Good morning, and welcome to the Atalaya Mining PLC Annual Results Investor Presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen-only mode. Questions are encouraged, and they can be submitted at any time using the Q&A tab situated on the right-hand corner of your screen. Simply type in your questions and press Send.
The company may not be in a position to answer every question received during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it is appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I would like to submit the following poll, and I would now like to hand you over to CEO Alberto Lavandeira. Good morning to you.
Many thanks. Hello, everybody. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for being with us. Again, I have with me the CFO, César Sánchez, and Mike Rechsteiner, Head of Corporate Development, and if needed, they will also be available to help respond some questions. I'm going to go through the presentation of our results, which will include the main results of the last quarter of 2023, and the first quarter of 2024.
Sorry, and the full year. And I will also give a little bit of highlight of how things are going and the forecast for 2024. 2023 was excellent year, I would say. It was a positive year with, let's say, recovering back to more or less normal conditions from the operating cost point of view.
We produced 99% of what we produced the previous year, and we did so even with the slightly lower grades that we had in the last quarter, which were planned to be there according to the mine plan before we start getting the recoveries of these grades up. But we processed 15.8 million tons with good recoveries, 56.6%.
So we achieved cash cost of slightly less than $280 and all-in cost of $309. This is consistent with the guidance, and I would have to say that these are quite remarkable good costs when you consider the type of grades we were able to maintain the unit costs per ton well under control. This is basically due to the lower electricity prices.
And of course, we had other things. These lower electricity prices have an effect in other things like balls and the price of lime and price of reagent, so the whole thing flows down. In the other hand, we had some higher costs in the mining, not because our unit costs were higher, simply we had to move a little bit more tons, more tons that later we will not have to move, simply because we needed to move tons from the existing Cerro Colorado pit, so that we could move our key equipment. The contractor could move the key equipment into the stripping of San Dionisio, which has already started. San Dionisio, just to remind you, is an area with much higher grade.
Well, with all these operating parameters that went reasonably well, we had an EBITDA of EUR 73 million, which is higher, almost 20 million higher than the previous year, mainly due to lower operating costs.
Cash flows were also higher, and we invested this extra cash flows produced from operating activities in a prudent way, so we could maintain our net cash position under control, and we invested that in building the E-LIX and also building the solar plant, which were EUR 18 million in one and 12 million, 13 million euros in all. So basically, around EUR 30 million. So with all this, considering that things are going as expected and that the operating costs are under control, the board decided...
We had a good financial position. The board decided to give a final dividend of $0.04, which basically tops a little bit what we had already. So it's slightly, it's around 20% higher than the previous year. But that was not only, not only that, I mean, we had lots of other things going on.
We continued with our plans to move away from AIM into the main market, and this is, all the papers are going. We had a slight delay due to when our last attempt was pretty close to Christmas and year-end. But finally, this thing seems it's going to be happening in the first weeks of April, so only one month from now.
We also proposed a domiciliation from Cyprus to Spain, which was basically will allow us to be included in the indexes. And since we didn't have any liquidity in , we decided to cut costs there and to remove the listing in Toronto. So right now, we're basically will be listed in the main market starting in April. We continue to reinforce the board. Neil Gregson was appointed a director, but also, I mean, the lead director. We also continued to reinforce the board basically to fulfill the conditions set by the new main market listing. We will be strengthening the board in the next months with new independent directors.
Although our board right now is basically formed by independent professionals. From the assets point of view, we saw the first copper cathodes coming out from E-LIX, although these were only a small amount during the start-up of the commissioning of this plant. And the plant continues to be under construction. Right now, they're leaching with zinc. We also started moving the waste in San Dionisio in order to get to the ore as possible. And also mining equipment has been ordered and is about to arrive to be able to get this additional waste movement. And from the permitting point of view, we continue advancing in Touro.
We got a permit to extend the mine life of Riotinto, including a huge tailings expansion, which will give us space for new for this for the extra tonnage mine at San Dionisio. And we also got the mining permit for Masa Valverde, which means we will likely start at the end of the year a ramp to access the higher grade that's closer to surface.
From the sustainability side, we continue to set strong targets. We advanced the construction of our solar plant, which is there is some delays there, but it's going to be up and running in the second quarter of this year. And of course, we continue with the water treatment plants at Touro, which are key to get the permits.
Of course, we publish a new sustainability report, and the next one is going to be coming out soon. We already seen some, the drafts, and it really looks very professional and very nice. So going into the details of those, I mean, most of it has been already explained, but I think the graph explains very well what happens.
I mean, you see, you see in the graphs in the right side, you will see that we passed more tons, almost a record. Remember, this plant was supposed to be treating 15 million tons, and we have been able to treat 16 million tons equivalent. So the plant is running well. The recoveries in the last quarter was slightly lower due to the lower grade, and production was similar to previous quarters.
But since we had some good production in the second quarter, the overall for the year has been quite constant, and you see that the revenues are similar to, to the previous year. So basically, although the copper price was slightly lower, sorry, production was slightly lower, the revenues were basically the same. EBITDA was slightly lower in the last quarter, but overall, in the year, you will see later that it has been better than the previous year.
And the net cash position stayed very similar to our previous levels, even having invested around $15 million in this quarter. And our profits, as I said before, were similar to previous year, even with this low quarter. Mm.
Coming back to the whole year, revenues were slightly lower due to lower copper prices and slightly lower production. But since we had much lower operating costs, we had better EBITDA and better profits, and much better cash flow, and it allowed us to continue investing in the operations and in the future.
And we still kept a very good cash position at the end of the year with around EUR 120 million, and a net cash position without any net debt of EUR 54 million. Working capital has gone down a little bit, but that's simply due to our short-term debt. It's a mixture of short-term and medium-term debt term, meaning three years, and depending on the maturity of that debt, which normally we can roll, because they are, yes, revolving facilities.
It doesn't, it doesn't mean too much, but it shows that our financial position in the last three years, in spite of this high costs, have been—high cost structure, have been maintained quite well while we continue to invest. And this is fully disclosed in slide 10, where we show the costs in a quarter and the cost for a full year. Second column from the right, you will see the year 2023, well, what we are discussing compared to 2022. The main difference, as you can see, is much lower cost from processing.
That's mainly due to electricity, but also due to lower lime costs, lower steel balls, lower things. Other things like mining is slightly higher due to the, as I said before, we move more material in order to get the, to the better grades of San Dionisio, and overall, lower site costs.
The rest of the things like freight and off-site are quite similar to previous years, slightly lower, but we expect to see much better costs in this next year. We will go later with the guidance. And there are reasons for that. The treatment charges are falling down. Freight, it's flat or going down, and we also expect to see lower inflation in other parts... corporate costs and the rest of things are very similar.
The main question here is much higher in capitalized stripping, and this is due to the start in the activities in San Dionisio. This is as expected. As you remember, there was a plan to mine San Dionisio and Cerro Colorado simultaneously, and the first movement of material was going to happen in 2024. We accelerated that a little bit because we wanted to see if we can compensate the slightly lower grades that were predicted in this year, as soon as possible, with the higher grades that are going to be found at the San Dionisio pit. Overall, there's a important reduction in All-in Sustaining Costs.
I should probably remind here that our within our capitalized stripping and within our mining costs, we have the cost of the contractor includes the purchasing of equipment and the replacement of the mining fleet.
And this is very relevant since, for example, just to get to the San Dionisio area, the contractor is buying has already ordered, and they are arriving, 5 new trucks, with much larger size, a 50% larger capacity, and a an excavator that's double the size, simply to expand. And this is totally out of our cost. So within the cost of excavation, those costs are included, and you don't have to account in addition to that for the purchase of a new mining fleet.
Most of these good results, as I said before, are due to the lower cost of energy. You can see that 2023 has been much lower than the horrible year of 2022. But I think the important point here is also to show that 2024 has already started in a very good mode. We have had around 2 months where the prices have been around 50, so well within the prices in the long term.
And remember, as a reminder, that we have hedged, we have covered around 30% of our production for the future, at those prices around the fifties, plus the solar plant will provide price at much lower. So our future cost will be similar to what we had in the days 2020, 2021, or even 2019.
So that's a big part of the equation that gave rise to much higher costs during 2022. I believe we are good to go. Just to compare with peers in the industry, and we always do that, not to show ourselves versus others, simply to show that due to the way of reporting, that some people do not include in the C1 costs the mining cost, the capital required to replace the fleet in the mining costs. Our C1 costs are normally higher than average, but later the difference between C1 and all-in costs are much lower.
Which means you can see there that in spite of the big increase in the left side of the columns, the big increase in cost that we saw in 2022 due to the electricity prices, since then, we have been able to control the costs and to keep them well within the industry average, which I think is relevant.
Because at the end, what matters is not the C1, it's the all-in cost. You always need to replace fleet, and you always need to do work, ongoing work in your mines. So with that, how is 2024 looking? Well, we expect to produce more or less the same, the same, ore. We expect to process around, same thing, 15.5 to 15, a bit, maybe a little bit higher, million tons through the plant.
The copper grade, it's going to be slightly lower in the first part of the year, but higher in the second part, when we access the higher grades of San Dionisio. Recovery rate, we also expect it to be around 85%. With all these parameters, we should expect a transitional year, a year that will have around, also around 52,000 tons of copper, similar to the previous year. With cash cost, I would say very, very similar to what we had this year. With that, of course, depends on the copper price, which so far it seems to have started in a good way. Our EBITDA should be equal or higher than previous years. The extra cash flow, where we will use it?
Well, we'll use it to finalize the solar plant and the E-LIX, not because they are new investments, it's simply they are investments coming from previous year that are rolled to this year. But the main thing is to move the road and relocate the electric line and so on at San Dionisio, which takes most of the investment.
Part of this will probably be going into 2025, but most of it is going to be done in 2024, because we need to get to the better grades sooner rather than later, to benefit from the higher grades and to be able to get lower costs. So in addition to that, within our normal investments, we continue spending around $5 million-$7 million into exploration, probably a bit higher this year.
And of course, this can change. If we have a discovery, we will, we'll devote more, more money for that. So for those of you, of you that are not familiar, why we are pushing so hard in San Dionisio, is because the resource grade is basically double than what we have. In the picture that you have in the center, you will see the pit of Cerro Colorado, which is the one we are mining right now.
There you see two things. You see in the far right, you see we are advancing with a pushback, and you see that there's a new area there that needs to be taken down in order to access areas of the north and the south. Sorry, in the east and the south.
But at the same time, you will see in the first part of the picture that the machines have already started pushing in San Dionisio. And this picture actually is slightly old, because it's already advancing very well.
Things that you can see in the picture that I'm showing now in slide 16 is several things. In the far end, you see a whole gray area, that's the solar plant, and you can see it's basically covered already with panels. And in the bottom left corner, you see the E-LIX plant. In blue is the thickness of the tailings. E-LIX is important because normal differential flotation applied to polymetallic sulfides in the pyrite belt will give you recoveries of 60%-70% of copper, 70%-75% of zinc.
This is basically based on historic reporting and also in our own test work. By applying E-LIX, the combination of flotation and E-LIX itself goes up to 80 or 85% in copper, zinc. This is a huge difference, and we are seeing. That's why we are so keen in getting this up and running, and to prove the concept in order to apply it for the longer term. It's going well. We started the year, the plant, as you can see on the right side, it's not a small plant. It's a, it's a complex plant with lots of pipes, lots of tanks, and electrolytic cells and leaching system. It's a quite novel system, which I cannot give too much details.
And in January 2024, when they were leaching some copper concentrates, they got very clean solution, enough to produce very clean copper cathodes, totally commercial grade A, 99.995 copper content, without the use of SX, which is absolutely incredible and, and, and intriguing.
Right now, they are working with other-- with conditions to remove zinc, and I can report verbally that the results are coming very well. But of course, this-- any start-up, and especially when it's a start-up of something that's totally new, needs time, and they still need some time to finalize this, and I don't expect this to start running smoothly until mid-year, because it's logical. They need...
It works when it works, but then suddenly a bulb breaks, or a pipe is leaking, and they have to repair it, and things go smoothly. In addition to that, they started with a small team, but right now they are engaging people, they are training people locally and normally, and they will be continuing to recruit people during this next few months. The solar plant had some delays, and this picture is in February. Now, it's much more advanced a few days ago. You can see some small holes in the middle. There were some delays, including the supports, because of rejects in the pulling tests.
But the plant is very advanced, and the main connection to the electric line, to the high voltage line, has already been completed. We had to stop during a few days in this quarter, and the substation is in the far end, so we will not need to stop to make the connection to the solar plant.
A little bit of delay in this plant, which is disappointing, but on the other hand, as I said before, we had very low electricity prices during the first quarter, and it's going to be also low in the second quarter. So we took advantage of this good prices, and have locked in prices for basically most of the second quarter.
So any delay on the start-up of this plant will not affect our costs. To the contrary, will be very similar or lower than previous years. But we will hope to get this thing going during the second quarter. Total, there's not much to say. There's not much to say, but there is important thing to say, is that we had elections.
There were elections in February in the regional elections, and we don't mention too much, obviously, in the press release, because this is something that, in theory, does not affect us. But what I mean in theory, the reality is that obviously, there was a certain uncertainty of the results of the elections, which were won by the Conservative Party with full majority.
Not because any specific party has more or less support, simply because obviously, this continuity is very good to be able to process our papers. We have applied for our project to be included in a Project of Strategic Interest, which is a new law that came into stream in first of January.
And we believe this is going to be included and approved, and as soon as the new government is in place, which is expected to happen sometime late March or early April, we believe that our request will be accepted. This means that the permitting lines are sped and shortened, and there's a much higher confidence that this thing will see the light sometime later this year.
An important point is, as I said before, is that we will be starting to, to be trading in the main market sometime in April, and later we'll also be—we're trying to get into the, into the, indexes a little bit later. So overall, again, exciting, 2024, where we have lots of targets. E-LIX, to confirm that the solar plant will reduce our costs, and initially we'll, we'll, as soon as we get, try to get to the high rates as soon as possible.
The permitting process, hopefully we get this as a strategic, strategic, nomination, which means it will be a further, improvement. Right now, the situation with the stakeholders is excellent, with very good relations with everybody, and we will continue exploring and, of course, passing to the main market, as I said before.
So our future is very clear. We have said we don't want to be a single asset, so we want to have the total as soon as possible. We continue to look at other things, and I think that in less than three years, I see our company getting to the 120,000 tons of copper equivalent level, which means copper and the copper and the zinc coming from the other areas of polymetallic, which is basically doubling our copper production, the same thing that we did, that we doubled it in the first years of this company.
So an exciting future, and since we are one of the few pure copper plays in the copper market, I think there will be a strong interest in these years that we are seeing an important change in the, excuse me, in the copper market perception. As you have, as you probably all know, we have been going back to the $4 per pound levels with the difficulties in production from mines, with the waking up after the lunar period, the New Year period in China.
The supply side is a little bit stressed, let's say, with Codelco facing problems, with Cobre Panamá shut down, with Anglo American in Los Bronces delays. So I think the time from the supply side is bright.
From the demand continue, we continue to see the steady demand, especially from renewals and new energy transition is going all over the world. In India, it's picking up. So there's lots of good news expecting to come from the copper price, we expect. And I would say that this is... This concludes my presentation. Probably longer than expected, but fine.
Perfect. Alberto, thank you very much indeed for your presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions using the Q&A tab situated on the right corner of your screen. While the company take a few moments to review those questions submitted today, I would like to remind you that a recording of this presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A, can be accessed via your investor dashboard.
Alberto, César, as you can see, we have received a number of questions throughout today's presentation, and Alberto, if I may just hand back to you and kindly ask you to read out the questions, give responses where appropriate to do so, and I'll pick up from you at the end.
Okay, thank you very much. I'm going to be reading the... There's lots of presentation questions here. I know that 2023 PEA are retained to include mining ore from San Dionisio in 2024. Where you are currently waste stripping. So does the current 2024 guidance, 51, 53, include ore processed from San Dionisio? And if so, how much? In other words, is final permit of San Dionisio with its high rate of risk of potential upside for 2000 guidance? Thanks. Well, there is mostly, most of the excavation is going to be waste, but yes, we will be mining through some areas of better grades, which will be processed. So there is a small amount, not much.
I would say roughly, I don't have the numbers in my head, I would say that from the 15 million tons process, I would say around 10% will be coming from San Dionisio at higher grade. And the permitting, in theory, we should not affect us because we have a permit to make this first interim pushback.
I mean, only if the final permitting of the full perimeter of the San Dionisio was delayed beyond, I would say, first, second quarter of next year, will probably start impacting the access to this grade. Doesn't mean it will impact the production, because we will be mining from Cerro Colorado, but obviously, the delay, it would mean a delay of better grades and improvement in copper production.
Could you provide an update on commissioning the ramp up the E-LIX, which is due this half? In terms of economics, from what you are currently seeing, does production of zinc make sense at current spot prices, or you would prefer to look at producing copper? It's a very good question, actually, this last part, because we could produce copper, and we produce zinc.
But right now, our plans, and very likely this is the, the way we will start, and is we will be taking away the zinc from the copper concentrates, but removing the zinc, but keeping the copper. So we will stay producing copper normally, but we will remove the zinc, as contained in this, in these copper concentrates.
We have some areas that are available to be mined almost immediately that have higher zinc, which are not in our reserves, but also contain higher copper within the tailings relevant, and that's where we will start. In terms of economics, it will not make a huge difference because this year is our year of ramp up, and we are only looking at the plant capacity of 10,000-15,000 tons of zinc.
And this is starting in June, ramping up slowly. So I don't think economics will make sense. I think it will make, I mean, a huge difference. I think the upside will come from the application in other parts of the belt and application specifically in the lower parts of San Dionisio. How is it going to start?
Well, right now, as I said before, they are already contracting some people. They already have one full shift working, not three shifts, working from Monday to Friday, but they stop during the weekend. The idea is to train all these people until during the next couple of months.
This is not a new technology, absolutely new, and of course, I expect things to happen, some issues to happen, but the idea is to start ramping up during the second quarter and then start slowly going up, bringing more capacity. More capacity will come from better availability and stopping the small hiccups that they had with filters and pipes, things that are not related to the leaching itself. The next question is share buyback. Are we any closer to this being started?
No, we have not decided to do anything with this. I mean, there are some question marks about if we will reduce the liquidity. I think we will wait and see what happens with the liquidity once we get into the index.
Once we get into the index and once we get into the main listing, I think this will probably change the liquidity, and then maybe it will be... this will be possible. Atalaya does not seem to be included in any ESG rankings for the mining sector. What is being done to improve this visibility? Well, we are providing now with all the data, sending it to the providers of these rankings. So hopefully this will come into place this year.
Also, we are publishing the 23 report, and I think we will be ranked very well because actually we are doing things, I would say, much higher level than others.
The other day, if I may ask,
Yes
... but just to be a little more specific, so we have engaged with the major sustainability rating companies such as Sustainalytics, MSCI, and ISS, and we have done a lot of initiatives, and they are all aware about the initiatives that we taken, which is, you know, a very broad, you know, things that we have done, things, you know, going through the implementation of SDGs reporting or reporting the climate change, getting to some target in the middle terms, and all this is being considered. So I'm expecting that these sustainability rating agencies to start considering this very soon.
Thank you, César. Another question in this line is: What other green measures, not including energy generation, is Atalaya implemented or has implemented? For example, electric furnaces, biodiesel, hydrogen. Well, look, so far, hydrogen is not yet economic, or even feasible for trucks. Biodiesel could be used, but there's no availability in the area where we are. Electric furnaces, they are not applicable.
But there are several things that we are doing. One is a much reduced level of water, which are not specifically energy, but they also count for ESG. We are recycling 85% of the water. We only get water from new areas, from dams, specifically to avoid what we lose from evaporation.
We use absolutely all the water that of the rains on top of the pit after cleaning it. But the main, big change will come with the success in application of E-LIX. E-LIX is a leaching system that, basically, treats the copper concentrates with electricity. And of electricity, that can be solar, it can be wind.
Spain has a huge generation of wind and solar, and this will avoid, first of all, the transport of concentrates, and second, we use cathodes directly instead of burning them in furnaces. So this is a huge change, and I think we can probably change the way things are done in some areas.
We'll never compete with a smelter, because a smelter, besides being ESG, ESG friendly or not, they're very, very efficient, because they sell the sulfuric acid, which is needed, by the way, for fertilizers. So they sell the slag. They're very efficient, efficient. But I think E-LIX is one of the big contributions as well as water control. Can the dividend just indicated be paid as an interim dividend before the AGM and redomiciliation to avoid withholding tax issues? César, can you respond to the... There are some issues with this.
Yes. I think it might be a little bit difficult as the year is now completed and behind us. I mean, the board of directors proposed to pay a final dividend for the year, and there might be some legal issues around paying an interim dividend on a year that is completed. I think the process continues to be that the final dividend must be approved by the shareholders, and we're expecting that will happen once the company is already paying. So, I'm happy to have a look at this, but I think we will have limited options here.
...A start-up of solar. Next question, the start of our solar plant is late 2022. As is near term, can you be more precise, please? I think, May, May is when we expect to have the connection of the grid, of most of the plant, which is a good timing also for solar plant. I mean, that's the last estimate. So the delays were coming from some supply issues, delays with the provider of some materials for the substation of Endesa, of the main company, not ours. And also, as I said before, with the supports of the panels, that in some places they did not pass the quality test of what they call the pull test.
Basically, it's a way to check that the panels are not going to be flying out if there's a huge wind coming. And this means that you have to reinforce them by putting some cement and so on. So this took time, but it's already finished. So our latest estimate is May, that should be up and running. Another one is: Is Atalaya a member of International Copper Association? No, we are not.
They produce a comprehensive report in 2023 called the Pathway to Net Zero. There seems to be no mention of Atalaya in this report. Don't you think ESG profile would be higher considering what you have implemented so far? The first question, yeah, we'll see. We'll see if we can become a member.
Really, we have not thought on that. And the second thing, I think the profile is going to be increased, as César said, when they receive it. Well, we have already been engaging with these rating agencies, because the way we are doing things, I think it should be much higher.
Will... Next question is: Will you provide color on the projects, strategic projects, CapEx? There are still no details on the sustaining CapEx. Will you- could you provide more detail on the sustaining CapEx for 2024? How much stripping in Atalaya are planning to capitalize in between the San Dionisio and the San Ricardo? Well, I think, yes, the, I think we have provided the guidance.
I think the typical way of how to capitalize this is basically the excess of a stripping that you do in a year, over and on top of what's the average of the reserves, is what you capitalize, simply for accounting rules. It does not affect the overall all-in sustaining cost that we always report. During 2024, as I said before, most of the work in San Dionisio is capitalized. I would say all, because basically it's removing stripping excess, moving the road, moving the electric lines. Any strategic projects we have just said what we have. It's basically San Dionisio preparation and finalize what has been going during this year.
Alberto, if I be a little bit more specific on the sustaining CapEx for 2024. So we historically, we've been spending around $8 million, $6 million-$8 million, closer to $8 million. This year, as we're investing on the pre-stripping of San Dionisio, the plan is to spend around $6 million on sustaining CapEx.
Next question is... Thanks to you, César. It seems that Elix is showing promising results. When does Atalaya expect to provide more details about Elix performance forecast? I would say, as soon as we have them, mid-year, I think we will probably announce the production of zinc material as soon as they start commissioning.
I would say mid-year, yeah. When we see that the things can go more or less steady, I think we will give some guidance of what we... But so far, the results from the recovery point of view, which is difficult, part of difficult, are okay. What shows some hiccups is in basically typical things of commissioning, like water, valves, filters, clogging, until they fine-tune this, which is quite normal with commissioning of plants.
The next question is, Atalaya's energy generation, can you give more details of any plans, if any, to expand this energy production? Well, we had a study, and we had a measuring tower to produce wind, 18 MW. But we had... We received the results, and it was barely economic, so for self-generation.
So when you see that the there's a huge wind generation happening in Spain, and solar, with the future prices being around, 40 EUR per MWh, it's very difficult to be competing with this. Although the energy generation will not be ours, but it will be generated by wind and solar, because Spain is growing big time. And the next question actually mixed with this is: Going forward, what will we be doing with wind and solar in five, 10 years?
Look, at the end, we in Spain, I mean, we get besides the 22% that we will get from our solar, that's ours, the rest of, let's say 80% to simplify, the rest will come from the grid. The Spanish grid, normally, it's around 80%-85% is non-related to CO2. Around 20% is nuclear, and the rest is hydraulic, wind, and solar, with the wind growing big time, and solar also. But solar, as you know, is intermittent. So I think that will be the profile in the future, will be probably growing to 90% in general. That will be wind and solar and hydraulic, and that's 90% of the 80% that we don't consume.
So I would say, probably our copper and our production will be one of the better from this CO2 point of view, because it will be basically 90% of the 80, plus so over 95% or 92% related to wind, solar, and hydro. Continue with energy generation. Will these assets be incorporated into separate company owned by Atalaya?
Advantages of raising debt from the separate unit, it reaches a critical size, if it reaches a critical size, could it be IPO'd? Could it be considered? I think our size is very small, and I don't think that would be, I would think. We may think, we may think in disposing of this, our solar plant into a electric company to strengthen the balance sheet and take it away.
It's something that we can do, sign a long-term PPA with the supplier, and something we will investigate. But IPO-ing is a very small amount, it's not worth that. Another question: How are grades evolving in Cerro Colorado and reason to worry? When you should expect to reach 60,000 tonnes thanks to San Dionisio?
I think, starting with the last one, 63,000 tonnes, we will see them in 2025. And reason to worry? Well, we have had a couple of quarters with lowish grades, lower than normal, similar to the mine grades. But if you look at the PA that was prepared in 2021, those numbers of lower copper grades were predicted, so they were expected to happen in 2024.
Simply because we the best grades of the Cerro Colorado are in the east, and far east, and in the west, basically under the road, and they are slated to be in production in the last five years of the life of Cerro Colorado, which means we are going through lower grades. But this is planned, I mean, this is nothing that is... It's in the PA that's published in our webpage.
In relation, somebody asks me about artificial intelligence, if we have considered practical application of this new technology for Atalaya. Not as such, but we have lots of things that are doing this in a practical way, like optimizing the consumption of the mills. Small things that have been... We are in the leading part of that, but not AI itself.
I think this is something that has been done for a few years already. If an acquisition is made abroad in a more geographically challenging environment, automation and running the mine offsite may be a strategy. Is this something Atalaya has looked into? Have you looked into truck optimization, including Spain?
Yes, we have looked at truck optimization, automation. It's not so economic in Spain due to the low wages. I mean, our drivers probably cost around 5-7 times less than in Australia, so the advantage of that is not that clear. Running from the distance, well, actually can be done because it's not a problem at all. Right now, I or anyone could look in their telephone or computer how the plant is going.
We can start it, we can stop it, we can do everything. Everything is done automatically from the control room, but with access to any of the computers that are authorized. So this, of course, it could be done. If you had to go in a challenging environment, the main question here is always maintenance. Maintenance and getting good people is the difficult part.
Anything new at Touro that you can say in respect of timelines for permitting? Well, we expect to receive the approval of a project being considered strategic interest sometime in, I would say, April, maximum May. And that speeds up the permitting, and also almost is an endorsement of the government of the regional government, government. Why is that?
It's because before declaring it strategic, they have to go through a whole evaluation of the project from the environmental point of view, economic point of view, social. Which means it's very unlikely that the departments of the government, regional government, that are reporting and making the reports for the president and the council saying that this is strategic, will change their views just two months later.
So I think that will be a huge endorsement, and we expect to see this change in, I would say, April, maybe May. You never know because there's no timeline, but we believe it's going to be soon, sooner rather than later. Considering that Helix has theoretically...
was theoretical until Atalaya built the testing plant and then moved into production, how do you intend to protect your IP? Is there a way to build a JV company with E-LIX to monetize the technology further? Well, the IP is... We have the exclusivity in the, in the pyrite belt, and we have the rights of refusal if the technology is sold somewhere else, but the technology is not ours.
We are financing Lain Technologies that has it. It's a single-person company, which we are financing mostly with loans convertible into equity in this company. So we have a participation in the monetization if this technology is monetized.
But unfortunately, it's not ours, although we have lots of rights attached to the success of this. "Since we are no longer incorporated in Cyprus, and we have no takeover protection built into the articles, what is a fair takeover value? How would you hope to protect against a hostile takeover?"
Well, a fair takeover value, it depends on what the shareholders they decide or approve. And I think everybody understands that we are quite far from our fair takeover value, and the best way to be protected is to have strong shareholders. Mm. And we have Trafigura, we have Cobas, we have Muza, we have some that with five calls you will get over 50%.
So it would have to be something that at least these five entities would consider it positive. So it's a hostile takeover will be very difficult to happen into our company, and if it happens, of course, we have a defensive strategy, and we have some banks already in place for our defense. "What is our current relationship with Sandfire and MATSA?
Is there a dialogue?" Well, we have a dialogue from the technical point of view, and always try to see if we can optimize things, but nothing else that I may think. Eventually, I think we'll have to agree in areas that are common, where we have tailings, where there are deposits that are very close to each other, where maybe we can optimize.
Our debt is very low, which makes us more attractive for any potential bidder. Do you plan to address this acquisition?" Well, we are looking at things as usual, but it's better to have a very low debt or very strong good balance sheet, because it will give us more protection if there's any difficult times. Another question is: "It was mentioned that Touro permitting was progressing swiftly.
What's the next key milestone for Touro? When do you expect to have the outcome of the permitting process?" Well, as I said before, the next milestone is the consideration of the project to be a strategic project, and later, the next, the permitting will probably be the last part of the year when they have gone through all the environmental evaluations.
On CapEx, you have guided 2024, but you would possibly provide a bit more color for 2025. As a reference, consensus is EUR 135 million. How do you feel about this number, and will you please talk what your expectations are?" I think we will... I think the reason why it's EUR 31 million-EUR 35 million is everybody's expecting Touro, and I think it's reasonable.
I think Touro will be around EUR 250 million, so higher than before, and I think the expectation as consensus is we will have about half of that CapEx to be incurred in 2025 because it's when we expect to start processing Touro. Touro, very likely, if we get the permits at the end of the year, the last quarter, we will be constructing it in one year and three months.
We have everything ready to move very fast, so most of the expenditure will happen in 2025. "Shareholder structure, given Trafigura, an exit from Matsa, do you have any view on their long-term position with Atalaya? Is there any dialogue with Trafigura?" Well, Trafigura, we don't have any dialogue especially.
We have one person of Trafigura on the board, but we don't have anything special. We know... Well, we know, we never know, but we suspect, looking at the history, that obviously there will be an exit at a certain time to monetize their investment. They have been here already, I would say, seven years or eight years or nine years. So, if you look at what happened in other cases, they have exited.
But when they will do it, well, I'm sure they will do it in the time where they believe they have a good return. But then we don't have any special, any special dialogue with them for about this. Next question, "The solar plant, will you remind us what the difference it makes in terms of cash cost per pound?" Look, it's around 22% of the electricity that will become, let's call it, for free.
It will be in our balance sheet. So 22% of electricity, if the total cost was around, let's say, $30 million, 22% will be $6 million saving. $6 million saving is around 5-6 cents per pound, if you consider rough numbers, and you divide by 100 million pounds payable. "LX, will you remind us the commissioning timelines?
When might you consider permitting more capital to this project?" Well, I have mentioned, I mean, commissioning in this next quarter, and then more capital to this project, probably at the end of the year or next year, if we consider that it can be applied for as a benefit from other areas. "We always use a contractor for mining.
Why is everything outsourced? Any plan to bring back in-house?" It's possible to bring it back in-house, but we have made all kinds of numbers, and a contractor has a very low margin and has something that we don't have, which is the access to sell the machines later at a very good price. And that's the reason why in Spain, most of it is outsourced. Simply, they are more economic than anything else.
Treatment refining charges, spot indices have fallen dramatically year on year. Are you able to quantify the tailwind, the generation Atalaya, that we should expect in 2024?" Well, normally, we are through benchmarks, so the benchmark of this first part is already matched and is going down, of course. But, yeah, in the future, it can be very interesting.
Normally, the TC/RCs, I would say, represent around $0.20 per pound, 2024. So if this are, let's say, half, you can consider it would be $0.10 per pound if it continues to be like that. I don't think it will continue so much, to be honest, simply because I suppose there must be some discipline in stopping some smelters.
Otherwise, everybody will lose money, because at this spot prices, the smelter does not make any money, and they better stop. Does the 25 million tons waste stripping guidance for 2024 inclusion San Dionisio ? No, that's the waste on Cerro Colorado, which is roughly a 2-to-1, slightly less than 2-to-1 cost per ton. Should we think about margin uplift, given LX from 25 outwards? Very early to say.
I cannot say how its margin going to improve. I think the main key point of LX is to use it on polymetallic, which will increase the recoveries, and of course, by increasing the recoveries, you lower your costs and get more tons. Could the forthcoming announcement, dividend be paid before the remittance?
I think this has been answered because it's a bit complicated. At the moment, Atalaya is one horse ride. It's a one-horse ride. Is there any possibility to expand into another copper country, like Spain, for example, Congo, or another country? Well, we are looking at other places, certainly not Congo, but yes, we are looking at other things.
Congo, it's Seven years experience in Congo is not an easy place for foreign companies, and that's why you only see there Glencore and Chinese companies with some Indian small companies. There's a reason for that. What could be expected all-in costs when the company gets to those 120,000 tons in 3-4 years, closer to 2.5? And what are the key movers up and down? Well, yes, absolutely.
The drivers will be around closer to 2.5. But volume-wise, I mean, this is a set of different operations, a group of different operations, not a single operation of 220,000. So the effect in all-in cost is not that high. It's adding several companies, not a larger operating company. So the only thing that goes down is the G&As, which are divided down, and also the fact that the costs in total are going to be lower, and the costs at San Dionisio, with the higher rates, are going to be, if I remember well, average around $2 per pound, so substantially lower than now.
The question is: Could you consider alternative business in non-copper that take advantage of Atalaya assets, land, clean energy, building, warehouse, and structures, 24-hour operational, data centers? Well, not at this stage, because you need people, you need experience, and I think we have enough troubles within our hands, and we have lots of projects going on that we don't even report until they are already materialized.
So we'll concentrate in what we know best. Well, we have gone through 1 hour. There's no more questions. There have been lots of questions. I've tried to run as much as possible. I only want to... We are out of time. I want to thank you for attending and being so active as usual.
If you have any question, please let us know with our webpage or any of our executives. Thanks, thanks very much.
That's great, Alberto, César. Thank you very much indeed for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close this session, as you will now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback and although that the board can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, and I'm sure will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of Atalaya Mining PLC, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good afternoon to you all.
Thank you.
Thank you.