and resilient for the challenges we will face in the future. Now, let's look at this model in action. On this slide, you can see we have been following this capital allocation model for some years. We have generated strong operating cash flows, which will allow us to invest while leaving plenty of capital to allocate to our growth projects, and also reward our shareholders. You can see here that through the cycle we have delivered consistent and compelling shareholder value.
For the last five years, our payout ratio has averaged above 65%, while always maintaining a strong balance sheet. For next year, capital expenditure is expected to be at similar levels as 2021, and guidance will be finalized when the review of the Los Pelambres expansion project has been completed. Let me describe how we are working within the business to promote and develop our climate resiliency, both by adapting our business for climate change and by mitigating the effects of climate change. At Los Pelambres, we have been facing acute water shortage for some time, which has also impacted our neighboring communities. Additionally, our climate model showed that this condition will only deteriorate over the coming years. We had to take action and adapt to the reality of climate change.
In 2018, we sanctioned the investment in a 400 L per second desalination plant, which is currently under construction, and we expect that it will come online in the second half of next year. We have also had to be proactive in mitigating the effects of climate change, and are in the process of switching all our mining operations to run wholly on renewable energy, which will not only significantly reduce our emissions, but will reduce our costs as well. We have also introduced an internal carbon price, which we will use in the assessment of projects and in the day-to-day procurement process. Our clear capital allocation strategy has given us the discipline and the agility to assess new decision factors, always targeting to achieve sustainable value and shareholder returns over the long term.
In summary, I have taken you through how at Antofagasta we seek to manage our cost base. I also show how much we focus on this, and how this performance and our long-term investment strategies have enabled us to maintain a strong balance sheet. Cost per pound is our key financial KPI, and it reflects the success of all our cost control and productivity improvement activities in an industry where control of the revenue line is driven largely by external factors. We also looked at our evolving capital allocation framework, where we have explicitly introduced climate change considerations. I believe that we are carefully measured and disciplined in our approach to how we manage our finances and generate shareholders' returns. Looking to the future, we are still 100% focused on creating sustainable value and shareholder returns over the long term.
We will do this in the same way as we have ensured our successful performance over the last few years. We will manage our operating cash flows by continuing to focus on our costs. We will protect our margins through our cost and competitiveness program, and we will return excess capital to our shareholders consistent with our tradition of being a value and income company. Thank you, and I will now hand over to Alan Muchnik, who will tell you about our innovation activities.
Hello, my name is Alan Muchnik, and I am Antofagasta's Vice President of Strategy and Innovation. It is a pleasure to be speaking with you all today while I'll guide you through our innovation strategy, recent successes, and future plans. I will also tell you about our new primary leach technology. As you know, Antofagasta's central purpose is developing mining for a better future.
Innovation sits at the heart of this as one of our strategic pillars. Our efforts around innovation are centered on how we create value across the business. With innovation, we have two objectives or end goals that we want to achieve. One, to improve our operations continuity and realize their full potential. And two, to enable and develop growth conditions looking for transformation and business development. Our journey to achieving these goals has been clearly established. It is purpose-driven. We are concentrating on solutions and the differences they will create. Moving on, we can go into more detail of what these end goals look like in terms of tangible solutions and goals and how they make up our vision for the operation of the future.
Taking the first objective, we seek to use our comprehensive innovation process to devise new ways to operate best-in-class digital operations, so that we can sustain our competitive position across our portfolio while we take advantage of the opportunities from adopting new technologies from planning to the mine, to the plant, and beyond. This includes dynamic and intelligent planning, new ways of working on digital platforms, and automated or autonomous operations at the mine and plant, using remote operations and data-driven decision-making. A few examples for you, some of which I have touched on earlier. We are currently building integrated remote operation centers for Centinela and Pelambres, which is one of our digital roadmap programs and part of our drive to smart operations that we expect will deliver improved safety, savings, and productivity gains by targeting global performance optimization.
We expect the Centinela IROC to become the platform for future regional operations integration and hope this will also boost local innovation and employment in the city of Antofagasta. One of the main drivers of digitalization is data, which through analytics can be converted into information, decisions, and actions to improve mining operations. This has proven to be a source of competitive advantage in other industries and opens significant value opportunities to our business. A few examples of this are. We increased our metal recovery by anticipating the mineral characteristics of the ore that fits the flotation circuit using a decision support system based on machine learning and optimization methods. This solution is already in operation on two flotation lines at Pelambres, and we are extending it to the remaining lines, as well as to Centinela.
We have also increased heap leach recoveries in our hydrometallurgical plants by applying data analytics to better understanding the process behavior for different ores, improving mine stability controls by the detection and early warning of small-scale geotechnical instabilities in open pit slopes. Another aspect we are focusing on is increased use of autonomous equipment at our operations for safety and improved performance from increased reliability and assets utilization, and also disciplined execution. We have started with autonomous drills at Pelambres and will now introduce autonomous drills and trucks at Esperanza Sur in Centinela. We expect to extend this more widely across the group over the coming years, together with the application of robotics in performing maintenance activities and converting our hydrometallurgical plants to use more automation.
Los Pelambres is one of the first sites in the copper industry to have cable-linked autonomous drills in production, significantly increasing their utilization rates and meters drilled compared with manual operations, which also creates savings from an optimized fleet size and benefits from reduced maintenance and spare parts operating costs. Moving on to the second objective, let me talk about how we use innovation to forge new ways to develop mining and leverage growth. This is a longer term objective and includes continuing our efforts towards the next generation of mining, developing game-changing process technology, achieving carbon neutrality and meaningful emissions reductions, as well as minimizing our tailings footprint. One instance of this process in action is our work towards creating effective tailings and water management solutions. This focuses on water recovery, control and monitoring, and facility integrity.
When we seek to solve the challenges we face, we do not set out to own the solutions. In many areas, we work with the wider industry, collaborating and sharing ideas. One of these areas is how we progress new technologies to reduce mining equipment carbon emissions. For instance, we have recently become a sponsor of Charge On, an international open innovation challenge for suppliers to develop solutions to supply electricity safely, sustainably, and quickly to battery-powered mining trucks. We have also recently joined the HYDRA Consortium, which aims to develop and test the technology needed to replace the use of diesel in heavy-duty vehicles and thus reduce GHG emissions with hydrogen. None of this effort would be successful without an able and digitally literate workforce, inspired to innovate and approach solutions together.
To enable this mindset, we developed our Digital Academy to upskill our employees with the know-how they need in today's digital era. Launched in 2020, the academy is focused on upskilling and reskilling our workforce to match the new demands of our digital transformation and other innovation processes. In 2020, over 1,500 senior leaders and supervisors took digital literacy courses on basic terminology and tools. By the end of the year, 94% had received diplomas for completing all 9 online courses. In 2021, 270 supervisors started a specialist course on database decision-making. Now I'd like to take you through one of the innovations we are most proud of, our primary sulfide leach technology, Cuprochlor-T.
At Antofagasta, we understand that the future depends on our ability to innovate and adapt to the new challenges facing mining. We have been investing for many years in research and development to produce copper from low-grade primary sulfide minerals that traditionally have been uneconomic using existing technologies. This new technology is called Cuprochlor-T, and we believe it will allow us over time to produce copper cathodes from low-grade primary sulfide minerals at reduced operating and capital costs, and with a smaller water and carbon footprint. An important percentage of our copper resources are chalcopyrite, which is a copper iron sulfide mineral that we find in an increasing proportion as we mine deeper. Given that increasing proportion, and that it is not always possible to process the lower grade chalcopyrite economically, there is potential that mineral resources that were previously regarded as uneconomic could be regarded as economic.
We developed a new solution that allows us to leach these primary sulfides, specifically chalcopyrite, and obtain economic recoveries of 70% or more after approximately 200 days of leaching. The process involves using chloride at a controlled temperature and results in the economic production of copper cathodes.
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We started in the lab and moved on to pilot testing, followed by a range of semi-industrial tests.
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The Cuprochlor-T technology breaks the bond between sulfur and copper, allowing copper extraction to occur. First, in the agglomeration stage, the necessary reagents are added, and the ore is left to rest with constant aeration at a specific temperature. Second, the ore is irrigated intermittently with continued aeration and maintained at a constant temperature. Finally, after approximately 200 days, the ore completes its leaching cycle. So far, the only efficient process for extracting copper contained in primary sulfides is flotation. Another process is bacterial leaching, but this process has lower recovery and requires longer cycle times and special conditions for handling the bacteria. The Cuprochlor-T technology would allow Antofagasta to take advantage of the installed capacity of existing heap leach and SXEW facilities to produce copper cathodes from lower grade copper resources.
This new process has the potential to significantly reduce the capital and operating costs, and importantly, it has a smaller water and carbon footprint. Cuprochlor-T is Antofagasta's proprietary innovation. We are currently progressing the studies on the primary sulfide ore body at some of our SXEW operations. This is how Antofagasta develops mining for a better future.
Innovation is central to our success and our purpose. It has been an important enabler in recent years and has helped us identify opportunities to unlock growth and remain a reliable and responsible copper producer. It will remain integral as we continue to focus on maximizing the benefits of our embedded growth potential and how we can sustain and improve our competitive position while we keep moving towards carbon neutrality and ensuring our operations remains as responsible as ever to our people, to our shareholders, to our communities, and to our climate. We have significantly progressed in our technology roadmap and have a clear vision as we move forward, driven by our people, so that we can continue delivering our purpose, developing mining for a better future. With that, I'll hand you over to Iván to wrap up today's presentations.
Thank you, and thanks to the rest of the management team. I would like to make a couple of short closing remarks, and then we will open up for questions. Today, we have explained how Antofagasta is a reliable and responsible copper producer with embedded growth ready to be unlocked to create value for all our stakeholders. In summary, a very large 18 billion ton copper inventory in highly prospective copper regions, mainly in Chile. A new proprietary primary sulfide leach technology that will potentially unlock value from previously uneconomic mineral resources. Identified key brownfield and incremental growth within our asset portfolio. A five-year production plan that could potentially take us to approximately 900,000 tons by 2026. An expanded capital allocation framework that includes climate risk mitigation. Environmental commitments to significantly reduce our fresh water consumption and emissions by 2025 or earlier.
Strong social commitments to our workers and our communities by making our mines safer and greener and supporting our local suppliers while upskilling our workforce and providing a better work-life balance. We have the financial strength and balance sheet to deliver this growth and extraordinary people who you heard from today who have the track record of delivering on our promises.
Whatever challenges the external environment throws at us, you can trust Antofagasta to be ready to meet that challenge. I would like to thank Professor Velasco for his time and the very interesting comments about the current situation in Chile. I would like to thank you for listening and for your continued support of Antofagasta. The future for Antofagasta is bright. I now will hand over to Andrew, who will open the floor up to your questions. Over to you, Andrew.
Good afternoon, everybody. That concludes the webcast. I hope you all found it useful. If anyone wants to look at the slides which appeared during the webcast, they are available on our website, and shortly after the end of the event, we'll make the replay available as well. We'll now go to Q&A, and I'll hand over the operator to bring on the first person to ask a question. Over to you, operator.
Thank you. If you would like to signal with questions, please press star one on your touchtone telephone. If you're joining today using a speaker phone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Please mute your webcast if you are asking a question. Once again, please press star one if you would like to signal with questions. Again, that is star one. Our first question today comes from Luke Nelson with JP Morgan.
Hi, Iván and team. Thanks a lot for taking my questions, and the presentation is very useful. 2 questions from me, which I'll take in turn. The first question on the midterm 2026 production outlook that you've provided, can you talk through qualitatively the production contribution by each mine within that outlook? Especially if you can give any sense of what's driving the dip in 2024 output.
Thank you, Luke, and welcome to everybody who's joined the call and has seen the video. I will address your question. If you look at the production plan as outlined in the graph, we basically have base production, and then we have a incremental production which starts in 2025 and then goes into 2026, which is the Centinela Second Concentrator project. The ability to get to 900,000 tons, as we've described, is dependent on, you know, the ability to undertake the second concentrator project, which is, you know, within our plan. As you will recall, we've been working on this project for quite some time.
We're very well advanced and are expecting that we will take it to the board for consideration in the late part of next year, when we are with almost, you know, 65% of engineering complete. Our production profile, as I say, is made of those two components and contingent on that approval. I think on the base production, what you see is some important new production coming, which is there and which starts in 2023 with the expansion at Los Pelambres, which we're currently building and constructing. The project at Zaldívar, the chloride leach, which will begin delivering copper in 2022, and then sort of ramps up.
The Esperanza Sur pit as well, which will provide feed for the concentrator existing plant at Centinela, starting in the second half of 2022. That is what you see basically in the profile of base production. The dip in 2024 is largely explained by grade. We have some grade decline, which is part of our normal mine planning and sequencing in the mines. Also we have a increase in grade in 2026, where, as you see, production goes up. We believe that we're able to maintain an attractive production profile with growth potential out of the new production and projects that we're commissioning, mostly next year and in 2023, which are currently under construction.
Basically keep, you know, producing and then have another step increase when we commission the Centinela. In 2024, after we've included the projects that I've mentioned, which are currently in construction, the drop is essentially grade-driven out of the sequence that we have in some of our mines.
Okay. That's useful. Then maybe more on the CapEx side. You've talked about Los Pelambres expansion CapEx being reviewed. Can you maybe talk to what the scope of this review is and whether this means you're stepping away from your prior comments that 2022 CapEx would be flat relative to 2021? Then maybe looking further afield, sort of 2023 +, how should we be thinking around the capital intensity to match that baseline production that you provided in that five-year potential production plan?
I'm gonna just say some initial comment and then pass over to Mauricio to take the rest of the question. I think on the fact that we've had some extended COVID you know to basically deal with throughout the construction of the project in terms of you know the period and also as a result of that you know there's been some extra logistical expenditure which I think would be familiar and well-known to everybody given the current circumstances. It's basically got to do with integrating those two factors into the final estimate into the CapEx that we have for the Los Pelambres project. And that's for 2022.
I would say that this is a project which is now 65% complete. We're basically, you know, we've got all materials on site. We are, you know, into a period in which vaccination rates are very high in Chile and close to 90%, and therefore, we seem now to be in quite a steady state level of, you know, productivity and manpower establishment to be able to continue to complete the project within the schedule that we have highlighted, which is basically the diesel plant, you know, in the second half of the year and the concentrator plant by the end of the year. This review has to do with integrating those factors into capital cost. Now, beyond that, I'll pass over to Mauricio for him to refer to what sort of profile to expect in terms of capital expenditure for the sort of midterm. Mauricio?
Well, thank you, Iván. Hi, Luke. Good to see you. Well, in terms of 2023 and beyond, what we have is basically. We usually said that we have a sustaining CapEx range, which means mine development plus sustaining CapEx ranging between $600-$800. For 2023, we will be in the high end of that figure, and beyond 2023, we are going to be within that range. That is for the sustaining CapEx point of view. We have the development CapEx, and as we comment during the video.
Yeah, clearer. Therefore it would be taken with all the information that's available at that time. Like any of these choices which are significant, you know, capital commitments, you know, they will have to factor in all aspects, you know, from market outlook to, you know, regulatory frameworks and the like. Now, as I say, we think, you know, that we've got the ability to grow our assets, unlock profitable value, and that we will continue to do so, you know, in Chile where we operate. That's sort of our planning assumption. As I say, more information will be available at the time in which these decisions are scheduled to take place.
Okay. Understood. The last question from me about Reko Diq, actually, in Pakistan. Your JV partner is still keen to pursue this development opportunity. Does this reflect your approach too? If not, would you consider selling your stake amidst the ongoing legal case with Pakistan?
On Reko Diq, I mean, since the issue was basically resolved, you know, in the courts in our favor, we are basically continuing to act on payment, you know, for what we believe is owed to us in the context of the actions that took place, which didn't allow us to continue with the project. That's where we are. We, you know, there's a lot of work being done in that front, and that's our focus.
Our focus at Antofagasta is basically to ensure that we get, you know, payment out of the not being part of the project and that having been taken from us at the time in which those actions took place. We have no change in view with that respect. Irrespective, as I say, of what our partners might want or not to do. That's our perspective and our view with respect to the actions around Reko Diq.
Understood. There is no thought process from your side to exit that exposure you have before the payment is received?
Right. We're looking at basically several legal avenues and actions that are, you know, involved in a procedure like this one. That's our key focus at the moment.
Understood. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you. Our next question will come from Jatinder Goel with BNP Paribas.
Thank you. Good afternoon. Couple of questions from my side. On water, is there much update on Centinela water infrastructure as you were, I think, concluding tendering process sometime this quarter? Is the use of seawater still without much regulatory overburden, and is it likely to remain so under the new constitution, or do you expect much to change on that front?
Yeah. On the Centinela seawater tender, I'll ask Mauricio to address that. On a regulatory side, I mean, water, we think, you know, will be a key theme in the constitutional discussions. From the point of view of where we stand, you know, in the north at Centinela and Antucoya, we're mostly running on seawater, and in Pelambres, we will do so, you know, shortly when we finish building the desalination plant. From that point of view, I think we've addressed, you know, any concern that we may have from a regulatory point of view. We're not seeing any additional regulatory burdens being discussed in the context of desal water per se, but more around the use of continental water.
Mauricio, you may wanna address then where we are with the Centinela seawater tender process and, are we looking at?
Sure. Thank you. Hi, Jatinder. Good to hear you. Well, in terms of the process that we are running at Centinela, just let me remind you that one of the main package of investment in Centinela expansion project is the water supply system. So basically what we are doing there is that we are running a tender process in order to do two things. One thing is to award a BOOT contract, a build own operate and a transfer contract, to supply the water requirements for the Second Concentrator at Centinela. That will allow us to optimize our capital intensity if we decide to move forward with the Second Concentrator project.
The other thing that we are running in parallel because it's part of the same initiative is to divest the existing assets. Remember that now Centinela has a raw seawater supply system which accounts for something like 1,000 L per second, and basically that supply water to Centinela concentrator facilities and Antucoya. Basically we are running this process where we have a lot of interest from highly reputed counterparties. So far has been a very competitive process. The most important thing, Jatinder and colleagues, is that there are two key decision factors rather than drivers, key decision factors around the decision of divesting or not and awarding this BOOT contract to a third party.
The first one is, must be a value-accretive transaction. What we are targeting here is to have a NPV positive in any case, in order to secure the value to our shareholders. The other one, which is much more qualitative, but it still is highly relevant for us, is that the risk-reward balance remains similar to the risk-reward balance if we develop this infrastructure. Basically we see a lot of interest, we see a lot of appetite in the two components of the project, the BOOT and the divestment of the existing infrastructure. We see a very strong rationale in doing this, and we will have these two key decision factors around value and risk-reward balance before we take the decision.
The expected date to take the decision will be just before we present the Second Concentrator to our board for final investment decision.
Yeah. I think that's important to stress that basically these decisions come together in the sense that by the time that we expect to take this to the board in the second half of next year, then we would have a view on you know the water system divestment, and therefore it will be part of a package that we would undertake at that time.
Understood. If I could do a follow-up a little bit on this one. Are you able to indicate how low this $2.7 billion gross CapEx spending can go if you were to opt for both outsourcing the new water infrastructure and sell and lease back the existing infrastructure?
Well, Iván, do you wanna take that?
Yeah. No, go ahead. Go ahead.
Well, roughly speaking, in the $2.7 billion, there is a number between $450 million-$500 million related to the water infrastructure. If we finally decide to move forward with this initiative, we are going to optimize total CapEx in roughly that figure, around $500 million. The other stream of value or the other value stream is related to the proceeds of the divestment. We see there a potential value also ranging in the similar amount of building the new infrastructure. Basically it's a two ways avenue, optimizing the capital intensity and also providing proceeds for Centinela.
Thank you. Just one more question. From strategic perspective, it looks like you're still focused on four areas that you've mentioned in the past as well. Now that you've learned to live with geopolitical uncertainty following the turn of events in Chile since 2019, and Twin Metals doesn't seem to have an easy pathway ahead, why is Africa still off your target jurisdictions despite promising geology?
Sorry, I didn't get that, Jatinder. Sorry. Why do we?
Why is Africa not in your target jurisdictions list now that you know how to deal with political or geopolitical uncertainty given what's been happening in Chile? Also, Twin Metals doesn't seem to have an easy pathway. Is Africa still off the list or could it become part of your portfolio?
Yeah.
Organically or inorganically?
Yeah. Why is Africa off the... I'll pass on to Andrónico briefly, but just to say a few words on that. I mean, we think that certainly the qualitative difference in terms of you know political uncertainty and risk between Africa and the Americas and specifically Chile, we think it's significant. I mean, there is a sea change in terms of difference. One of the things that we consider important is that there is an institutional track record and framework you know established in some of the countries in other continents like the one that you mentioned that may not be present.
If you heard, you know, the interview with Andrés Velasco, you know, he did point out that despite the fact that we've had unrest, one of the positive issues has been that this has been channeled institutionally and therefore, you know, in the end they're being discussed in the context of changing the current constitution with a Congress which is actually quite balanced today. I think there is a sea change of difference between the sort of political uncertainties that you face in some of the jurisdictions in the Americas compared to what you see in other places where, you know, you have absence of basic rule of law and sort of institutional frameworks. We remain very much focused on the Americas, you know, for that reason.
I don't know, Andrónico, if you wanna comment further or add anything to that.
I don't know if there's much to add, but basically we decided on this strategy five years ago. Not all the Americas, we're basically very focused, of course, in Chile, Peru, as we mentioned, and parts of the U.S. and parts of Canada. We're very concentrated on this strategy. I think there's not much to add, and we feel comfortable in those jurisdictions for now. Yep.
Yeah. On Twin Metals, I mean, we know that is a project which is challenging. It is, you know, from our point of view, known that in the U.S., you know, it does take a long time to permit projects. We consider the project to be very attractive from the point of view of the ore body, which, you know, sits in the place that we plan to mine. If there's something that we've learned is that, you know, we've gotta take a long-term view and a long-term perspective and be resilient in how we approach our project development.
You know, from that point of view, we see Twin Metals as continuing to be an option in our pipeline, which, you know, we wanna continue to pursue despite the challenges, because we take a long-term perspective, a long-term view. Mm-hmm.
Understood. If I could add a little bit to this, same question. Sierra Gorda was up for sale in the market again, obviously part of it, not all of it. You had passed it on in the previous round. Was that of any interest in this round or you are still not convinced?
Andrónico, you may wanna answer that. Sierra Gorda.
Yeah, we were interested. We've always said that everything that is near to operations, we're interested, but valuation was another problem for us and we didn't think it fit from a valuation point of view. Yes, that's a straight answer to that. It didn't fit from our valuation point of view. That's it.
I think one must also consider that we have quite a large, as we've expressed in this meeting, quite a large mineral inventory at Centinela already of ore body which is on average with grades higher than those at Sierra Gorda. Therefore, you know, we own already a big and long position which we fully control. I understand this Sierra Gorda, when it came up, it's a shareholding which does not provide control, and it's of an average quality from the point of view of grade, which is lower than what we already own.
We would much rather allocate capital to expanding Centinela and think that is a way of adding profitable growth in a way that, you know, we, you know, we can continue to expand production rather than take up, you know, this alternative. As Andrónico was saying, we looked at it and those were the factors at play in our thought process.
Excellent. That's very clear. Thank you, Iván, Mauricio, and Andrónico. All the best.
Thanks, Jatinder.
Thank you. Our next question was, is Richard Hatch with Berenberg.
Yeah, thanks for the presentation. I'd just like to ask and push you a bit harder on CapEx inflation, cost inflation. It's been a theme that's been creeping out from some of your peers as they've reported. I just note that some of the CapEx numbers in the presentation are, you know, five years old-ish. Maybe a bit more fresh. How comfortable are you with these CapEx numbers that you're putting into this presentation? Just, you know, in terms of the costs, you talk about a weakening peso, and I understand that that helps you to an extent. If you have a slightly better result from the elections next year, then perhaps the peso goes on a bit of a strengthening run.
If we were to look at that production profile at 900,000 tons over the next five years, what does the cost profile look like in that regard? And how comfortable are you that you can fight against kind of that cost inflation that's really biting at the moment? Thanks.
I'll ask, I mean, if it comes and ask Mauricio to chip in, but the big, I would say the big capital spend that we've got here as a single item is the concentrator at Centinela. There, we have been running with $2.7 billion as the capital expenditure number. I must say that we've obviously done a lot of updating and review as we've progressed that figure. A lot of components have gone up and down, but we've sort of ended up in a similar number overall. Therefore, that's subject to the final review before we take it to the board.
I must say that our updated figures, when you sort of factor in all the changes that we've made, you know, get us to a level which is essentially, you know, very, very similar. From that point of view, it might be an old number, but in effect, it's reflective as well of, you know, the, or close to what would be sort of updated position. On top of that, as you say, as Mauricio mentioned, we're seeing a way of eventually reducing the front-end capital associated to the project because of the water system.
On that one, which is the most important singular item, I would say that as I say, it's gone up and down in terms of the components, but the end figure is more or less, you know, on the same level. Now, in terms of cost, unit cost, going forward, I'll let Mauricio pick up. I would just say that we obviously are expecting to end this year within what we've guided, when we've guided for $1.20 or thereabout, $1.25. We would expect costs to go up next year as a result of lower production and some of the factors that Mauricio will explain.
Essentially, you know, be back in 2023 with costs which are consistent with the sort of level of cost that we're seeing today. I'll let Mauricio maybe explain a bit more how we're looking at 2022 and the cost profile in that sense.
Well, thank you, Iván. Hi, Richard. Well, just to add some flavor on 2022. As Iván described, we have a lower production in 2022, mainly driven by lower throughput at Los Pelambres due to the water scarcity and lower head grade at Centinela concentrator, mainly. That will basically explain the two out of the three main factors that describe 2022 unit cost. The first one is the lower copper production, and the associated one is the lower by-product production. Remember that at Centinela, we have a relevant stream of gold, and with the lower copper grades also is linked the ore grade.
At Los Pelambres, we have a relevant stream of molybdenum, so with lower throughput, we also will have lower production. Those are the most key factors, the most relevant factors. As Iván said, it's just temporary on 2022. The third one, this is much more following your way of thinking related to the inflation. We have two kinds of inflation. The imported one, which is highly linked with the input prices and basically driven by raw material prices such as steel, ammonia for explosive, oil for our diesel. That is highly linked with the copper price.
Basically, we are going to see some cost pressures in terms of input prices, but at the same time, that is not damaging or diminishing our margins because the copper price is also a raw material and highly linked with these other ones. In terms of the local inflation, we see that as a temporary effect, mainly driven by the government aid during pandemic and also some liquidity injection in Chile. Once the government aid and that extraordinary liquidity injection ends by the end of this year, we see that temporary effect will return to its normal level of inflation in Chile. That's for 2022.
Just let me describe a bit more about the profile going forward, beyond 2023 and beyond. Something relevant to add is that Centinela ore body also contains, as I said, gold. By 2025 and 2026, when Centinela Second Concentrator come online, we will have the benefit of that by-product from Centinela.
In the meantime, of course, we are working, as Alan described in its section in the video, in technologies in order to fuel the new wave of CCP, mainly by technology. Automation is a huge one. Autonomous hauling trucks is optimizing our capital intensity and also our OpEx, mainly optimizing the headcount. In the same way, we are doing the other initiatives that Alan described as the IROC at Centinela and some initiatives related with machine learnings and other analytics. Basically, we are going to preserve our competitiveness approach 2022. A little increase in our costs, mainly driven by lower production.
By 2023 onwards, we are going to return to what you have seen from Antofagasta over the last couple of years.
Okay. Very, very detailed. Thank you so much. My next one just is just on that five-year production potential production chart. If we were to kind of fast-forward that and make it a ten-year chart, how do you think that would look like just in the kind of with grade decline and grade pressures in mind? Thanks.
Yeah. Maybe I'll pass on to Hernán, but remember that we have grade decline and but we also have the potential well, two potential projects there. One is the second expansion at Centinela and also the extension of life at Pelambres. Those are the sort of factors at play. Hernán, you may wanna comment on how things would look directionally, I guess, beyond the five-year period. You are in I think you've got your mic off, Hernán.
According to our long-term planning, as we have mentioned before, the main milestone during the first year is the second concentrator plant at Centinela phase one. As also I mentioned before, the capacity for this concentrator will be about 95,000 tons per day of throughput. This is one important milestone that will contribute to our consolidated production of around 900,000 tons per year. In order to maintain this level, we have planned the second phase of the concentrator plant at Centinela. With both phases, we are going to have around 150,000 tons of throughput per day. That is the main important thing according to the development plan at Centinela.
We are going to run at full capacity to Los Pelambres new line for grinding pipe according to the INCO project. This project can maintain level over 350,000 tons per year, more or less, during the next year. Its project will overcome the hardness of our ore during the future. That are the main important thing that we can maintain during the future, 900,000 tons per year of copper. In case of Zaldívar and Antucoya, we maintain the level of production similar to maybe that we are trying in this year, maybe a little bit marginal in Zaldívar because of the right project.
Yeah. I would say, look, I would add, I think that the very positive issue is that we've got the inventory of mineral, you know, within our districts. Now, therefore, we're able to develop them sequentially to be able to sustain, you know, the levels of production that we plan for. I think that's a very important element. The second phase of the concentrator at Centinela as well as the Los Pelambres extension will sit, I mean, both sit towards the end of the decade. So we're talking 2030 probably and thereabout as being, you know, looked at in. That's the sort of timing that we think of them.
We have the inventory of mineral to be able to sequentially grow our, you know, ability to mine, while if, you know, at the same time, grades drop, but we keep, you know, our production levels. I think that's a very positive attribute which we really wanna stress because I think we have in our hands the ability to unlock profitable tonnage from our districts, which is a great, I think, advantage.
Okay, thanks. Sorry, my last one. I promise it's the last one. Is it just BHP's got a target of gender equal gender gender-neutral workforce, 50% men, 50% women, in the middle of this decade, I think it is. Your kind of target is about 17%, I believe, in this presentation. I'm just wondering where you think you can get that kind of, you know, that range. Well, that sort of split too. Thanks.
We've set our target in 2018 to double by 2022 our gender participation, which we've achieved, you know, this year. I'll tell René maybe to comment on this, but we basically set our target in 2018 to double by 2022 our gender participation, which we've achieved, you know, this year. What we're doing now is reset that target to get to a 30%, and we're establishing exactly when would that be. We want to do it as early as possible. I think there's been tremendous cultural change in the organization by means of, you know, introducing diversity really at the core of our strategy. We've got operations managers which are, you know, exercising an outstanding leadership in some of our operations.
We have the leader and the general manager at the railway company is one of our, you know, team executives, female. That change is taking place at a very rapid pace. As I say, we have to reset our target because we've accomplished doubling it now in 2021. We aim to get now from the 16% to double that to 30%, and we're just firming up when would that happen. You, René, you may wanna add a bit more color into that.
Yeah. Thank you, Iván. Yes, you're quite right. We have reached our target before what we were expecting. It's in our opinion, it's because the culture that we have been putting in place over the last years. We think of diversity not as a number, but it's a cultural change. We've been working through the whole process within the complete company, you know, at central level, but also at the company level, to make sure that everybody understand why we're doing this and why diversity is important. Not only in gender, but also from different backgrounds as well. As Iván was saying, we have reached our target. Now we are working on setting our new target, which is basically that 30% that Iván was referring to.
Good news on this is that, for instance, in 2020, as is explained in our sustainability report, 50% of all the new recruits that we had at Antofagasta were women. We are also established a new apprentice program to make sure that more women, particularly from our local communities, are taking part in these developments, so they can apply to our processes and to be part of Antofagasta. We are also incorporating not only the gender vector on this, but also local employment as well. We think that is gonna create a virtuous cycle in terms of diversity, inclusion and helping us to be, of course, a better company.
Very helpful. Thanks for your time.
Our next question will come from Tyler Broda with RBC.
Great. Thanks very much for presentation. Very informative. Just wanted to, I was gonna ask some scenario questions. They've all been asked now, so, Mike, just back to the low-grade sulfide, the primary sulfide there. How do you, how do you sort of expect to see this fitting within a cost profile? Is this something that's going to give you some incremental tons at a bit of a higher cost? I mean, that 70% recovery number is pretty impressive. I guess, how do you, how do you sort of see the potential for that shaping up? Thanks.
How do you see? Sorry, I didn't get that very clear, so it faded. Can you-
Apologies. Sorry. It's very work from home here in the U.K. again. Apologies for that. I don't know if you can hear me. The question was on the low-grade sulfide. I guess, with the 70% recovery, it's quite impressive. I guess, from a cost profile, how do you expect that to play through?
Cost profile. Yeah. I mean, Alan, the numbers that we've seen is that obviously the main advantage here is that we reduce the upfront capital requirement to be able to mine primary sulfides, which you would only, I guess, mine and process through milling and flotation. That's the big advantage here. We're talking of a fraction of the capital investment per tonnage in capital expenditure. In terms of operating cost, I would say it's in our hydromet operations or SXEW operations because the process is similar. That's the sort of level of cost that you would see. But the main advantage when you look at the economics stems from the fact that the investment requirement is significantly lower.
We can use the capacity that we have in our SXEW and then don't have to move the significant investment required for milling and flotation. I don't know, Alan, if there's anything you wanna add on that?
No, that's exactly right, Iván. Yeah. Obviously, if successful as we explain it, we could bring it forward, right? The processing for otherwise scheduled to be mined in many years or allow to process ore that otherwise would be deemed uneconomic. So that we can profitably process, cost-wise, as you explained. It is in the range of the same cost that we have currently in our hydro plants. Though maybe the upside is we can also benefit in upscaling to this new process in improving our recoveries for secondary and mixed ore. But
On that, I would say that a lot of the learning that we've done in terms of cost comes from the fact that we are doing chloride leach at Zaldívar. As we said, built on the same philosophy and that's a project that we're about to commission. I mean, maybe Paula, you wanna just briefly refer to that project. Because I think from a cost point of view, we're gonna have it ready soon, and it's very similar to what we would expect to see. Maybe you can give us just a brief comment on how that project is progressing at Zaldívar.
It's going very well at Zaldívar. We hope first extraction November, January maybe, and start the ramp up on Q1 of 2024. We are going to increase the production 'cause the recovery increase and the cost position of the Zaldívar will be better because this-
Yeah.
Because the high recovery.
Yeah. As I say again, this would be similar to what we're seeing in Zaldívar today in terms of unit cost of operation and the benefit coming essentially from lower investment compared to milling. I hope that gives you a flavor.
No, no, it's very helpful. I mean, I guess it opens up strategic optionality as well, right?
Yeah.
In terms of finding, you know, assets that may be out of oxides. Yeah. No, very interesting. Thanks very much.
Yeah. I think we've got one minute left, and until we close the call. So if there's any other question, we can take it up in the time left.
Okay. Our next question will come from Daniel Major with UBS.
Yeah, thanks. One final question. I'm just trying to get a little bit more detail on the CapEx sort of budget for Centinela. $2.7 billion came from 2015. There's clearly been large quantities of inflation since then, yet you're still talking around a number that's comparable. In 30 seconds, what's been the dramatic changes that have stopped the CapEx budget going up over that quite long period?
I would say that the way that we looked at this is this was originally predicated on two phases as we've just discussed, you know. 90,000 tons a day, and then expanding it to 150. We did quite a lot of work on value improvement, essentially taking out pre-investments which were there for the second phase, and which you know sort of would have been done in the context of eventually thinking of the project in the larger scale.
Therefore, there's a lot of value improvement extracted from thinking it in the sequential way that we're thinking it and in such a way as making it, you know, consistent with the definition of a 90,000-ton-a-day plant. We're really ensuring that, you know, the investments we make are, you know, to some extent ring-fenced to the configuration of phase one, because we think, you know, the expansion is way further down the road and that would have to be made a decision in its own right and in its own merits. That's been quite in the way that we looked at the project.
We look at it now as phase one project with an option to do phase two, you know, in 2030 or there. Before, it was looked more as a one project in two phases. That's meant that from the point of view of equipment and ancillary infrastructure, you know, we streamlined and value improved the project. The other change that we've made, which we think it's a big improvement, and that's not necessarily translating to less capital, but obviously we think from an operational point of view, it's an improvement, it's changing to grinding rolls. I think that is less consumption in terms of energy per ton, you know, passed through the roll.
you know, we think it's much more consistent with the type of ore and the hardness that we have. We are looking at getting you know, performance rates in terms of productivity, which are much higher. Those are some of the changes that we've made. Obviously, that does change quite a lot the configuration in terms of the crushing circuits and the like. Those pieces move quite, you know, significantly. We've also well, introduced more remote operations. We're moving the operations of Centinela to be run from Antofagasta in a remote operating center.
Therefore, we expect that the second concentrator will simply be taken up, you know, from the point of view of how it's run from an operating center, which was already in operation. Therefore that is a change in how we operate the mine, the number of people, the camps that we have. All of that has already been factored in, the way that we look at the project as well as improvements, you know, that we have integrated into the project.
Very good. Thanks. Yeah, appreciate the event today.
Yeah. Okay. With a little bit past the hour, we really thank you very much for attending this Capital Market Day. I do thank the team here that has worked very hard on getting the production of this video. Wish you well, and we'll see you next time. Thank you.