Morning, everybody. Thank you for coming to our Fresnillo's Preliminary Announcement for 2021. I'm glad to present to you our senior management team after two long years of COVID. We have Octavio Alvídrez, our CEO, our CFO, Mario Arreguín, our COO, Tomás Iturriaga, our VP of Exploration, Guillermo Gastélum. We are very glad to have them back in London. With that, I will hand it over to Mr. Alvídrez. Thank you.
Thank you, Gaby. Thank you, everyone, for being here for year-end announcement. I'm glad to be here with our CFO, Mario Arreguín, our COO, Tomás Iturriaga, and our Vice President of Exploration. Glad to be in person again, although still with some limitations by COVID. I think we have a good number in this meeting room. As always, I would like to go to the disclaimer first to point out and then after the agenda. I will run you through some of the key highlights, financial and operational. Tomás Iturriaga will follow up with our operational performance and development projects, followed by Guillermo Gastélum, who will talk to us about reserves and resources and the exploration pipeline.
After Mario Arreguín will discuss the financial details before I come back and do some final comments and also the outlook. Our main focus this morning will be to provide you with more details as we go on a more normalized performance after being hit on the second half of last year by some of the external factors in Mexico out of our control. Some of those from the COVID side, as we thought we had gone through those. Also some of the new regulatory framework in Mexico and how we are addressing those issues and how we are trying to get to a more normalized performance. Can we go to the following page, please? You will be familiar with our investment proposition. It remains compelling.
High-quality assets, 2.3 billion ounces of silver in resources, and close to 40 million ounces of gold resources. Long life assets that give us the possibility to extend over a long period of time a quality production. Healthy margins, you can see EBITDA margins of 45%, backed by costs on the lower side in terms of gold and silver. Our disciplined approach to development, we concluded Juanicipio as well, one more for growth projects in this 12, 13 year of Fresnillo being listed in the London Stock Exchange. The construction of Pyrites as well. All of this within the sustainable approach that we have in our business. We are still to set some of the targets and objectives for our carbon footprint.
However, we have already gone through some firm steps in terms of the conversion of our fleet in the open-pit mines. We have finished that conversion, and that means a lower carbon footprint, but also an advantage on the cost side. Especially good in this kind of environment in which energy prices have gone up. Also, I'm glad to report that 50% of our energy consumption comes from renewable sources. Those two firm good steps before we continue with our analysis and in order to be able to set our ESG targets in terms of carbon objectives for the company. I'm sure you will appreciate the strong balance sheet we have. Cash generation by our operations.
As we post positive free cash flow of close to $270 million last year, which made us finish with a nice cash position. Next, please. On the HSECR, we continue to monitor COVID and how it evolves in Mexico. In October and November, very few cases across all of our mines. Then Omicron came at the end of December, and especially in January. We had in January the same, but even higher number of cases than the whole 2021. That came with a disruption to our operations. Of course, it was the same behavior as in some other places as well.
Less acute in terms of the health for our people, but caused the same disruption across our operations. We will continue to monitor this and, in the meantime, we continue with the same protocols across all of our mines and that has passed somehow the peak at the end of January. Now we are managing much better that COVID fourth wave. You will see that we continue to push across all of our operations and roll out our I Care, We Care philosophy. You can see that from the statistics in terms of the frequency of the accidents and severity as well, that is coming down since 2017 to now. We'll continue to push that.
As I mentioned, in terms of the environment, I mean, especially on the conversion of our trucks to our dual system, that is giving us two advantages. One, reducing our carbon footprint, and the other one, reducing our diesel consumption, which in these times is good for the cost side. Water is always important in mining. Happy to report that our water reuse efficiency is 79% in the year. That will continue with analyzing some other projects, especially in some areas like Herradura, in which water is essential for us. There we are analyzing one more sewage water treatment plant project. Hopefully, we can complete it. Also to increase the water efficiency in our operations.
In terms of community relations as well, that is central in our strategy to be a good neighbor with all of the communities around our operations. Next, please. In terms of some of the operational performance level production in terms of silver, we fell a bit short of our guidance for 2021. However, on the gold side, the production surpassed the expectations last year. We posted an increase in our adjusted revenues, very much with higher silver prices and metal prices in general. I'm glad to report, as I mentioned, that we concluded our Juanicipio project, and we are just waiting for the tie-up to the electrical grid, something that we will report with more detail during the presentation. Next, please. In terms of the financial performance, as I mentioned, an increase across all of the most lines. Gross profit 6.5% above to $937 million.
The operating profit as well increased to $667 million. Quite a strong EBITDA, $1.2 billion, increase of 3.2%. The profit for the period as well, almost 17% up to $438 million. I'm glad to report as well a final dividend of $0.24 per share that would make an equivalent to $177 million, close to $177 million, on the year. With that, I will pass the presentation to Tomás Iturriaga, our Chief Operating Officer.
Thanks, Octavio. Again, nice to be here with you all finally after a bit of an isolation. I'll give you some more detail on our operations. We can move to page 12, please. As we have said in our updates, we were impacted by some labor shortages in 2021. To some extent, it's continuing to 2022. The COVID Omicron wave had a very relevant impact in our absenteeism rates towards the end of the year. We continue to see the impact as of February still this year. Positive cases started to increase in December and had a very high peak in January.
In February, we still see some 400 active cases of COVID, Omicron. That, in addition to the positive cases, the close contact isolation cases, that add up to a very high rate of absenteeism due to this. I think we have gone through the worst. March is still coming down, so we're getting back to normal. We cannot predict what's gonna happen next, so we sort of being cautious. We will continue promoting the vaccination among our employees. Some 78% of our workforce is fully vaccinated as of now.
We'll continue applying various free testing and quarantine protocols to prevent outbreaks in the operations, and that's what we will continue to do to deal with COVID. Now, moving into the vacancies. Ever since our IPO, we have traditionally relied on contractors to make up a significant portion of our workforce. The new labor reform in Mexico restricted the ability to subcontract some of the labor, some of the work that we used to contracted . What happened initially is that all this environment around the new labor created uncertainty in our contractors and that increased turnover rates around the August or so timeframe.
Just the amounts of it and uncertainty around it created some instability in our workforce. In line with our conservative approach to business, after analyzing implications of the labor reform, we decided to tag development and all related work under the core business tag. Then we launched a program to bring those relevant contractors into our business as unionized employees, right? That was the initial plan. Unfortunately, we did underestimate the number of contractors who would prefer to keep receiving the short-term financial benefits of being a contractor as compared to the long-term compensation that we have defined as Fresnillo plc employees, right?
We underestimated that, so we weren't able to attract or retain that contractor labor force that was supposed to become our own employees. This led to a shortage of trained and experienced personnel, and because we traditionally, as I said, rely on contractors as well as equipment provided by contractors, that also led to a lack of equipment along with, you know, low utilization. That's what really impacted us in terms of personnel. Now, how do we deal with this? We launched a very large recruiting and training effort last year.
We have about nowadays 400 employees already recruiting and training to supplement the Fresnillo District particularly. The rest of the mines have their own program as well. Just, I'm just referring to Fresnillo and Saucito because those were the sites that were suffering the greater impact last year. Like I said, we'll continue to monitor and do all we have to keep COVID under control. Moving to slide 13, please, Gaby. The Fresnillo, we had a good first half of the year and where we saw recovery in production levels at Fresnillo. However, the second half was disappointing.
Well, much of this difficulty was because of the labor shortages we just described, caused by the pandemic and labor reform. Operational events at Saucito and Fresnillo also contributed to the lower production we saw in the second half and particularly the fourth quarter, which was where we saw the most of the impact. This despite a very positive performance in San Julián. At Fresnillo, really the main issue we had was a short circuit in one of the main power lines on the ground, which reduced our pumping capacity, leading to excess water and also reducing our hoisting capacity in our shafts, and that, along together with some ventilation issues that we had in the mine, impacted, at the end, our mining and development rates. Really that was what caused most of the impact towards the fourth quarter, as I said.
To address these issues, what we have done is we have already commissioned a brand-new pumping system 45,000 gallons per minute already operational. We replaced the failed power line with a brand new line as well. With this we are assuming no further impact from these two systems to the operations. We will continue to address the workforce shortage that are caused by the COVID and labor reform with the training and recruitment and training programs that I just described. With all that, we expect to see a better 2022 in production compared to 2021. The San Carlos shaft deepening is complete. We are now working on the infrastructure around the shaft.
The sinking itself is ready, so we're just finishing the mine works to install the crusher and chutes and all that that goes along with the shaft. It should be fully operational by the third quarter this year. Which is gonna help us get access to a large portion of our ore reserves in [audio distortion] . Now, moving to page 14 to talk about Saucito a little bit. Saucito, in addition to the personal issues, the other main problem or operational challenge that we had during the year was an increased water toxicity in the Jarillas West area, and that started. The toxicity increased throughout the year.
As the year progresses, we were forced to further slow down mining in that area of the mine. That did was really increase our need to develop more meters to get access to other areas of the mine at a time when we didn't have the people to do so. That created a complex situation in Saucito and impacting the operations. Also, the grades in the Jarillas West area is higher than that of the other areas available for mining. We have a double impact there. Lower tonnages and then lower grades because we were not able to access those stops at the Jarillas area.
We are to continue to implement all the instrumentation required to deal with the toxicity. With that instrumentation, what we do is we build databases that we study, you know, the data to confirm the required sequence to not make the toxicity a bigger issue because of over mining. What it requires is a specific sequence of the mine that is the result of these studies with databases that we are building. We are also implementing a special or required ramp support techniques to safely mine what we have in plans for this year in the Jarillas West area.
The operational impact in the 2021 issues that we faced in Fresnillo and Saucito, and in particular those impacting development meters, had also an impact in 2022 production guidance. Which we were accounted for in the guidance that you saw. 2022 will be a recovery year in Saucito. In which we will gradually increase meters and tonnages in the mine as the year progresses. With that, we'll position the mine for an improved 2023 year. Production in 2022 will remain in the same levels as you saw for 2021. What else are we gonna do?
Particularly in the Fresnillo District, which is where we have the biggest challenge. In addition to our increased focus on recruiting and training and retaining our people, we will continue with our efforts to improve the current contractor-based performance and efficiency. We will also as a new measure assign dedicated contractor equipment tandems and crews to the development of our strategic ramps. This is something that we have not done in the past. You know, have a tandem and a crew dedicated to one ramp as opposed to having that tandem and crew cycling around works in the mine. We will focus them in one ramp for the next 12-18 months.
We advance our strategic ramps at a faster pace in the new month. That's gonna be done in Saucito, Fresnillo and Juanicipio. In Saucito, we will add also a fresh new contractor to supplement our development leaders for the next two-three years. Okay. Slide 15, please, Gaby. Just to briefly touch on San Julián, very strong year in San Julián, good performance there. We got good grades or better than expected grades. We also managed there to turn the ponds despite the structural issue that we have with the less conditioning time at the start of the year, and despite power power outages in the year because of issues of the government provider.
Yes, good grade, but also a good operational performance by the team. Ciénega operational in line with expectations. Herradura also a strong performance after 2020 with some limitations because of COVID. Herradura performed well according to expectations, and we expect to see a good 2022 also in operational operations. Noche Buena entering the final stage of mining. We will stop mining at around Q3. We had some good news there because we were supposed to stop at mid-year, yet we found some extra ounces in the edge of the pit that we're gonna mine until Q3. Add some good low-cost ounces to Noche Buena production this year. Continue with the mine closure that we have already started.
Slide 16, and then this is Juanicipio. Construction of the plant there is complete and was delivered on schedule in late last year. What we are missing now is connection of the plant to the national power grid. That's on the energy regulator to complete that connection. We are working on that. This got delayed last year due to, first, the lack of personnel by the regulator due to COVID restrictions that they have on their offices. Also some extra equipment that they require us to install before being ready to connect.
Now we are expecting that connection to happen by June this year. During the second half of the year, accounting for that, we will start the commissioning of the new plant there. As part of this connection to the power grid, we have four shutdowns scheduled in the district. We need to shut down for 24 hours, Fresnillo and Saucito to be able to connect Juanicipio to the grid, the power stations, the substations that are interconnected. We have done already two of those 24-hour shutdowns. It's progressing. Like I said, it's a lot of communication, a lot of lobbying with the regulator.
We believe that this is gonna be ready by June. To mitigate that impact because we had accounted initially for a full year of operation in Juanicipio. That is not gonna happen. To somehow mitigate part of that, we will be using the extra capacity of Saucito and Fresnillo to process Juanicipio ore in the first half of the year. By the end of the year, if the commissioning goes on as per the schedule that we have defined, we should be able to achieve 80%-90% nameplate capacity in the plant. Once Juanicipio is fully operational, this will be a good addition of production at the end. It's gonna help decrease our consolidated cost for the company. I think that's what I have to share, and I'll pass it to Mario again now. I'm sorry, to Guillermo Gastélum who's gonna tell us about the reserves. Thank you. Go ahead, Mario.
Thank you very much, Tomás. I'm very happy to be here and to share with you some words on the resources and reserves, and also to share a high-level update on the exploration activities we are performing. Gaby, can you please go to the next slide now? First of all, let's start talking about silver. We are posting a 1.2% increase in our silver resources coming from our 2.3 billion ounces that we have in resources. This increase was driven mostly by important increase at [Fresnillo], almost 80 million ounces of silver at good grades, and also by some good exploration results at the San Julián veins and at our Guanajuato project. However, these numbers were actually offset by decreases at the San Julián disseminated, mostly due to depletion and by a significant decrease at Tres Ríos of around 60 million ounces of silver resources.
This decrease at Tres Ríos occurred two-thirds of the 40 million ounces occur in the inferred region. It's not a big impact with this regard. Some other factors affecting the Tres Ríos silver resources were the depletion of coals and some other decreases due to the increase of costs. Talking about reserves, we were not able to replenish our reserves. We are report.
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Sorry. From the mine operation, we consider development the projects undergoing studies for PEA to feasibility studies and some advanced exploration projects as well. A significant number of projects in the early stage of drilling. All of this is being our team doing prospecting work throughout Mexico, Peru and Chile, which are continuing to generate new projects and prospects for the future. We have received approvals for our 2022 budget of $180 million. More than half of it, 65%, will be spent to pursue the objectives of the inside the mine exploration. The rest, the 45%, will be spent by the exploration division. It will be divided in the investment in our development and PEA feasibility projects.
Very importantly, in increasing the pace of exploration drilling in our advanced and early stage drilling, while we continue to scale. Now all of our teams are back in the field in Mexico, Peru, and Chile, conducting the kind of science mapping and sampling in field in the countries where we operate. I would like to highlight that in 2021 was a very intense year in terms of drilling. We drilled over 835,000 meters across all of our operations. 91% of those were devoted to either in the mine exploration or greenfield exploration. We are brownfield exploration we are conducting in the area of influence of the mines. I'm happy to report also that our reserves, our gold reserves in the open pit operations are back to proven.
That we have made significant discoveries of new vein mineralization at Fresnillo, San Julián, and the Guanajuato, which look very promising. What we are aiming to accomplish in 2022 in the mines, as this is not new to you, we will continue to upgrade our huge mineral resources we have and make an effort to convert them into the measured and indicated category, and eventually into reserves. We're making every effort to fulfill a couple of issues pending to go back to proven reserves in the underground operations. As I said before, we will continue to work in development, PEA and feasibility studies at Orisyvo , Rodeo and Guanajuato, as I described before.
This is a lot of excitement that we have by increasing the pace of exploration in some of the advanced exploration projects, such as Tajitos, San Julián, and Candameña. All of them already have resources in excess of 1 million ounces of gold equivalent. Also we will celebrate the exploration in the most promising early stage drilling. We have very promising projects there, as you can see them in the list. Also we will start our drill programs for the first time ever in a number of very promising prospects and projects. Nothing else with that. Having said that, I will finalize my presentation and hand the microphone over to Mario. Thank you very much for your attention.
If you don't mind, I'll make my presentation from here. There's no problem with the sound here?
No.
No. Thank you very much. Well, it's certainly great to be back in London to have the opportunity to meet in person with all of you. It's been two long years, so it's good to be back with investors and with our friends at analysts. I would like to start my presentation by showing you the income statement, which is shown in this slide here. As you can see from all the yellow lines, all profit levels were up compared to last year. Gross profit was up 6.5%. Operating profit was up 2.6%. Net profit for the period was up almost 17%, and EBITDA was up 3.2%.
What I would like to do is to spend a few minutes to talk about adjusted production costs, which went up by 16% or $176 million. I would like to tell you know, which were the causes behind this increase, which factors were outside of our control, and which factors were related to additional volumes being processed. I also would like to spend a few minutes, you know, describing what was behind the increase in gross profit, this almost $60 million increase in gross profit. You know, how much of that was due to higher prices or to increasing volumes. Before I go to that, I would like to spend some time in the next slide. As you all know, inflation is a very hot topic. It certainly was for 2021.
Given the Russia-Ukraine conflict, it looks like it will continue to be a hot topic this year. That's why I decided to dedicate a little bit of time to this issue. You see here from the bottom right-hand side that our consolidated weighted average cost inflation was 9.65%. This is estimated based on a basket of goods and services consumed by Fresnillo, and which are listed in the first row of this chart. As you can see, in terms of specific weight, the most important one is contractors, which represents 32%, followed by operating material, 17.6%. Maintenance and repairs approximately 16%. Energy, you know, electric energy and diesel account for approximately also 16%.
Based on this specific basket, you can see that in terms of weighted average, the one that had the most important impact was actually contractors, followed by diesel and then operating materials. It's important to point out that this inflation rate, if you will, is denominated in dollars. I'm sure you remember that an important part of our production cost is actually denominated in pesos. We have to mix both the behavior of the exchange rate together with inflation. In the case of labor, for example, there was an increase in terms of dollars of 12.9% in unionized personnel. Actually in pesos, the increase was only 6.5%.
When you consider the effect of the devaluation of the Mexican peso, in dollar terms, the increase actually added up to 12.9%. With that in mind, we're ready to move to the next slide, where we show a rainbow. The increase in adjusted production cost is represented by the green bar at the far right, the $176 million. Here we try to explain the different reasons behind this increase. If you look at column number one and two, here again, we talk about the effect of cost inflation in the first column, excluding the effects of the devaluation of the Mexican peso. In the second column, we specifically talk about the effect of the devaluation of the Mexican peso.
When you add these two columns together, you get the full 9.55 cost inflation. That accounted for $102 million, which represents about 60% of the total increase in adjusted production costs. By far, this was the most important reason behind. However, there were, you know, other reasons also. I would like to move to column number six and seven for the moment. These increases are related to increases in volumes processed. In column number seven, we're talking about Juanicipio . As you know, we process mineral from development works at Juanicipio . Behind that, there was a cost, but of course, this will increase our revenues, and this will increase our gross profit. We shouldn't worry about column seven.
Also, in the case of Noche Buena, there were additional volumes processed in 2021, so that meant additional costs. Again, additional revenues and gross profits were behind this column. We should be a bit worried about the columns three, four, and five. Starting with column number five. I'm sure you remember that in Herradura, we had to stop operations during five or six weeks in 2020 due to the COVID pandemic. This year, in 2021, we were able to operate continuously throughout the year. This hauling capacity, if you will, was available fully this year. Unfortunately, most of it was dedicated to hauling waste material because the strip ratio went up, and that's why you don't see a full benefit of that additional volume.
As a matter of fact, we had to move additional volume, which is column number four, which was purely dedicated to the higher stripping ratio. When you combine those two columns, you get approximately $44 million just because of the increase in the stripping ratio at Herradura, which I think is important to point out. In column number three, we talk about you know increases in haulage, increases in contractors in maintenance, in operating materials. Here we're talking about the use of or consumption of these items. We're not talking about inflation. That represented $41 million. On the favorable side, if you will, the fact that we processed lower volumes in Saucito, in Culebrín, in San Juanito, in Ciénega, that meant that we did not incur in those costs.
That's why you see that favorable impact of $43 million. Unfortunately, that decrease in costs will also mean decrease in revenues and gross profit. With this in mind, I would like to move now to the summary page, where we explain the variation in terms of gross profit. Again, the increase of $57.6 million in terms of gross profit is represented in the green bar. Clearly, if you move to the left, you will see that the most favorable impact was given by the higher metal prices. Realized prices in the case of silver went up by 16.9%. In the case of lead, prices were up 21.6%. In the case of zinc, 31.7%. Marginally, in the case of gold, only 0.1%.
That those increases, you know, had a very favorable effect of $253 million. Which means if, you know, everything had stayed the same, the increase in gross profit would have been $253 million. We also had, like I mentioned, Juanicipio coming in with, you know, from the development works. That generated a benefit of $53.4 million. Also the fact that we had lower treatment and refining charges also had a favorable effect of approximately $37 million. Those were the three main favorable effects. On the downside, if we move to column of the 11, I already spoke about the impact of cost inflation, including the revaluation effect, which had an impact of -$102 million.
Column number 10 talks about the reassessment of gold inventories that we had in Herradura . I'm sure that you all remember that in 2020 we found additional ounces of gold at the Herradura leaching pads. We continued to benefit from that in 2021, but the benefit was much smaller than the one that we had in 2020, and that difference accounts for this almost $58 million decrease. Column number nine, we already spoke about. Column number eight, remember when we spoke about production costs, we said that there was a reduction due to Saucito, Fresnillo's, San Julián, and Ciénega lowering their volumes. Well, that had a negative effect in terms of profits of approximately $41 million.
The higher depreciation in column number seven, you know, the fact that new operations are coming in, implies an increase in depreciation that had a negative impact of $22.8 million. We already spoke about the higher stripping ratio at Herradura. I hope with this you get a clear idea of the truly favorable and the adverse effects affecting our gross profit. Moving now on to the lines below the gross profit. I think the one that we should spend a few minutes on is exploration expenses. We spent $130 million during the year, which represents a 21% increase or a $23 million increase compared to the previous year.
I thought it would be interesting for you to know how that 130 million are composed of. As you can see, operating units represented $57.4 million or 42%. The responsibility of this part of the exploration is Tomás's, our COO's responsibility. In terms of projects, prospects, and regional prospecting, all of which fall under the responsibility of Guillermo. That represents, if you add them, $58.8 million, which is very similar to the amount that we use for the operating units. That represents 42%. The remaining amount basically goes to concession rights that we pay to the government for $21.5 million. With this you get a general idea of how this money was used. Moving on now to the cash flow.
As you can see in the bottom part of the third column, we ended the year with $1.24 billion in cash, which represents an increase of almost $165 million compared to the initial balance of the year. Of course, the most important source of funds was generated by the operations, which is shown in the upper line, the first line, $1.21 billion, an increase of 3.4% compared to last year. In terms of uses of funds, you can clearly see that the most important one was CapEx, including mine development, which used $592.1 million. I'll give you details on that in just a few minutes. The second most important use was the payment of income tax and profit sharing.
If you remember, we're talking about provision of tax payments that were made in 2021, special mining rights, profit sharing, etc . Thirdly, the most important use was dividends paid for $246 million last year. This was made up of the final 2020 dividend which was paid in May 2021, $162.6 million, together with the interim dividend for 2021, which was paid in November 2021, which was $73 million. Now moving on to the next page. Thought it would be interesting for you to know, you know, how this CapEx for $592 million were used. At the bottom, you can see that the most important use was the Juanicipio project. Almost $250 million were used there.
In the case of Fresnillo , we used $100 million and almost $4 million, basically in mine development and mining works, in the construction of the Pyrites Plant, and also in the purchase of some in-mine equipment. In Saucito , we used $100 million, again, in mining works and in the purchase of in-mine equipment and also in acquiring some construction. Between these three units, you know, that represents approximately 80% of the total CapEx. Lastly, just very briefly show you the balance sheet. Just to point out that we continue to have a very strong financial position with a very strong cash balance. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them during the Q&A.
Thank you, Mario. Just to conclude the presentation of the board before we go to Q&A. Next page, please, Gaby. Here we have our projected production. As we stated on our production report at the end of January 2022, our guidance is between 50.5 - 56.5 million ounces of silver. On the gold side, for 2022, 600-650 thousand ounces of gold. You will see a production projection for 2023. It's a bit lower than the previous released information in 2024 level silver production as well as from the gold side. Next, Gaby. In terms of the projection for CapEx, you will see a higher CapEx number for 2022. That is one more effect of the labor reform.
We used to rely on the use of equipment by contractors. As we are having a fewer number of contractors, we need to purchase the equipment, and that is reflected in the higher number of CapEx for 2022. You will see still the share on the top of the bar, the share of the CapEx from Juanicipio, although we said it's included, but I mean, still some payments to come. The rest is for paying CapEx that we expect to bring down the following years, 2023 and 2024. Next, Gaby. Then, the project pipeline. As we mentioned, the Pyrites Plant is completed and waiting for the energy to be sourced by mid-year and Juanicipio, as well.
Juanicipio making a large contribution in terms of silver production, but also on the consolidated both projects actually, consolidated cost for the company as well. Over the following years, we do have two projects lined up. One is Rodeo, that Guillermo explained, and the other one is Orisyvo. It's expected on a conceptual basis at the end of 2024 and 2025, adding in general terms 300,000 ounces of gold and added these two productions. Next, Gaby. To conclude, world-class silver production as well. I would say quality production as we have the production size and also coupled with the cost at which we produce each one of the ounces.
On the gold, sizable production and will be increased, as we mentioned, later on with Rodeo and Orisyvo. We continue with the track of bringing new quality operations into our portfolio with Juanicipio and the Pyrites plant, as an efficiency project in our Fresnillo District as well. It's not only that. I mean, it's the portfolio we have on the exploration side. As Guillermo was explaining, large land bank in Mexico and also in Peru and Chile, very prospective ground that will continue giving us good projects to bring on stream and then into operation in the near and long future.
As I mentioned, all of that backed by our approach on the ESG and sustainable side, which is essential to the mining industry nowadays. Tomás spent a few minutes explaining how we are bringing our operations back to a normal performance. After what we call a transition year in 2022, affected by a lot of external factors somehow out of our control. We believe we have now ramped and we're bringing more normal operations. With that, we can go to Q&A. Yes, Jason?
Sorry, could we spend a little time on slide 18, please?
Can I go to slide 18?
That's the drop in the silver reserves. Just wanted to make sure I fully understood what happened here at Fresnillo. That's a big change in silver reserves at Fresnillo. I guess the question is that it? Like, are you comfortable, or is there still risk? Because if I look at the new reserve grade, it's still above the grades that you've been delivering to the mill over the past couple years.
Yeah.
Same question, I guess, for Saucito.
Good. You wanna mention something I will complement, Guillermo?
Yes. There's one opportunity. This decrease in silver [audio distortion] was lower than expected. We saw in some of the infill drilling. We continued to mine as well. We also used that depletion number as well. This change that our team made in the open levels optimize. We have learned that the open levels of the veins tend to be more variable, and we have experienced some problems with development in mining in that part as well. The team decided to tackle this issue by being more conservative in the approach on the way we estimate reserves in the open levels of the vein.
Let's say we cut the area of influence of the information almost around to 5% to 0.5%, so that it needs to have immediate effect in the number of the amount of reserves available. However, I would like to point out that we have talked in the past that all of our mines have a great exploration potential. If we take a look at the upper side of the slide, you will note that just the exploration is delivering, you know. It increased the resources by almost 80 million ounces of good grade, and we will continue to work on these resources of good grade, and eventually will be incorporated into the reserves. That alone on itself is a good proof that Fresnillo still has a good potential and has a way to improve the scenario in the short- and medium- term into years to come.
Let me add a few words on Fresnillo, Jason, and it goes along the lines what Guillermo mentioned. Increase in good resources because, I mean, we discovered good veins there with good grades in, well, that's from the resource category for Fresnillo. That offsets really the default, let's say one to one in reserves. It's a matter of converting those new resources into reserves in the near future. Yes, we don't like the fall we've had in 31 million ounces of silver in reserves. As Guillermo mentioned, as we were approaching with mining works in the top area of the veins, we were not finding what we were expecting. We readjusted that model, and that's the main loss of those 31 million.
As I mentioned, good to report that we increased 79 million in resources, higher grade, so that would mean that we have the opportunity to convert those. In terms of the grade not reaching the production grade, not reaching the reserve grade, we continue to work on that. As we reported two years ago, I mean, we started analyzing the whole process. One being all the way from the sampling of the development works, the production stopes, the measuring consistently the dilution there, going all the way to the sample, the quality of the sample, QA/QC, going all the way to analyzing our labs as well. What we are coming to is that we are somehow more dilution than expected on the production side.
Tomás is keen to bring that under control. We had three good years in Fresnillo, bringing the grade up and 2018, 2019 and 2020, closing the gap to the reserve grade, and that's something that we shall continue to do so. What I mean is something that we are still pending to concrete. On the Saucito side, yes, we lowered our cutoff grade and t hat made us increase the tonnage, but also decrease the grade, and that's the main effect. That all is on the reserve grade coming down. It's different to Fresnillo.
Just to sort of finish pushing on this, then I'll drop it. If you look at page 37, your guidance on the grade for Fresnillo for this year is 190 - 210. It's fall to under two. S till more than 10% below reserve grade this year. What is the path back to reserve grade?
Yes. Decreasing the dilution.
Sorry, how long? Like, is that next year? Is it five years from now? Is it never?
No, it's not never. Probably. It's really now about our dilution control process is sound. It's good. It's in place. We monitor that, you know, as part of our day-to-day operations, so that's under control. It's really development, what we need to do to be able to catch up with with grade. To get in a schedule to you know the short- term compared to the long-term grade reserve. It's just development. The shaft sinking of the shaft's gonna help get access to that area of the mine where we have, like I said, greater potential for reserve and good grades. I'll say it's really about development meters and and 2022 and 2023 are gonna be similar to 10-100. As we gain access to those areas with more development, we will be catching up with reserve grade, basically.
Is the issue that you're it's not that you don't understand the ore body, it's that you happen to be mining a part of the ore body that is lower grade.
It's as of now, yes, part of that. The dilution, part of it is operational. Part of it is some material that has not been accounted as reserves. We analyze as we go along in the mining, and even being lower grade, with the prices and the cost at the moment, we include that to supplement the production. So that lowers also the grade. That's because we, as of now, lack the flexibility that more development meters would give us to mine closer to long-term reserve scheduling grades.
Yeah, complementing that to Max. As we increase the development, we increase the operational flexibility, of course. We have a plan for the following years to decrease gradually because right now we are not in that position right now. You were asking when. It may be two, three to four years, gradually bringing that to the reserve grade. We need to work on increase of the development, which is, I mean, realistically would be over the next couple of years. Max is putting in place some actions already, is to regain that operational flexibility and to reduce the amount of ore that is not to the reserve grade. Now, the reserve grade is a picture right now of the 10 years, nine years of Fresnillo in the following nine years.
What we mentioned, and this is a double- effect, is that the model and the sequence that we have for Fresnillo points to an increase in the reserve grade over the following years and then at the back of the nine years go down again. We need to work to those model sequence in order to continue closing the gaps with the reserve grade. Now, let me tell you, the ounces are there, the ounces are being produced. It's a matter when you dilute above costs.
Okay. Thank you.
Yes, Dan.
Thanks. Two questions. The first one's to follow on from [Jason] on reserves and resources. I see you reclassified the open pit resources as proven, but you still haven't been able to do that with the underground. Can you walk us through why your auditor in SRK doesn't feel that there's sufficient evidence to support the reserves that you see in the underground mines? What do you need to do to change that?
Yes. Guillermo.
Yes, I can take that one. Well, auditor acknowledges that we have made a significant improvement in the way we estimate our resources and reserves. We're talking about these underground reserves. We have made significant improvements in the quality control, in the implementation, investigation and implementation of the geotechnical models, fault models, hydrological models, ventilation models, all of that. They are still requesting a couple of issues I mentioned during my presentation. Those two issues will be, despite the fact that we have the geotechnical models, they want to see the geotechnical models used to produce a stability assessment of the different parts of the mines using these geotechnical models in a more systematic fashion.
Like to use this model that we have and implement it to the different parts of the mine, that would be one factor. The use of the different models to assess the stability of different areas. That's something that we do, but they want to see a system more robust sometimes. On the other hand, although we conduct our reconciliation exercises, they want also to see a more robust reconciliation procedures, which will add more detail and more frequencies to the way when conducting these exercises. These are the two main issues our auditors are requesting from us to get back to proven reserves in the underground operations.
Okay.
If I may add to that, the other thing that we need to further advance is to prove that we have sufficient level of engineering in the long- term, in the life of mine infrastructure of the mine. That means tailings, power supply, water management, geological. Not in the short- term for the life of mine. I would say that the quality of the geological modeling is good. Now to qualify as proven reserve in addition to what Guillermo said, we have to advance on that level of engineering that the regulator is requiring for that to be qualified. We do have engineering. We do have a plan for life of mine. Just they want to see more work done in there.
Okay. Just to follow- up on that. I mean, I think, our side and the market's been struggling with the multi-year inability to achieve reserve grade. Do you think the audit is gonna require that you prove that you can achieve your reserve grade before they upgrade the status or is it purely the data that's given?
No. I don't think that has to do. It's really more about this infrastructure, engineering and the controls on reconciliation and that Guillermo went us through.
Okay, cool. The second question is for Mario on the cost side. If I look back at your costs and CapEx. If I look back at the mid-year presentation, you were guiding to about $450 million of CapEx for 2022. That's nearly $250 million higher. Can you quantify the cost saving you're gonna be gaining from that investment in terms of dollars per year internal rate of return on the investment? Because that's kind of almost like building a new mine. What are we gonna get out of it?
Well, as you saw in the slide, the most important part is going to the new quality of the product, right?
No, no. The CapEx delta. You were guiding the mid-year for $450. It's now $690. If I look at the delta, it basically comes from higher sustaining CapEx. You said about purchasing the equipment as part of the labor transition. What's the dollar number of the IRR on that investment?
Well, that is sustaining capital. It will just, you know, maintain the operations of the mine.
You must be saving money. You said you're gonna save on contractor costs. What are we getting per year on the $250 million investment?
The fact that we're buying equipment in order to.
Correct. Yeah. Which we've been modeling from 2023 of reduced costs.
To replace the.
To return on that CapEx. Yeah.
To replace the equipment that was provided by the contractors.
Right.
Like, we haven't done, you know, the calculation of the ROI. We can do it, of course.
Okay.
We had no choice. I mean, we had to substitute that equipment. We had to substitute otherwise we would've reduced our operations.
Sure.
I'm happy to do that calculation for you. You know, it will be for higher CapEx but a lower OpEx.
Not really possible to quantify that at this point.
It is possible. Let me do the numbers for you and I'll get back to you. Again, you know, we have interest.
No, no.
We have interest. I'm happy to do that, calculation.
Okay, cool.
A quick comment there, Dan . Then the 450 that you mentioned did not include any CapEx for Saucito which is coming just jumping into 2022. I mean, the project's completed. The $450 was just sustaining. $450 compared to the $620 actually or something like that.
Okay.
Yeah.
Like 200-ish.
Yeah.
Million dollars. Okay. Just finally, I mean, just from a cost perspective, when you look at that in adjusted production cost or inflation number with 15% increase in adjusted production cost last year, what should we be expecting this year? Volumes are essentially flat, so what should we be thinking of an adjusted production cost?
About 8%.
8% increase. Okay. Thanks.
We have actually concluded our negotiations with the labor workforce at 8%. Yeah.
Even with all the $125, you know, it's not just labor, it's quite a few other.
That's in Mexican terms. In dollar terms. Again, it's difficult at this point in time to see, you know, what the price of gold is going to get to and if it's temporary or not. I mean, if the price of gold continues to go up and it stays there, immediately we're going to see higher diesel prices. That's immediate. In the medium term, of course, you know, everything's related to the price of gold and everything's transported, everything's produced using energy. I think that's an issue to be considered. To answer your question fully, I don't want to compromise because I saw you taking notes, 8%. Then in a few months, you're going to come back and say.
Just to give you a no.
You know, we did our project in October last year, and we have a revised budget in January this year. We presented that to the board, it was approved. That was before this problem between Ukraine and Russia, and that's where the 8% came out. I do want to be very honest with you. Who knows what's going to happen, really. The only good thing about this is that together with that increase, you also see an increase in the price of gold in full.
Yeah.
Hopefully our margins will be better. You know, please don't quote me on that 8%.
Yeah.
Sorry. Alan, to ad d questions.
Yeah. Actually following- up a little on that. Can you just remind me about how you're procuring your energy? Is it completely spot or are the prices set by the government?
No, it's totally spot prices. Yeah.
Okay.
The government is the owner of the.
Yeah. The January.
I mean, the 50% are coming from the old sources, from renewable sources that have more stable than really the spot price, the other 6%.
The January COVID spike you had, how disruptive will that be to Q1 production, and how much of your full-year guidance takes into account a weaker start to the year because of that?
Yes. As we mentioned, I mean, as Tomás mentioned, the lack of personnel is what is affecting most our operations right now. Some operational issues at Saucito. It's significant. I mean, we believe and we have the program in place to recruit. It's difficult in this tight labor market. The three first quarters of the year, we have a program to be fully staffed at our underground operations, so the fourth quarter should be normalized. On the open-pit mines, the latter of the first quarter, but not to the extent that with the underground mines suffered sometime. You will see a first quarter not good in the underground operations and then gradually increasing the performance to a fourth quarter normal.
Guidance is comfortable with the fact that 3,000 people have isolated for at least a week in Q1?
Yeah. Those effects are accounted for in the guidance you have seen. That's an agreement. Yeah.
Rodeo or Orisyvo, when would those go up for board approval? Is that this year?
We are finishing our conceptual analysis, and we will start the pre-feasibility this year. Rodeo is an easier one than Orisyvo of course. We will see if with the pre-feasibility we can present that for board approval, or otherwise we'll go to a feasibility on Rodeo. If that happens, that would be next year. You have two years for construction.
Okay. Thank you.
Okay. There are no other questions here. We can try, [Alfredo] from the conference call.
Thank you. As a reminder that it is star one on your telephone keypad if you would like to ask a question via the audio lines. We do have a question coming through from the line of Krishan Agarwal calling from Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks a lot for taking my question. This is a follow-up on Dan's question on cost. Just to clarify, the current positioning is that the guidance is sort of 8%, and you're not quoting me, Mario, on that, but just taking as a number to work with. That works out to close to $100 million of increase into the adjusted cost base for the year 2022. You also said that the CapEx increase is primarily due to different purchases going into the sustaining CapEx. You will end up saving a little bit of cost in second half of this year. Is there any kind of a possible scenario that although the inflation adjusted costs go up, but because you have cost saving coming through from in the OpEx, the adjusted cash costs remain sort of broadly flat on an absolute dollar number?
I'm not sure I understood the question.
Sorry, Krishan. The sound was not very good right now. Can you please repeat the question basically?
Yeah. The crux of the question is the CapEx increase, is that going to offset the inflationary increase in the cash cost?
If the CapEx increase will offset the inflation somehow. Now, with that, yes. It will go directly to the contractor costs that we currently have. I mean, we are investing in equipment to substitute the equipment that the contractor has. The contractor typically would charge you for the use and also the value of that equipment. So they do have a difference that they get to their business. So that is the one that we will offset through time investing in our own equipment.
Okay. Understood.
The next question comes in from the line of Amos Fletcher, calling from Barclays, please. Please go ahead.
Yeah, morning, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. The question I have is just around the level of vacancies at Saucito, you highlighted in one of the slides. It's still pretty elevated. Is there a risk that, you know, in order to address these vacancies you need to increase overall the levels of pay that you're giving your workforce? Could that sort of induce, you know, increased inflation across the broader business?
We, I mean, as I mentioned, as you mentioned, I mean, it's been tough to recruit personnel in this tight labor market. On general terms, we are still managing with our payment schemes for our workforce to bring some new employees on board. However, where we are working is on the variable incentive schemes in order to maintain the productivity of the contractors that we were using widely at Fresnillo Mine. That will come with an additional productivity that we are working.
Okay, thanks. I guess I just wanted to kind of explore slightly what Krishan was talking about, around you saying in terms of oil price exposure, it flows immediately into diesel prices. Is there any sort of, you know, lagged flow in of oil prices into, for example, your electricity costs or any other areas? Thanks.
Yes. In the case of electricity, what the government charges is typically based on their own cost of generating that electricity. A lot of it is generated, you know, using fuel oil. If the price of oil goes up, that will automatically translate into a higher price of electricity.
Okay. Great.
The next question comes in from the line of Tyler Broda calling from RBC. Please go ahead.
Great. Thanks very much for the call. Just to follow- up one more time on Dan's question just on the CapEx. Just to be clear, it's $135 million of new CapEx effectively for replacing the contractor equipment. Is it fair to say, I'm just thinking ballpark, that it's about a, you know, you get about, what, a 10% charge on that is what the contractors are charging you? Is it like a $20 million impact cost? I guess if you could just give a bit more clarification on that.
Just secondly, I guess just on a wider basis, like what is the difference in terms of, you know, I guess the combination of both costs and productivity between your own workers and the contractors? I mean, is this going to be higher costs coming out of this or lower costs? How do you, once you have the new equipment in place, sort of, you know, benchmark that? Thanks very much.
Yes. I mean, the investment that we're doing in equipment, of course will pay off in the following years as we have less of a use of contractors as we mentioned. We owe you that more concrete projection, let's say. But on the other side, you're right. I mean, we are suffering now, and that is included in our projection not only for this year, but also for next year. In terms of the [production]. When you recruit, you have to go through a training period for inexperienced people. That is included also in our projection for this year as we are recruiting the number of people that Tomás mentioned.
Also on the productivity side, this is correct as well, your comment. The contractors have a different scheme, and they are more productive than the crews that we have of our own personnel. We will need to work to agree to achieve those productivity levels. That also project is included not only for 2022 but also for 2023.
Okay. Thanks, thanks very much.
There are no further questions on the audio line.
Okay. Another question over here. Otherwise, I would like just to take one of those on the line, and this will be for Mario, seeing he has not had enough questions. Can you provide a high level approximation of which costs are likely to be more transitory and which have to be more persistent, and then give a sense of the scale of increase expected, please? This comes from Kieron Hodgson.
Well.
That's an easy one.
That's an easy one. Which are?
More transitory and one more permanent.
Well, I'm hoping that the oil price is transitory. That it spikes and then, you know, gradually starts coming down and, if that's the case, that's exactly what we would say. From then it might just spike and then, you know, eventually comes down again. That will drop our costs. But who knows, really?
Okay. One more quick one. Peter Lowe. Can you please comment on the regulatory situation in Mexico regarding royalties and taxation?
Yes. That one is easier. We're not expecting any additional royalties or taxes from the Mexican government. We feel very comfortable in saying that because the president has been quite firm in terms of, you know, committing to not increasing taxes and royalties. We already pay quite a bit of royalties and quite a bit of taxes, so we don't believe that there will be any changes in that regard. Gotcha.
Okay. The last one from here is, what do you think is appropriate balance sheet capital structure? You should look at the term debt, and the group should be able to coordinate debt. Will you take on a reasonable level of debt to improve returns to equity?
We are planning to maintain our current debt level. As you know, we have some maturity coming up actually next year. Our plan is to renew that loan, that those notes that are due, approximately $220 million. Not increase, but simply renew those notes. That's our 30-year notes, but without planning on increasing either. Just maintaining the level of debt that we have right now.
Okay. Two last questions from Chris. One, is the COVID situation in Mexico returning to a more normalized situation? Yes, Chris. We had a peak, tremendous peak at the end of December and January, really. As that peak in January and February does start now dropping drastically. If we don't have any other variant in Mexico, it should be the same behavior as in some other countries. I mean, that will come to a more normalized situation. The last one, where will the power be connected at Fresnillo? I believe you mentioned.
Yeah, it was.
June.
Yeah. June.
They're expecting June. That's what I mean, yes. Okay. With that, I mean, we will conclude. Thanking you all for attending the year-end result for Fresnillo plc. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thanks.