Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for our 2023 interim report, Fresnillo PLC. I'm Octavio Alvídrez, CEO of the company, and I'm pleased to be joined this morning by Mario Arreguín, our CFO, and Tomás Iturriaga, our Chief Operating Officer. Always, I need to point to a disclaimer before I begin. I will quickly move to the agenda we will cover this morning. In terms of our agenda, I will take you through the key operational and financial highlights. Address some of our key recent HSCR initiatives, as well as make some remarks on our exploration activities. Tomás will then cover some details of the operations. Mario will provide our financial update. I will then conclude with some comments on the outlook before we take on our questions, on your questions.
You will be familiar with our investment proposition. It remains consistent and compelling, notwithstanding some of the recent challenges that we have in, in Mexico and in the mining industry. We are the largest producer of silver worldwide, and Mexico's number one gold miner. We benefit from the high-quality mining in our assets, backed by our large resource base, 2.2 billion ounces of silver and nearly 40 million ounces of gold. We have strong EBITDA margins and low cost, and remain very focused on running our operations efficiently. We take a disciplined approach to investment through the cycles, and we have a proven track record of completing our projects. As it is, our most recent addition to our portfolio, the Juanicipio projects, among some other projects in the past that we've been building and keeping up with our organic growth.
We also have a solid project pipeline of new projects and prospects in Mexico, in Peru, and in Chile. Of course, we are in a journey to further improve our sustainability performance, and have a long track record of consistent, committed engagement with our local communities. This will be important for the upcoming projects that we have in Mexico, and especially in the scheme of a new mining law, in which we have the indigenous consultation as well. Moving briefly to our HSCR initiatives, we have a good trajectory in the safety side, as you can see in the lower chart to the left. However, as this is a good trajectory, I'm sad to report this year, 2 fatalities in our contractor employees.
This is not acceptable, we must redouble our efforts to ensure a true culture of safety across all of our operations, so that we achieve our aspiration so far of a safety culture in all of our explorations and in Fresnillo plc as a whole. On the environment side, our work on improving our carbon emissions performance is also ongoing, as we work towards decarbonizing our operations, improving water recycling rates on all of our mines, and upgrading our mining fleets. This year, we are starting, we aim to conclude, an in-depth analysis of our two largest assets in Fresnillo and in Herradura, at the open pit, in order to understand better what kind of technologies we have available, what kind of objectives we can set in terms of decarbonization in our mines.
Along some other studies based on science, we are planning to come to a conclusion on what we can commit in terms of climate change initiatives. Some of the operating highlights. This has been, as I mentioned, a few challenging years, and these challenges remain as we continue to work through the inflationary environment we are currently in. With some condition in terms of foreign exchange in our country, in which we have seen the peso strengthening just recently. I'm really pleased with the overall performance of operations. We have achieved stability in Fresnillo, and in Saucito, we have seen a turning point again, going to a positive side.
I believe this shows how we have stabilized our operations, and we are now in a strong position to capitalize on further growth opportunities with the legacy operations, all in a much better place. Operational performance was in line with expectations, and we are once again reconfirming our full-year guidance. Clearly, a key highlight was the commissioning and ramp-up of Juanicipio, which we still expect to hit nameplate capacity in the Q3. We have also completed the commissioning of the new Pyrites Plant , and that is operating operational right now. Finally, we slightly front-ended some of our exploration investment our full-year guidance, but we will achieve something in the lines of our, of our budget.
On the financial highlights, despite the inflationary challenge, we are reporting robust numbers, I believe, generating cash, maintaining our strong balance sheet, while still paying a healthy dividend to our shareholders. Mario will talk about more about these impacts, not only for inflation, but the strength of the peso. Moving to the explorational front. As I mentioned previously, we have slightly invested more in our exploration in this first half. As we have had good results in Guanajuato and in Tajitos, who will be joining our pipeline of growth, of organic growth. More specifically, I'm also pleased to report that we have moved Orisyvo to the pre-feasibility stage, and this is, as we are moving this, this project ahead. Looking to our exploration front as well, as I mentioned, this year we are budgeting $175 million.
As you can tell, most of that exploration budget goes into our mining operations and development projects, and those still being explored. In order to increase the certainty of our resources and reserves, and also grow on those that we are still exploring. As I mentioned, not only in Mexico, but we are also exploring in Chile and Peru. With that, I will pass to Tomás Iturriaga, who can tell us more about the operation details.
Thank you, Octavio, and good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here to talk about or report what I believe to be a solid first half of the year in the operations front. Of course, we, we acknowledge the cost pressures we are facing in all of our mines, but operationally, I think, we are on sound footing now to go from there. I will start with the Fresnillo district, as it is and still where our main focus remains in terms of performance. Starting with the Fresnillo mine. The mine continues to perform per our expectations, and I'm very pleased with the positive impact of our performance improvement plan that we implemented there.
Development rates will, for the second half of the year, will continue being the average of 3,100 meters per month, showing the consistency of the mine. One of the key drivers at the Fresnillo is improvement is the San Carlos shaft deepening project, which continues to progressing well, and expected to be complete by year-end after the shaft service infrastructure redesign we did early on the year. With a stable production base at Fresnillo, we are now focusing on several efficiency and cost-containment initiatives that I will mention some of them later in the presentation. Moving to Saucito, I think the good news is that we have stabilized the performance at this mine, as Octavio was mentioning earlier.
We had a good first half of the year, we expect to see further improvement in the second half. The high seismicity issues we had in some zones of the mine are well under control and causing no more further delays or slowing of our mining. Also, the flooding and pumping system issues we had in the past are behind us, I believe we have a solid base now to continue increasing the tonnes out of the mine, and therefore, the metal produced at Saucito. The deepening of the Jarillas shaft is progressing well also there at Saucito. Moving to Juanicipio, I'm pleased to report that after commissioning in Q1, the ramp-up of the processing plant is going very well. We have not found any unusual matters on the ramp-up.
We are in track to achieve nameplate capacity during Q3. Production in the first half of the year was strong at Juanicipio, as we delivered just over 4 million ounces of silver and 9,000 ounces of gold in the attributable basis. But we had, of course, the benefit of processing some ore in Fresnillo and Saucito, and we are also benefiting from the higher grades in the upper levels of the mine, which will normalize as we mine down in the following years. Overall, it has been a good start of the Juanicipio mine, as we were expecting. In San Julián, not much to comment.
I mean, other than performance was in line with the expectations, and we, with some impact in the veins mine, related to low availability of equipment that it's overcome, and we expect a good second half of the year. At Cienega, we have a more challenging first half of the year in the operations, because we're seeing lower grades and then high hauling costs, because some of the better-grade ore is coming from satellite mines far away from the process plant area. That's a challenging cost there in that operation. However, we believe that Cienega has a good future, 'cause we have, we have better grades on the reserves.
We are analyzing how to get to that area sooner, or maybe with a new access to the mine that we are analyzing. We are also piloting new technology to pre-concentrate that high-grade ore that is coming from far away, so we could also reduce the hauling cost impact in that portion of the operation. We'll keep you apprised of the progress in Cienega, where, like I said, we are working to unlock that value in the future, because we believe in the future of La Cienega.
Finally, in the operations at Herradura, we have a good performance with almost 190,000 ounces of gold produced in the first half, this despite the labor, the labor stoppage that we had late in April, May, that was properly reported. Despite that, the team there managed to keep some level of operations, and the output was good. Now, in the next slide, I want to provide a brief description of our cost containment, cost reduction, efficiency projects. More at Fresnillo, as I said before, you know, the deepening of the San Carlos shaft is gonna be a very positive impact in the haulage cost. Whenever that's ready, we will capture that benefit.
In addition, to that, we have about 7 high-impact initiatives going on at Fresnillo, worth $3 -$5 million on savings on an annualized basis. For example, savings in the shotcreting process by rationalizing the shotcreting. Reduce pumping maintenance costs. The tele-remote drilling and autonomous drilling project that is listed there, could potentially introduce and improve productivities, representing up to $7.5 million in annualized savings. At Saucito, we have 5 projects having to do with the expediting of the mining cycle, which will improve the mine output and, therefore, the cost per tonne. Example of those projects are the ground supporting cycle, improvement of that, or the optimizing of the long-haul drilling cycle.
We are also working on a project to reduce consumption of reagents in the dynamic leach plant. The haulage fleet weight tracking system itself, that is already ongoing, could produce to an estimate of $3 million in savings in a full year. That's efficiency in the hauling produced through cost savings. At Herradura, 12 initiatives ongoing, such as extended tyre entire life, extended truck fleet major components life, reduced diesel and natural gas logistics call cost, sorry. All of that representing an estimate of $10 million in savings, cost savings in an annual basis.
And I'm just using those three mines as the examples of the kind of projects that we are undertaking in all four mines, to try to contain the cost inflation and the exchange rate that is impacting us. My final message would be that we count now on a solid operational performance of our portfolio of mines, as a solid foundation to now focus on continuous improvement, efficiencies, and cost containment. Thank you, and over to our CFO, Mr. Mario Arreguín. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Tomás. Good morning, everyone. If we can move, please, to the income statement. What you see in this slide is basically the income statement for the first half of the year, and we compare that to the previous year. As you can see from all the different profit levels, which are outlined in yellow, we are below last year's first half results. Gross profit was below almost 23% compared to last year. Operating profit was almost 63% below last year. Profit for the period was 36% below last year, and the EBITDA was close to 24% below last year. In order to understand the decreases, I would like to start basically with gross profit, the $83 million decrease.
If we move up that column, all the way up to adjusted revenues, you will see that we had an increase of almost $82 million in adjusted revenues. That was basically due to volume. As Tomás reported, we had an increase in production of silver and gold. Whereas prices, even though silver and gold went up in this first half, they were more than offset by the decrease in the price of zinc. Prices didn't really do that much for us this first half. It was more in terms of volume, when justifying that increase in adjusted revenues. I think the item that you are mostly interested in has to do with adjusted production costs, which increased by almost 17%, or $114.5 million.
I think this is the line item that I would like to dedicate some time. If we can please move to what we call the rainbow analysis. What we show here in this slide is on the far right-hand side, that bar shows the increase in adjusted production costs, which was again $114.5 million. If you move all the way to the left on this graph, you will see the different variables that impacted our costs. Starting with the bar 1, and the most important one, and which had the most important effect for the period, was the revaluation of the Mexican peso. I'm sure all of you are familiar with this. The peso has been one of the strongest currencies compared to the dollar.
Basically, due to the fact that the interest that we pay in Mexico is much, much higher than the one paid in the US. You can see that the average exchange rate for last year was 20.28 pesos per dollar, whereas for the first half of this year, it was 18.21. That translates into a 10.2% revaluation, which had an impact, a negative impact of $45 million. What we show on bar number 2 is the impact of what we call the underlying cost inflation. The underlying cost inflation is the one where we exclude the impact of the Mexican revaluation. This is purely the increase in unit cost, assuming zero revaluation of the Mexican peso.
This underlying cost inflation for this first half of the year was 6.2% on an annualized basis, which had a negative impact of $41.6 million. If you add these two first columns, you will see that you get to almost $87 million, which represent close to 76% of the total change in production cost. By far, I would say these two elements were the most important ones in terms of impacting our adjusted production cost. If we continue to move on, you will see that on bar number 3, we're showing the increase in absolute production cost, derived from the fact that the Juanicipio mine ramped up and had extracted more mineral during this first half of the year compared to the previous year.
You're also aware that this year we started the operation of the plant. Obviously behind that, there was a $19.6 million increase in absolute adjusted production costs. We really don't need to worry about this particular increase, because behind this increase, we saw a very important increase in our profit. Moving on to bar number 4, and this has to do with a technical accounting adjustment, I would say. This first half of the year, for the Herradura mine, one of the most important components of the Herradura mine, had a stripping ratio which was below the average life of mine stripping ratio.
What that means is that for this year, we pretty much capitalized, I mean, expense, expense, took to the income statement, all of the costs incurred in stripping in this particular component, which is the most important at the Herradura mine. As a result of that, when you compare the first half of the previous year, where we had exactly the opposite, you know, we had a higher stripping ratio, and a lot of that was capitalized. This year, that stripping ratio again was below the average life of mine stripping ratio, so we took more of the stripping cost to the income statement, and that had a negative impact of $19.5 million. The fifth column, what you see there is basically has to do with the current operations.
There was an increase in terms of the use of maintenance, contractors, operating materials, diesel. This was basically due, as you are aware, of longer haulage distances and deeper mines. We also doing more development. All of this had a negative impact of $16.7 million. Lastly, on column number 6, we also saw higher ore volumes processed at some of our mines. We don't really need to worry about this particular increase, because behind it, there was an additional profit generated. The two variables that somehow mitigated this adverse effects were, 1, Noche Buena. As you know, we're in the process of closing that mine, so obviously, that mine incurred less production cost.
Also, we reclassified part of the cost incurred at Herradura and Noche Buena , where I'm sure you remember we had a stoppage, illegal stoppage for 14 days. What we did there is those fixed costs, mainly salaries, we reclassified those to unproductive costs. Let me just go back a bit, and because I believe there, there are two questions that you might ask. One, how much of this was known by the market? Two, of the changes that we show here in this slide, which do we consider to be structural or permanent, and which do we consider to be temporary or that can be reversed? Starting for, for, you know, for, for the first question, how much did the market know about this? If we start with bar number 1, well, this shouldn't be any surprise at all.
I mean, this is public information in terms of the exchange rate, and everyone is very much aware of that. This is no secret. Second, what we call the underlying cost inflation. In early March, when I was sitting here, some of you asked me what inflation was expected by the company, excluding the exchange rate effect. I was lucky, 'cause I answered 6. This was pretty much known by the market, too. The market knew about these two first columns, which again represent 76% of the total increase. On the CPO mine ramp-up and the startup of the plant, of course, the market knew about that. Obviously, if you have a new operation, that would increase your absolute adjusted production cost.
Column 4, the stripping, the increased stripping cost taken to, to, to the income statement. Well, maybe, we I believe we mentioned part of that in, in, in the March meeting that we had here. Again, that was a technical, accounting issue. Again, the one that we're working on, is the one shown in, in, in column 5, where Tomás has explained, certainly the actions that we're t- trying to make in order to, mitigate that, sort of, deepening and longer distances in our mines. Now, question 2: How much of you know, how many of these bars are structural or, or permanent, and how which ones are temporary? Again, starting with column 1.
From my point of view, I, I believe this is one of the variables that could be re-reversed, or that is temporary. How long do we expect the peso to maintain this strength? Well, that is hard to say. I can tell you that for the second half, it's going to be even worse, because in the first half, we had a 18.21 average exchange rate. If you look at the exchange rate right now, it's 16.7, so it's even below the average of the first half. We really don't see any reasons for that to change in the short term. Of course, we're going to have elections next year, but we're not expecting, you know, that this political situation could have a negative impact on the exchange rate, unless something unforeseen happens.
in the medium long term, we don't believe that the, the peso can hold this strength, and eventually, you know, it, it will maybe come back at least to 21, 22 levels that we just saw 6 or 7 months ago. This, this first column, I believe, can be reversed. The second column, inflation. I think this is structural and permanent, unless we start seeing deflation and lower unit prices, but we are not expecting to see that. The Juanicipio mine , again, it's a good thing, so that's permanent. It's going to stay there, but generating good profits. The stripping to costs, well, that changes depending on if the stripping ratio is above or below the life of mine stripping ratio. It comes to column number 5.
You know, our mines are already deep, our open pit mines have increased the distances, and they will continue to do so. Once again, the only thing that we can do is try to mitigate, mitigate those effects by implementing strategies to be more efficient and more productive. Again, Tomás just spoke about that a few minutes ago. I hope this gives you a clear idea of where we see our costs going. If we can go back to the income statement, please. The other item that I think it's worth a while talking about is exploration expenses. As you can see, we had an increase of almost 25% or $19 million.
We spent close to $97 million in the first half, which is slightly above what we guided for at the beginning of the year. We expect to, at the end of the year, pretty much be in line with what we guided you. Probably we will see lower exploration expenses in the second half to meet the guidance that we gave. Most of this increase has gone not to the operating mines, but rather to, to the new exploration and projects that we are currently working on. Perhaps another line that would be interesting to talk about is the silver stream. You already are very much aware of this. This has no cash effect.
Nevertheless, we have to value the market at the silver stream that we hold with Peñoles Sabinas mine. Given the fact that the prices, forward prices, when we did this valuation, as of the close of June, forward prices were lower for silver. We had to incorporate that into the model, and also the fact that Sabinas has reported a bit lower reserves and resources, that translates into a bit less silver coming out of that mine in the future. All of that was taken into consideration, and the outcome was a $17 million reduction.
However, compare that to the previous year, where we had a, a much bigger effect coming from lower silver price and, and an increase in the interest rates that we used to discount the cash flows. Believe it or not, that had a positive effect of $19 million. The other line items that I think we should comment on are income tax expense and mining rights. It's very unusual, and I would say unique, to see positive numbers there. I believe this will be one of the few companies that is reporting higher after-tax profit during the period. The reason they're compared to the profit before income tax.
The reason for that, and this is not the first time that this has happened, given the impact of the revaluation of the Mexican peso on deferred taxes, and also the impact of inflation, but most importantly, the revaluation of the Mexican peso. That has a tremendous impact in terms of the deferred taxes. How do you get that? That's how you get to $89.7 million of profit for the period, which is higher than the profit before income taxes. If the peso goes back to the 21-22 peso per dollar level, this will be completely reverted in the future, and that's what we expect to happen eventually. And if I skip some of the slides, I'm happy to answer those during the Q&A.
Go to the next slide, please. The next slide. David. I just wanna make sure that we are clear on what we understand by what we call consolidated cost inflation. In the Rainbow that I explained to you, we separated what we call the structural or the underlying cost inflation from the revaluation of the Mexican peso. When you look at them together, combined, that's how we get to what we call the consolidated cost inflation, which again, takes into consideration our own particular basket of inputs, and the weighted average of each one of those, and that's how we get to the 13.35%. If you take the revaluation of the Mexican peso effect out of this, that's how you get to the 6.2.
Hopefully, you know, this, this concept is clear. If we can move to the next slide. I think this is important to show very quickly, and by the way, the, the, the shaded part of the circle there is basically associated to contractors. You know, contractors obviously bring their own personnel, bring their own equipment, bring some of their own operating materials, and also do part of the maintenance, and they charge us for each one of those components. Anyway, as you can see, operating materials as a whole represents the most important component of our adjusted production, representing 23%. Followed by personnel, which represents 20%, you know, when you combine both our own personnel and contractors. Maintenance represents approximately 20%.
Energy, basically meaning diesel more than electricity, represents 18%, and a bunch of other things represent 12%. You know, when you model Fresnillo, you should take this into consideration, and also take into consideration that between 40%-45% of the production cost is denominated in and paid in pesos, and that's where we get hit when the peso revaluates. Move to the next slide, please. To conclude, let's look at the different factors that affected gross profit. Again, the green bar at the right-hand side represents the $83 million lower gross profit. What benefited us? Of course, the Juanicipio mine ramp-up and the plant start-up.
Remember when we spoke about production cost, I said that that was a component that increased our cost, but at the end of the day, we more than covered up that cost, and generated an additional $59.2 million in, in gross profit. The fact that at some of our current operating mines, we had a higher volume, that also increased our cost, but it was more than compensated by the increase in sales, which obviously covered that, and, and generated $42.6 million in additional profits. I spoke about higher metal prices. Of course, gold and silver were up a bit, 4.2 in the case of gold, 2.4 in the case of silver.
If you look at column number 10, the price of zinc almost came down by 30%, and that's becoming a very important by-product. The impact of the lower base metal prices or by-products, had a negative impact of 51.3, which more than offset the positive effect of the higher gold and silver prices, $38.5 million. We also had what we call a gold inventory uplift at Herradura. What we saw at our leaching pads was that the inventory was coming down, and down, and down, and we were going to get to a point where it was going to be zero or negative.
We did an analysis to see how much really was at our at our leaching pads, and we came to the conclusion that there was a bit more gold than what we initially, initially estimated. Of course, this was audited and by our by Ernst & Young, who are our auditors. On the on the negative side, of course, you have, again, columns 9 and 8, which represent the revaluation of the Mexican peso, the cost inflation, and the higher stripping to cost. All of those factors we spoke about in in in the previous slide. This gives you an idea of, you know, the things that helped us and the things that went against us when it comes to gross profit. We can move on, please.
Yes, I'm not going to comment on this. I thought it would be good for you to know, you know, where we are investing in terms of exploration. As I said, we are dedicating a lot of resources to, to prospects and projects. That's where the increase was located. Next slide, please. Finally, in terms of cash flow, as you can see on the bottom, first column, we closed the first half of the year with almost $880 million, which represented a decrease in, in the cash balance compared to what we had at the beginning of the year, of $79.4 million. If you consider that we paid dividends for $98 million, you could conclude that we were net cash positive, excluding the dividend payments, which were $98 million.
The main source of cash came obviously from the operations, $323 million. I would say the main uses of cash were obviously taxes paid, profit sharing paid. Remember, this represents cash payments during the first half, basically provisional tax payments, and also mining rights that we paid in March corresponding to 2022, but were paid in March this year. The profit sharing corresponding to 2022, which was paid in May this year. Those basically are the concepts that form the $192.3 million. Another very important use, of course, is CapEx, $228 million. Part of that is mine development, and part of that is plant and equipment. The dividends paid, $98 million.
Those were the main uses of cash. With that, I think I will leave it at that, and if you have any doubts, questions, I'm very happy to answer those during the Q&A. Thank you, Mario. Coming to the last part of our presentation. We've seen an increase in silver production this year. level, I would say, production in gold. As you can see, the behavior of lead and zinc. Silver, of course, increase coming after we are operating Juanicipio, ramping it up, and also we will see some contribution from the Pyrites Plant as well. On the CapEx side, we've been reviewing our CapEx needs for this year, and this has come down from $630 million to $555 million.
In terms of reviewing our needs, as I mentioned, as well as the program and the timing for that CapEx deployment, we are forecasting 24 and 25 at the same level as we had it before. In terms of the projects and how those are looking, as I mentioned, pleased to report that Orisyvo is going to pre-feasibility. We are ramping and aiming to nameplate capacity Juanicipio in Q3 this year. As we mentioned, the Pyrites plant is operating right now. Good to report good performance and projects being moved forward in the case of Guanajuato, with some good exploration results as well as Tajitos.
In the coming months and years, we will see Tajitos and Rodeo somehow rivaling each, each one of those about the same size, open-pit projects that could turn into operations. Tajitos in neighboring Herradura and Noche buena. Rodeo in a very good area in terms of infrastructure with energy, water, and and labor as well. Orisyvo good challenges lying ahead in terms of infrastructure and investment, of course, is.
... probably that we still have to, the risk in terms of metallurgy and everything, but it's, it's looking good every time or better every time. Guanajuato, an old mining district in the central part of Mexico, underground mine, good exploration results so far, and we will continue to making it grow. To conclude, I mean, we are posting a good performance, I would say, as we mentioned all the way, in the different links of the chain. Making good progress on the exploration. A steady progress with robust operational performance, better performance in Fresnillo, turning Saucito, as we mentioned, to a more positive performance as well, and Juanicipio, smooth ramp up and aiming to achieve nameplate capacity in Q3. Our focus will be for the following months on cost control.
We're deploying, number of initiatives across all of our operations, and, according to all of this, we are reiterating our guidance for 2023. With that, we can, go into your questions. Thank you.
Thanks. Dan from UBS. The first one, just to recap on the cost subject. Your production guidance implies pretty much flat or similar levels of production in the second half. Therefore, should we assume a similar run rate, high sevens, $800 million in kind of production costs in the half-on-half? Obviously, year-on-year, there was a big cost step up due to inflation this time last year. Is that, broadly speaking, the right kind of run rate?
Yeah
... to expect in the second half? Okay. Then just into 2024, when you looked at those variables, obviously, no one's in control of the exchange rate. Looking at your other... If we were just to assume similar run rates on the FX rate, you would still see inflation on your overall cost base in dollar terms in 2024. Is that correct? Because you've got a full year of production at Juanicipio, and I guess inflation's not going to zero. Is that the right way of thinking about it?
In terms of absolute terms?
Yeah, dollar terms.
But absolute, not unit cost?
No, dollar terms, just over your, your production's broadly flat. Should we assume that dollar costs are at least flat or up next year?
Flat or up slightly, I hope. Hopefully we will see, some of those projects that Tomás was talking about, you know, resulting in, in some sort of savings.
Okay. Thanks. Then, just next one on your Herradura in particular. You mentioned that stripping ratio is down relative, obviously, to previous periods. The all-in sustaining cost of the asset is over $750 an ounce. If you were at the below the life of mine stripping ratio, I guess that has to come up, or at least be similar going forward. Doesn't feel there's a lot of DCF value in the asset at current gold prices, if that's the kind of run rate. Where do you expect the medium-term trajectory in terms of CapEx costs, and is there a risk we get an impairment of the asset at the full year results?
At the Herradura mine?
Yeah.
Well, I think you're right in your assessment. I'm not sure exactly how the stripping ratio is going to behave in the next following years, if it's going to be above or below, but that mine will require certain investment in, in CapEx, you know? In CapEx, yes.
We should assume a cash break-even cost similar or higher than where we see in the first half of this year, $1,700-$1,800 an ounce?
Around that, yeah.
Going forward?
Going forward, yeah.
Okay. Is there a risk of we see an impairment if you don't rebase your long-term assumptions to at least that kind of level? Because I guess by definition, there's not much value in the asset if it-
I don't think we'll get to that point to be recognizing an impairment.
Okay. I'll leave it there.
As, as, as in the open pits, I mean, this year was a higher stripping ratio than the average of the mine life. In the coming periods, I mean, that will be decreasing, of course. We will have a better stripping ratio than the mine life average. Also, the other study that we are waiting is the slope-
Slope optimization.
Optimization.
that we are undergoing right now, and that could potentially lead to less waste to be removed from the pit.
Also-
Yeah.
As it has happened in the past with the Herradura, with the exploration we do, we usually turn some of the blocks that were not supposed to be ore around the open pit, and that gives us additional mainly. All of those variables are playing right now. We expect better performance in the future.
Right, the strip ratio is coming down.
Yeah.
relative to what we saw during this period. Okay.
Jason Fairclough of Bank of America. The, just a couple of questions around the, the growth projects, 'cause I guess, like, what I'm hearing today is that you've got a bunch of old mines, and you're sort of running to standstill in terms of costs. In fact, you're not, the costs just continue to work against you. I feel like the way the organization used to offset this was by having a pipeline of new projects coming through, and obviously one in CPO helps. What's next? Like, if I look at your, this slide here with the outlook and the, the growth projects, there's a bit of a hole, right? You know, even if I look at Rodeo, you know, you're saying production in 2025, but you, you're still studying it, right?
Mm-hmm.
Are, are you concerned about that, Octavio? Like, it feels like more should be happening, stuff should be approved right now, and yet it doesn't feel like things are ready. Is, is that fair or unfair?
No, it is. It is, Jason, I mean, if we look back for the last 15 years, I mean, we used to have almost a new project every other year coming on stream. We had in the beginning, Soledad-Dipolos, Noche Buena, then Saucito, then the Saucito expansion, of course, in San Julián. Yeah, now we are facing some 2, 3 years without a new project coming on stream. At the same time, these 2, 3 years, I mean, we'll continue doing what we can do in Fresnillo. As I mentioned, better performance, a bit more grade, Saucito turning point. We'll concentrate on operating more efficient and better the Fresnillo, Saucito, and the current operating portfolio.
Now, in terms of growth, yes, we do have those 2, 3 years without a project coming on stream. Next one, in terms of less difficulties getting them is, is Rodeo, of course. Whenever we struck a deal with the land access, it will be a matter of exploring 6, 7 months, turning those inferred resources into indicated, run the pre-feasibility, not a large CapEx project. In the meantime, we keep on advancing Orisyvo. Yes, these 2, 3 years, we, we do have that gap.
Just to push you on this.
Yeah.
Again, it's because I wanna understand. Is the problem an underinvestment in exploration? Is the problem you just being unlucky here, you're not finding good projects? Is the problem a lack of resource for the project team, or is the problem actually just Mexico, and you feel like, "Well, let's just slow down, and we're not gonna be in a rush to, to invest?
I think it's a combination of things. Number one, I mean, Rodeo is community related issues, not being able to concrete the land access. Orisyvo, although it is a large resource base, we needed time to strengthen to the to the levels in which we like the Fresnillo assets to to run them through pre-feasibility, feasibility. So we needed to de-risk that asset in terms of recoveries, metallurgical recoveries , something that we are doing right now, looking better every time. So it will take time to go through pre-feasibility. So that's technical issues, I would say, along the risking that project. And the other ones is just Tajitos, that we needed to consolidate with different ownerships in terms of mining concessions, something that we've done just recently.
Guanajuato is just the exploration, and how that has evolved. It's a combination. Mexico is still not playing a, a large aspect in terms of challenges right now. I mean, because it's, it's, it's not has to do with, with what we can or how we can develop the portfolio. It's those other aspects, particular to the different projects, but in different aspects, I would say.
So you think it's the assets? You don't think there's an organizational issue, where you're under-resourcing the project teams?
No. Not really.
Okay.
I mean, if we look back at the resource we have devoted, in terms of exploration, it's been at a good level.
Mm.
We've maintained the resource base, I would say. However, not being lucky or successful in order to concrete one project to bring in the following year, year and a half.
Okay. Thank you.
Yes?
Thank you. Can you give us a bit more details about the drivers behind your decrease in CapEx guidance for the year? Maybe as an extension of that, do you see any potential for CapEx guidance in 2024 and 2025 to be reduced?
Yeah, yeah, the reduction this year is, is just based on a review for forecast for the, for the rest of the year. I mean, improvements in timetables, revise engineering some projects, you know, reducing the actual spend through the year, basically. Yeah, for, for next year, I would, I would say I, I don't foresee any major increase. I mean, it should remain per the guidance as we see it today. Main, main expenses next year would be tailings dam, some mine equipment, you know, basic sustaining CapEx, in addition to whatever we define for new projects. Yeah, that is, that is mainly sustaining, if we keep on advancing our projects, of course, that would be in addition to what we saw in the chart there.
What has to do with the stages of pre-feasibility, visibility, and some CapEx deployment at each particular specific project.
Thank you.
Yes.
Thanks. It's Danielle Chigumira from Credit Suisse. Another question on the projects. What you're seeing is you speed up the exploration spend and slow down the CapEx spend in the first half of this year. Should we interpret that as you needing to increase the quality of the remaining projects, your project pipeline, essentially?
We had the permits, which is good to explore Guanajuato and Tajitos. We are doing good exploration results there. We speed up a bit more the exploration pace in those two projects. In order to come to our budget, I think we will in the second half of the year, we'll reduce the pace. We will be able to post an increase in resources in these two projects, and the rest mainly is in the operations, as I mentioned, and in some other projects like San Juan and La Maya, but at a lower pace. We are exploring in Chile and Peru.
The main two projects that we're-- are reflected in the higher exploration investment in the first half was related to Guanajuato and, and, and Tajitos.
Great. You've kind of mentioned that Rodeo and Tajitos are similar, would be competing-
Mm-hmm
for capital.
Mm-hmm.
As it stands on the project pipeline, they're at very different timelines.
Mm-hmm.
Rodeo is supposed to be 2025. Tajitos is not on that page. How likely is it that Rodeo is delayed materially in order so that there are similar timelines so that you can evaluate them side by side?
It, it is related to the kind of project. I mean, Tajitos, we are very familiar with exploring in that area. As I mentioned, we have the land there, the surface, the permits, everything. The exploration could be quite quick in order to go from inferred resources into indicated. If we do not have or we are not successful in Rodeo in the following months, I think we will see Tajitos outpacing Rodeo.
Okay.
That's the only question. That's why, I mean, as an earlier project, Tajitos, it is not a timeline reflected in the, in the chart that we presented.
Okay. It's more likely that Tajitos is pulled forward a bit-
Mm-hmm
Rodeo is pushed back a bit?
That is correct.
Okay. From a decarbonization perspective, you mentioned doing studies at Fresnillo, Herradura, to see what firm targets you can give around those operations, around decarbonization, which is great to see. When do you think you would start and finish that same work for the balance of the portfolio?
Yes. We, we started this analysis and this search, research with ENGIE, the study in detail, as I mentioned, Fresnillo and the opportunities, what we have there as an underground mine, and being the largest in the portfolio and also in Herradura. With those, those two aspects, I mean, we will be able to gather very important information, hopefully by the end of the year or beginning of next year. With other studies that we are doing in terms of climate change in the areas, the University of Arizona and some other initiatives, science-based, we will have all the information hopefully earlier next year in order to define our way forward.
Thank you. Final one from me, and for those of us who aren't Mexican economists, what gives you the conviction that medium, medium term, the peso will revert back to weaker levels?
Well, we're not actually sure that that will happen. You know, the peso has strengthened due basically to difference, I would say, to difference in interest rates that are being paid in Mexico versus the U.S., mainly.
... we can't keep that rate, you know, 11.5% risk-free government paper being paid out. Those rates eventually will come down, and when they do come down, maybe we think that as a consequence, peso will lose some of its strength. I'm not an economist. That's, that's the way I see it. There are certain other factors, you know, political, you never know what could happen there. We have an election year coming up next year, that's an additional factor that you have to take into consideration.
Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. This is Sandeep from Morgan Stanley. I had 3 questions. Firstly, on the labor reforms, can you let us know what are the new labor terms? When do you expect them to be effective? On slide 21, what level, like, is it only the labor that gets impacted, or is it also the contractors and maintenance?
Well, the, actually, the labor reform came into effect, in 2021. Basically, that was at the end of 2021, September, October of 2021. Basically, what affected us was the fact that, the, the law forbidden companies from hiring contractors to carry out, what the, the government calls the, main activities of the company, or the core activities, core business of the company. In our particular case, we had a very large base of contractors performing, core business activities. We had to substitute those with our own workers. Again, that took place basically in 2022. We're pretty much done with that. That was one of the, most important aspects of the, of the new labor law.
I know. I was more referring to the labor terms, that were settled recently. The labor hikes or the-
The, the, increase in wages?
Increase in the wages, yes.
Okay, that's a I, I thought you said. Okay, now we have an annual review of contracts. Every 2 years, we, we, we review more in-depth the contracts, you know, the fringe benefits, everything. Every year, we do negotiate the increase in the wages. Typically, what we use to negotiate that as a basis is the previous year's inflation. In 2022, we had an 8% or a bit higher inflation in Mexico, according to the Consumer Price Index. That's why we granted an 8.5% increase in peso terms, right?
When you combine that, the 8.5% in MXN terms, and compounded by the revaluation of the Mexican peso, that's how you get close to the 20% in $ terms.
Okay, okay. Does it only apply to the labors, or also to the contractors and maintenance, the bucket that you have provided on slide 21?
I'm not sure I understand.
Does it also apply to the contractors and maintenance? The bucket that you have provided on slide 21, if you go back to slide 21.
Yeah. Each, each contractor company, negotiates their salary increases, on, on their own. I mean, we negotiate the salary increases for, for unionized personnel, and the rest of the companies negotiate for each one of the of their labor force. We can assume that is approximately a similar increase.
Okay. Okay.
Maybe you, maybe you are referring to a, to a minimum wage increase of 30% some that the government announced earlier in the year. That has nothing to do with us because none of our personnel makes minimum wage. It's different, right? It doesn't, doesn't apply. Maybe, maybe that's what is confusing.
Okay, thank you. One clarification on the absolute, production cost. The $800 million for 2H that, you have guided for, is that considering the spot FX rate, or, is it considering one FX rates?
Considering that the exchange rate remains at around MXN 17 per $ the way it is today.
Thank you.
Yes.
Hi, Patrick Jones, JP Morgan. I know there was some proposal to change mining legislation recently, I think back in late May, early June. Could you just give a bit of update as to where those stand and, you know, what you see as the potential outcomes of that and impact?
Yes. It depends. I would say it, you cannot take a general approach. It depends on each one of the mining companies. For example, in the case of Fresnillo, in which we have a large mining concession, we would not be impacted by the current administration not granting new concessions in Mexico, for example. With the concessions we have on hand in the case of Fresnillo, we'll be able to explore for the following years with no problem, of course. For a new mining company, of course, that would represent a very.
...a challenge, a very large challenge, or for those small mining companies that like to deal and increase their mining holdings, of course. In terms of the other aspects, like the indigenous consultation, in the case of Fresnillo, of course, we've gone through one of those process, the first one in the mining industry in Mexico, back when we needed to build a water pond or reservoir for San Julián. We went through that process as well, and it was a good learning experience, something that we are prepared for.
At the same time, as I mentioned this, that would not be impact in the case of Fresnillo, through the mining chamber in Mexico, and in a good dialogue with the current administration, we are defining the operating rules for that new mining law. That we believe we can get to a good outcome for making, making the new mining law good to operate still as it is. At the same time, of course, we are also searching for a-
Appeal.
We're going through.
Appeal
a legal process in order to appeal to this, mining law as well. Yeah.
Can we, can we go back to the income statement? There's just a couple of numbers there I wanted clarification on. The unproductive cost there, is that a one-off that reverses, Mario?
That's one, that's a one-off. Like I said, due to the stoppage that we had at the.
Yeah
... Minera Penmont mine, we took out of the adjusted production cost and reclassified that.
It's not related to the adjusted production. The, if anything, we'd be adjusting the adjusted production cost up by $21.5 million as those things come back online.
Together with additional.
Production
... because of the 14 days that we stopped, yeah.
Okay. The other one was just, if you look below the line, you've got other income expense, $33.5 million. It's not a small increase, $26.3. What's in that number?
Okay. I believe we reported that there was some illegal extraction of gold at our Soledad y Pozos pit.
If you remember, that's a theft?
Huh?
That's a theft?
Yes, that's another word that you can use.
Okay.
If you remember that Soledad y Pozos, it's been, let's say, put on hold because there's.
Secure
... there are people there who are, you know, claiming that that's, that's their land, right?
Mm-hmm.
What we've seen is that, and identified, is that, there's been certain activity going on in terms of extracting illegally the gold contents at those leaching pads, which are currently not operating. We had an inventory of gold there recognized in our balance sheet.
Mm-hmm.
We estimated, as best as we could, how much of that inventory has been lost due to these illegal extraction activities.
Mm.
That's what is included in there.
That's a non-cash expense, is it?
It's a non-cash-
Yeah.
it's.
Very
real, it's, it's real gold in-inventory that's been extracted of the, of the leaching pads at Soledad y Pozos.
Okay, conversely, we've got a write back of $22 million of inventory in Herradura.
Yep, that was due to, to the, uplift in inventories.
Okay.
That has happened before.
Yeah.
Um-
...
I'm, sort of fine with that, but-
Yes.
This one is a bit unusual, right?
It is. It is, yes.
Ultimately, it's a financial loss to the company, and it's a theft.
Uh-
Is that, am I being a bit?
It's an estimate that we've done because what we've seen in the, in the area, and we are in the process of discussing this, in fact, with the authority as well. At the same time, we have this dialogue with the communities in order to go back to the area as well. All that is involved, but I, what we are, our objective is to ask the authority to intervene and cease, of course, that illegal activity. Yeah.
Okay, thank you.
Got a question on the lines, if we can take that one?
Yes.
Operator, can we take the question online, please?
Certainly. Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by 1 on your telephone keypad. That's star followed by 1 on your telephone keypad.
Our first question comes from Amos Fletcher from Barclays. Amos, your line is now open. Please proceed.
Yeah, hi there, guys. Couple of questions. First one on Juanicipio. Grades were a bit above expectations. Can you give us any guidance on grades for the second half and into 2024, please?
Yeah, the grade is gonna remain at the same, at the same level that we saw in the first half. I mean, we maybe a little bit, a little bit better as we use less, less stockpile for, which we had, you know, low grade that we used to start the plant until we, until we normalize the metallurgy of the plant. I would say a little bit better in the second half, but not much, right around the same. Yes, Amos, thank you. Let me give you a little bit more color going forward as well. I mean, and how we started the operation. We started processing some development ore.
Low grade.
with lower grade initially. I mean, that, and then we started mining the stopes, of course, that come fresh production from the mining stopes. That's why we saw an increase in the grade. Going forward in the following years, as it is in the Fresnillo District, we will see a similar trend. Higher grade initially for the following 2 to 3 years, and then coming down at depth, the silver grade and more or increase in the base metals as well. That's why we mentioned in the past, as a reference, a metal content average per year in terms of silver and gold. We will see the same behavior. Initially, higher silver grade, and then after the following years, start decrease and increase in base metals.
Okay, thank you. One follow-up was just around Cienega. All-in sustaining costs was over $3,000 an ounce. Is there anything you can do to bring that back down?
Yes, yeah, it has been unusually high this, this year because of our investment in tailings dam infrastructure, basically, and some increased development. That's, that's temporarily, obviously, so we should be done with the, with the expanded capacity to the tailings dam next year, and then it will normalize.
Okay, final question was just to ask on tax. You've been booking some, you know, material positive accruals in the P&L for the last two halves. At the same time, making big cash tax payments. Is that sustainable, and should those two align at some point? If they do, you know, does that mean cash tax payments are gonna reduce, or should we expect the P&L tax to normalize to go back to outflows? Thanks.
I'm not sure I understood the question.
There's a mismatch between the cash payments in tax versus the positive accrual in tax. Does that normalize?
Well, like I said, tax payments are basically related to provisional tax payments. In Mexico, what you do is basically based on your previous year profit level, and there's a formula whereby you calculate a certain factor that you apply to sales on the following year in order to pay, pay provisional taxes during the year. At the end of that year, in March of the following year, when you prepare your tax statement, you compare, you know, the real number that you get versus your provisional tax payments, and if you paid more, you recuperate that part. If you paid less, you pay up.
Cash taxes should go down?
Yeah.
Do you have any guidance for effective tax rate on a cash basis, 2024?
Not, not at this point in time.
Should it be comparable to your P&L guidance range or else equal in terms of what we know and with FX and all that?
Let us work on that then and get back to you. Not prepared to answer that question right now. Sorry.
Can I ask one question? On caution initiatives, last time that you mentioned was that, the inflation is going to be around 6%, which will be offset by the cost savings. Now the cost savings have moved to 2024. Is that right?
Well, part of the cost savings will be incorporated this year as we roll in the projects. The figures that I, that I mentioned were calculated on a full year basis, but, but those are ongoing initiatives that we'll capture as we progress through the year and through the projects.
When do you plan to finish them completely? Is it 2024, 2025?
I, I would say most of them during this year. I mean, the, the, that's, that's our plan. Yeah, I would say second half and first quarter of next year, until we finish all of it. Then, and then, it's, it's sustainable, right? Once we are done with the projects, the benefits stay in the operations. Thank you.
One more from me in line, please.
Our next question comes from Krishnan Agarwal from Citibank. Krishnan, your line is now open. Please proceed. Krishnan, your line's now open. Please proceed with your question.
Okay, let's, let's move on.
Krishnan, Okay. We currently have no further questions registered, so I would like to hand the call back for final remarks.
Thank you, all. Thank you very much.
Nos vemos en seis meses.
Nos vemos, yeah. Thank you.