Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Enel Chile First Quarter 2023 Results Conference Call. My name is Carmen, and I'll be your operator for today. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during this session via telephone, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw the question, please press star 11 again, and please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. During this conference, we may make statements that constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements reflect only our current expectations and not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties.
Actual results may differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. These factors are described in Enel Chile's press release, reporting its first quarter 2023 results. The presentation accompanying this conference call and Enel Chile's annual report on Form 20-F included on the risk factors. You may access our first quarter 2023 results press release and presentation on our website at www.enel.cl and our 20-F on the SEC's website, www.sec.gov. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on those forward-looking statements which speak only as of their dates. Enel Chile undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements or disclose any development as a result of which these forward-looking statements becomes inaccurate, except as required by law. I would now like to turn the presentation over to Ms. Isabella Klemes, Head of Investor Relations of Enel Chile. Please proceed.
Thanks Carmen . [ Foreign Language] . Good morning and welcome to Enel Chile 2023 1st quarter results presentation. Thanks to all for joining us today. Joining me this morning, our CFO, Giuseppe Turchiarelli. Our presentation and related financial information are available on our website, www.enel.cl, in the investor section and also in our app, Investors. In addition, a replay of the call will be soon available. At the end of this presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions via phone or webcast chat through the link, Ask a Question. Media participants are connected only in listener mode. In the following slide, Giuseppe Turchiarelli will open the presentation with our key highlights, later passing by market, regulatory outlook, and business and economic and financial performance. Thank you all for your attention. Now let me hand over the call to Giuseppe Turchiarelli . Giuseppe Turchiarelli , please.
Thank you, Carmen. Good morning, and thanks for joining us. Let me now start with slide 2, giving an highlight of our portfolio management effort, seeking the improvement of our resilience, flexibility, and decarbonization path. During this quarter, our renewable growth accounted for almost 0.1 terawatt hours of additional production, mostly related to the Renaico II project that is now fully connected and ready to start the tests required for receiving the COD, expected at the beginning of the second half of the year. Let me highlight that Campo del Sol II has received the COD communication in January 2023, and during this week, also Valle del Sol received the COD by the Chilean system operator. On gas, we continue our optimization action, allowing us to offset the impact of higher spot prices that still pressure the system.
On electrification, with our subsidiary, Enel X, we are taking the national energy efficiency law, supporting our clients to implement it. In terms of market context, I would like to highlight that the first decree related to the Stabilization Mechanism 2 or PEC 2, was released during April, an important step towards the recovery of the cash receivable from the Genco. The good news is that we shall have full availability of natural gas from Argentina, including the supply in the winter time and LNG through our contract with Shell. On distribution business, the Expert Panel report related to the distribution tariff review process was published this week. I will mention a few words on this during my presentation.
On the performance of our business, the first quarter started with a significant improvement in terms of EBITDA, reaching 1.5 times versus last year, that coupled with a debt optimization, has resulted in a very comfortable indebtedness figures, putting us in a better shape to continue addressing the challenges and taking advantage of the opportunity we see ahead. On April 26th, the annual shareholder general meeting approved the final dividend for the 2022 fiscal year, with approximately amount of CLP 5.1 per share to be paid during May 2023. Finally, it is worth mentioning that our 2022 corporate report are already available on our website, aligned with the best practice at the international level, related to the timings of the publishing and frameworks that were included under our transparency commitment. Let's now move to slide 3.
The year begins with the improvement in renewable production, achieving +0.5 terawatt-hour or 17% higher than last year, mainly coming from hydrology and solar. During the first quarter of 2023, we connected an additional 72 MW related to our wind farm, Renaico II, getting a 76% CO₂ emission free capacity and reaching the full production 2 days ago. The renewable growth production contributed with 0.1 terawatt-hour of additional generation. Natural gas commercial optimization has boosted our portfolio results and supported additional margin, contributing around $100 million this quarter. This was one opportunistic sale negotiating during the last quarter of 2022, taking advantage of the price foreseen at that time.
We could cope with this situation thanks to our solid LNG supply position, which includes our long-term LNG contract with Shell Trading and Gas Supply, successfully delivered during the first quarter of this year. Regarding this last point, I would like to mention that we will receive third Argentinian gas supply during the winter period, starting on May 1, 2023. This additional supply was not contemplated in our strategic plan figures, representing an additional option to cope with the current high spot price during the first half 2023. On page 4, let's review our initiative and performance on distribution and from NLX segment, important to our electrification. Electrification is vital to tackle climate change, a fundamental pillar of our integrated strategy. Therefore, let me highlight some indicators and projects executed, starting with distribution.
The number of clients and distributed energy in our concession area continues to grow. With them, additional challenges, but also opportunities shall arise. On the quality, looking at the last 12 months indicator, we see a small increase of around 5 minutes in the SAIDI, mainly related to favorable weather condition during the last 12 months, 2022 period. If you look at the March year-to-date figures, we can see an important improvement of this indicator of around 20%. On losses, we continue to focus our attention on these indicators, that has grown mainly due to the economic situation of our clients. We continue to evaluate alternatives to support with several payment instruments and package to cap the increase of this indicator. I would like to remind that Chile is a reference in the region, also in terms of digital payment, as we see in this slide.
On NLX, we continue to develop different initiatives and promote several partnerships to boost the decarbonization of our clients' energy consumption. Let me go through some examples of this, of this period. We signed an agreement with the financial institutions, acting as a business partner to provide different financial, financing alternatives for our customers, mainly for photovoltaic and electromobility projects focused on B2B sectors. We continue to increase our portfolio in B2B, providing several efficient projects with an important hotel chain in Chile to replace their conventional gas heating system with electric heat pumps. We continue to boost our partnership with the mining industry. In this period, we have developed a new business with mining fleet operators that will allow us to incorporate 49 e-buses for the transport of mining personnel.
To conclude, we were awarded and began the implementation of 5 charging depots for the Transantiago 5 project. The depots consider 70 charges and energy provided by us. Let's go to take a look at the main market update on slide 5. The stabilization mechanisms continue to be an important element in the GENCOs' cash flow. In this slide, let's take a better look at the PEC 2 process, also known as consumer protection mechanism. At the end of this quarter, we accumulated around $580 million relating to this issue. The important and most expected news arrived 2 weeks ago, once the decree July 2022, that referred to the accounts receivable accrued during the first half of 2022, was published, allowing GENCOs to start the process to recover the credit. Through a factoring mechanism that will be guaranteed by the Chilean treasury.
The processes consist that the GENCOs will feed the data from the DISCOs and will provide the system operator the information related to their receivable to allow the Chilean Minister of Finance to issue the payment document to be factorized. This process shall be made on monthly basis, will have a sovereign guarantee, and do not require a new decree for going ahead with the mission of payment document. A second decree is expected to be issued the following month, related to the second half 2022 period, in order to reduce the gap between the tariff and the contract price, normalizing the process. Regarding the distribution tariff review, we have an important update. The Expert Panel process was concluded two days ago.
We are still evaluating the Expert Panel report in more detail. What we could anticipate is that we have seen positive outcome as the Panel recognized some of our claims. The regulator shall evaluate this document and apply its binding argument into the VAD regulatory process, define the regulatory formula, and publish its final report. We are expecting this regulatory final report to be published by the end of June 2023, what indicates that the new distribution tariff will be released by the end of this year. I will start the financial analysis on slide 6, introducing a summary of our main results for the period. In the first quarter of 2022, the EBITDA was adjusted by the impairment made to the coal stock of the period, which amounted to $21 million. This adjustment had an effect on the bottom line of $14 million.
We did not apply any adjustment for the first quarter of 2023. As I had already anticipated at the beginning of my presentation, all earnings indicator represented an important improvement versus first quarter 2022 figures. EBITDA and net income present improvements versus last year indicator as part of our already mentioned portfolio management actions. Let me highlight also the performance of our CFO in this quarter, with an important recovery versus last year figures that I will explain later. Let's review our CapEx on slide 7. Our first Q 2023 total CapEx reached $127 million, 61% related to the renewable development. In terms of taxonomy, 82% of total CapEx was linked to the SDG goals, mainly related to our renewable growth, which is coherent with our sustainable strategy. Customer CapEx totaled $17 million, 13% higher than the previous year.
The customer CapEx was deployed mainly to enhance our grid, focus on quality and digitization to continue improving our customer experience. Other investments reached $42 million and were mainly focused on several maintenance and repair activities to guarantee the continuity and resilience of our operation. On that regard, an important portion of our CapEx was mainly focused on the maintenance of our natural gas thermal facilities. Development CapEx reached $68 million, representing a decrease of 44% versus last year figures, in line with the remaining portfolio under construction. In 2023, CapEx shall be committed to confirming our strategy of growing in the central part of the country and in the south with wind projects, as we detailed during our capital market day last year.
Looking at the renewable development CapEx, we can see this year an important contribution of our CapEx to wind technology, considering Renaico II and Las Cabanas. On solar, we can see CapEx contribution to the project already fully connected, a new development in the central route as El Manzano. Let's move on to slide 8, where we have the summary of the first quarter EBITDA breakdown, accounting for $343 million. Considering the change in the company consolidation perimeter, as a consequence of the sales of Enel Distribución Chile in December last year, we have restated our EBITDA for 1Q 2022 for comparison purposes. Enel Chile EBITDA would have increased 78%, m ainly explained by the following.
$90 million from higher CPA sales in the first Q 2023, primarily due to higher average PPA price, mainly related to contract indexation, higher capacity payment revenue due to the new power plants connected and commissioning during the second half 2022, and increasing capacity remuneration. Improved hydro hydrology contributed $14 million on our margin. $11 million contribution from renewable growth related to new capacity added. Finally, gas optimization activity that generated an additional $147 million margin, mainly due to sales of gas as a consequence of a higher natural gas availability and LNG during the period.
The above mentioned effects were partially offset by a $91 million increase in variable costs, mainly related to higher thermal generation costs due to the commodity prices, partially offset by an agreement with one of our PPA supplier and a lower regasification cost in the period. The remaining variation of our EBITDA comes from +$2 million due to the grid remuneration and demand, mainly explained by $2 million on net price indexation. The recovery of the demand in the period with increase 6% in the 1Q 2023 compared to the 1Q 2022, reaching pre-pandemic level, offset by negative effects coming from the energy losses in the period. Higher OpEx, mainly in generation business, by $12 million associated to the new renewable capacity and inflation. Let's move to slide 9 to take a look at our generation KPIs.
Net electricity generation reached 5.1 terawatt-hour as of March 2023, 2% lower than the level recorded in the first quarter of 2022. This was mostly due to lower thermal generation, mainly related to the disconnection of Bocamina 2 power plant in September 2022, which was largely offset by higher hydro generation and solar during the current year. The latter includes, of course, the contribution of the new renewable project. Our energy sales totaled 7.8 terawatt-hour during the first quarter of 2023, equivalent to a 3% decrease compared to the March 2022. This was mostly explained by lower sales to free customer, which was partially offset by an improvement in the sales to regulated customer.
In terms of energy balance, the amount of energy purchases in the spot market was basically in line with the last year figures, particularly the composition between no solar and solar purchases. On slide 10, let's go through the main driver of our group net income. Net income for the first quarter this year increased 95% to $173 million, mainly resulting from greater EBITDA for $118 million, explained in the previous slide. An $18 million improvement on the financial results, mainly due to higher financial income in the period, mainly explained by greater return on short-term fixed income investment related to the higher cash availability and interest rate. Lower financial costs due to a factoring of account receivable executed in 2022.
On the other end, in contracted and minority increased by 41 and $1 million, respectively, mostly owing to higher EBITDA results on the company. Moving to FFO analysis on slide 11. During this first quarter, FFO reached $99 million, which reflects a $150 million improvement in the period, resulting from $343 million coming from EBITDA, driven by better hydrology, higher renewables contribution, and gas trading activities. Cumulative stabilization mechanism effect in our receivable for $135 million, reducing the cash conversion of the period. Let me point out that this situation shall improve during the next month since the tariff decree for July 2022 period was published this month, enabling the recovery of part of this receivable.
According to the mechanism of the process approved, we expect to recover an important part of the balance accumulated during this year by the end of 2023. Working capital reached a negative balance of $54 million as a consequence of LNG and CapEx rebound from 2022 last month. Partially offset by positive cash in from commodity hedging, factoring transaction, and cash in from the sales of Santa Rosa building. In contracts reached $23 million, mainly related to the better results in generation business. Financial expenses reached $32 million, in line with the last year's figures. Now, let's take a look at our deleveraging strategy on page 12. Our gross debt decreased around $0.3 billion to $4.4 billion as of March 2023, when compared to December 2022.
This decrease is due to the prepayment of all disbursement of Enel Chile committed credit line with Enel Finance International for $290 million. This prepayment was made in January 2023. In addition, we improved the average of our debt maturity to 6.4 years, and we also increased the fixed rate portion to 89% as of March 2023 from 84% as of December 2022. The average cost of our debt reached 4.6% at the end of first quarter 2023, a little bit higher than December figures, due to the new profile of our debt prepayment of some brief short-term instrument in current market situation. In terms of liquidity, we have a comfortable position to cope with possible headwinds in the debt market related to the overall economic situation, and support upcoming debt maturity.
These include, of course, cash and cash equivalent of $0.8 billion, and committed credit line available for $0.6 billion as of March 2023. Larger amount of the current liquidity shall be committed to tax payment and other net working capital needs in the coming months. Before going to the closing remarks, let's review some of our ESG best practice in terms of reporting on page 13. Let me mention to you that our 2022 integrated report was published at the end of March 2023, taking into the consideration the best practices at the local international level. This report includes the financial and non-financial information for the 2022 period, also the 2022 sustainability report is already available on our website.
Both reports are aligned with CSRD, GRI, and SASB standard, and are available on our website in the investor section, together with the 2022 sustainability report, which have a deep dive on ESG matters. The reports reflect how sustainability is fully integrated in our business model as a risk management and valuation driver. We would like to invite you to view the new interactive version of the integrated report, giving different view for different stakeholders. Please feel free to send us your feedback to our investor relations teams. I will point out some closing remarks on slide 14. We have been able to deliver a more than solid operating and financial performance in the first quarter. These are the results of our action to unlock value that represented a turnaround story for our assets.
We are on the right path, pursuing opportunity through the decarbonization of our matrix and the electrification of consumption. Our integrated and sustainable business model, putting our clients in the center. This give us confidence that Enel Chile is more than prepared to operate in a volatile environment. We had the opportunity to tackle several action necessary to recover our company financial position faster than expected. We believe Enel Chile is now in a better shape to continue addressing the challenges and taking advantage of the opportunity we see ahead. Let me now hand over to Isabella Klemes.
Thank you, Giuseppe Turchiarelli . Thank you all for being with us today. Now let's begin then our Q&A section. We will receive questions via chat and also via phone who is connected here to the webcast. Okay? The Q&A section is open. Operator, please, you may start.
Thank you. As a reminder, that is star 11 if you want to queue up for questions. One moment while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Javier Suarez with Mediobanca. Please proceed. Alessandro, your line is open.
Hello, this is Javier Suarez from Mediobanca.
Go ahead.
go on with questions?
Go ahead.
Oh, thank you. It's Javier at Mediobanca. I have three questions. The first one is on the cash flow statement in slide number 11. We have seen some cash flow absorption coming from the stabilization mechanism at $135 million. You can help us to understand the level of that capital cash flow absorption by the year end? I think that during your presentation it has mentioned that most of that capital cash flow absorption should be reabsorbed by the year end. It has a fair assumption to make? Second question is also on that slide, on the working capital absorption. There has been $54 million, and the explanation from that is some cash management options.
If you can clarify to what that is referring to. The third question is a question that has to do with the CapEx. I have noticed that that is in the slide number 7, that CapEx on in the first quarter is down minus 24% and minus 44% when it comes to renewable development. You can help to understand this decrease in the first quarter and what you are expecting through the year. The very final question is on the slide number 5. I think that is on the revision for the distribution tariff. You mentioned some improvement in the document through the Expert Panel process.
You can, you could be a little bit more specific on what has been improved through that revision, what you are expecting and what do you consider that being good news? Thank you.
Thank you, Javier, for your questions. Giuseppe Turchiarelli ?
Yeah. Well, maybe we can start with the last one. T he Expert Panel report that has been issued. We are still analyzing the report, but as I said, things pretty good in the sense that the expert has recognized some our claims. We believe that we're gonna have a better situation as soon as the decree, the tariff decree will be released. Now, the process didn't finish. There is another important step that is gonna be in June, at end of June, when the new report will be issued. In this report will be clarify the formula based on which the target will be calculated.
As soon as we are going to have this kind of report, we can estimate the impact that we see in our distribution business. For what concern the CapEx that you see a reduction this week, this trimester in comparison with the last year, this is just the effect of first of all, having part of our projects at the end of their construction life, while last year they were basically at the beginning of in the middle. Basically, we are finalizing some projects. On the other end, as we already anticipated in our capital market day, we are reducing our CapEx effort for this year.
Localizing the technology and the location in the center and south of the country, and especially in the wind and battery. So there is a refocus on our CapEx effort. For what concern the cash flow, we are in the first trimester, we accounted $135 million in terms of receivable coming from the stabilization mechanism. If I think, if I project my estimation for the full year, the amount is gonna be around $400 million. But in the same time, as I said, according to this mechanism, we should have a recovery as soon as the state guarantee will be issued, and the factoring, and we can put in place the factoring process.
For what concern the other, the other question about the working capital, the minus $54 million, the managerial action are what I already said. We have a machine coming from the liquidation from the aging activities. We have around $130 million coming from the liquidation of our aging. We have also some additional transaction that is referring to the sales of Santa Rosa building that worth around $34 million, sorry. These are the main impact coming from that explain the difference between the working capital that we have this year versus the last year balances.
Okay. Maybe a follow-up, just to understand correctly, what you say is that on that slide 11, $135 million should become $400 million by the year end without taking into consideration the factor, the possibility of factoring activity there. If that factory happens, that amount should be substantially reduced. Is that a correct assertive statement?
Thank you, Javier. Giuseppe Turchiarelli , regarding the stabilization and mechanism.
Yes, I confirm, Javier. As I said, at the end of the year, we are going to accumulate other $400 million roughly. Of course, we are going to recover an important part of the existing one as soon as the mechanism will start.
Okay. Can you share with us your expectation of that, the percentage of those $400 million that you expect to recover by the year end?
Not the full amount. A n important part. I would say around 70%-80% of the amount is going to be recovered by the end of the year.
Fantastic. Many thanks.
You are welcome.
Thank you, Javier Suar ez.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. In the meantime, if you do have a question you wanna queue up, press star one one. Our next question comes from the line of Martin Arancet with Balanz. Please proceed.
Hi. Well, first of all, thank you for the materials and for taking my questions. I have two questions. First, probably as a follow-up of the recent question, how much are you expecting to collect of already accumulated debt to receivables? When do you think that you will be able to do that? My second question is that we see international coal and gas prices collapse in the past month. My question there is, how long do you think that it will take for the system to run through the old, more expensive inventory and for spot prices to come down and reflect this lower cost of thermal fuels? Thanks.
Thank you for your question. We will now hand over to Giuseppe Turchiarelli .
Well, let me say that the recovery of the credit from the distribution according to the fact mechanism, it should start in June if all the steps is gonna be confirmed. As I said before, in order to start the recovery of the receivable, we need to get the guarantee from the state. That is in the process. We have already the first decree that is referring to the first half receivable in 2022. As soon as we are going to have the decree, we can start with recollecting this part of amount. We are talking about around $140 million-$150 million.
Now, as soon as the guarantee is gonna be issued, we don't need any more the decree in order to factorize the receivable because the payment document should be issued on a monthly basis according to the information that the distribution company will send to the generation company, and the generation company, they will send to the system operator. As soon as the timing is gonna be respect, we should recollect another, approximately another $150 million in the second half of the year. I can say that in general, in total, we are going to recover around $300 million.
Thank you. Martin, that's okay. Do you have any other questions?
Yes, thanks. My second question then was, about, spot prices. When do you think that we should see, spot prices, reflecting the lower cost of thermal fuels?
Okay. Thank you. Giuseppe Turchiarelli ?
I mean, the spot price of course is gonna be influenced by the hydrology and clearly the commodity. We should believe that in during the winter part, especially in the second part of the year, we should have a reduction in the spot price according to the hydrology effect, but also based on the commodity price that are going to be, which effect is going to be, collect by the spot price. Now, we have just to mention the fact that the price that we saw in the first quarter are coming especially by the fact that the system suffered some failure in coal facility and other facilities. This is the reason because we saw a very important increase in the spot price in the first quarter. In general, the second half of the year, we should see a benefit in terms of reduction of spot prices.
Giuseppe Turchiarelli , thank you very much.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you do have questions, press star one one. One moment for our next question. It comes from the line of Henrique Peretti with JP Morgan. Please proceed.
Thank you. I have a question regarding the guidance. Congratulations on the results. $343 million in EBITDA in the first quarter, the range for 2023-
Hi, Henrique. Sorry to interrupt. Could you please just speak a little louder? We're hearing you far away from the line.
Okay. Just give me a moment.
Thank you.
I'll try to change. I'm on the speaker now.
Much better.
The question is about the guidance. The company reported $343 million in the first quarter. The guidance for the year is $1 billion-$1.2 billion, so it's between 25% and one third of the guidance for the year already in the first quarter. Given that we still have the rainy periods beginning and maybe, the help of El Niño, do you believe, this guidance could change upwards, or are you still confirming the guidance for now? Thank you.
Thank you, Henrique Peretti. Giuseppe Turchiarelli ?
Yeah. I mean, as of today, we confirm the guidance. Really, the first quarter was pretty good. We prefer to stick with the guidance in order to see how first of all the drought is going to be. You're right, since that El Niño is going to have some positive effects. According to our consultant, the effect should be moderate. Better than our forecast, it is not so good to celebrate, let me say this way. As of today, we can confirm the guidance that we have.
Thank you, Giuseppe Turchiarelli . Enrique, do we have any other questions?
Wait, you don't confirm the guidance, or you confirm to-?
I confirm. I confirm. I confirm the guidance.
Oh, okay. Good. Okay. Good. Thank you.
Thank you, Henrique Perreti .
Thank you. I'll pass it back to Isabella Klemes for any further questions, on her side.
Thank you. Giuseppe Turchiarelli , we have some questions that we received from our chat here. The first one is coming from Fernando Gonzalez from BTG.
Mm-hmm.
Fernand is asking if you could elaborate a little bit more on the impact of gas optimization strategy and how that strategy may continue to impact results in the rest of this year.
Basically, our gas optimization is coming from the fact that we have a very good contract with Shell that guarantee a certain level of gas LNG, but also the availability of Argentinian gas. Considering this availability and considering the fact that our renewable project are going, they are going very well, we have an excess of gas that last year, this is a very important point . The margin that we are recording this semester has been sold last year when the price were higher than what we see today. Basically, thanks to our availability and the capability to manage the supply of gas, we were able to do this margin.
Last year, we sold this excess of gas for the first quarter. We already sold part of our availability also in the fourth quarter. We're going to have another positive effect in the last quarter of this year. Now, if the question is for how long we are able to do this kind of margin, clearly it depend on the prices that we see in the international market and availability of the gas. For this year, we can confirm our guidance because we already secured the sales. Another story is for our consent 2024. As of today, we are let me say celebrating our manager election.
Thank you, Giuseppe Turchiarelli. We also have another question now coming from Alejandra Aranda from Itaú BBA. Alejandra Aranda is saying, "Congratulations on the beat, on the significant beat. With this result, you seem to be very comfortable to beat your year-end guidance for the EBITDA. Can you give us some visibility on what to expect for gas optimization on second quarter? Did you sell any additional NG cargo so far in the second quarter?" It's a little bit related to the first question.
Yeah. As I said before, yes, we have already sold cargoes for the fourth quarter of this year, we are going to have approximately $100 million impact in our fourth quarter. The sales of gas is being already placed in the first quarter and in the fourth quarter. The guidance, I mean, all these margins has been already included in our guidance. We are just confirming the guidance because we already know that these margin has been secured.
Perfect. Thank you, Giuseppe. Now we have another question coming from Andrew McCarthy, Redcorp. Saying that, "I understand that the $508 million of receivables from the PEC 2 had been accumulated up to March 2023, of which $135 million related to the first quarter of this year. There would be an additional $265 million of PEC 2 receivables expected up to the end of year. Total receivables accumulated by the year end would reach more or less $850 million in the period. Is my understanding correct? If so, how much of that should be settled by the end of year?" Giuseppe, it's a lot of numbers.
Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. Thank you Andrew, for your question.
Yeah. Let me recap for a second. Okay. The accumulation of receivables coming from the PEC 2 in the first quarter are $135 million, as you see in the slide. Of course, PEC 2 are coming also from the last year, so the full amount as of March 31, 2023 is $580 million. This $580 million includes this $135 first to 2023, and the remaining parts are coming from last year. Okay? Now, if you think about what we are going to accumulate from the second quarter till the fourth quarter, always related to the PEC 2, we are estimating around $170 million is the kind of... If you want, I can repeat.
$135 million is the amount related to the first quarter 2023. If you, if you look at the number, the total number at the closing of the quarter, we are going to have $580 million. That includes this $135. For the rest of the year, 2023, we should accrue $170 million roughly of receivables.
Thank you, Giuseppe, for the answer here. We have another question now coming from Rodrigo Mora, from Moneda. He has some questions. The first one is that he would like to know the availability of natural gas or NG for the second quarter and the third quarter of this year. The second question is that if you could explain the income in Enel Generación Chile regarding a compensation coming from a supply generator for a PPA agreement purchase. Okay. Also, there is another question, Giuseppe, from Rodrigo Mora that Rodrigo is saying, "On the press, we saw that Enel Chile is analyzing to sell parts of its solar plant through Enel Green Power Chile.
Could you please give me more details about it? The other question I can repeat later, but just to put all the questions here. The last question is coming from distribution business, no? Rodrigo is asking that Enel Distribución is reporting EBITDA by around $25 million per quarter. Also, there is a CapEx that is higher than this, no? My question is, how long this situation will continue, and how long the company could afford it? Thank you, Rodrigo, for your questions. Giuseppe?
Thank you, Rodrigo. Well, starting from the first one about the gap. For the second and third quarter 2023, we have a strong LNG availability in Mejillones and in Quintero. We have already secured 2.45 million of metro cube per day of Argentinian gas. May and June, we are covered on that. We are negotiating new Argentinian gas supply for the rest of the year. At the moment, we cannot provide any kind of details. For what concern the income associated to the gain in buy, we had a PPA signed with our supplier.
We have been asked to change some conditions from the original deal, and basically, because of difficulties in this third parties. Because of that, we have been compensated with these changes in the condition of the contract. For what concern the rumors about the sales of assets, that we always are looking at opportunity to extract value from our assets. This is nothing new in comparison with the past. As soon as we are going to have some additional info, we are going to provide to the market.
The last question, Giuseppe.
Yeah.
One on distribution business, no?
Yeah.
Regarding the-
Yeah.
EBITDA and CapEx.
Distribution business, distribution business, of course, is always under analysis. We believe that the distribution business has a lot of value to be extracted. The CapEx that we are spending are CapEx needed for the quality of the grid and for supply our customer needs. Clearly, the analysis of the financial are always under our monitoring. We believe that the regulation of the distribution needs changes. It's something that we are working, and we are trying to pass the message to the regulator and to the government. As of today, we believe that distribution business is still very, very, very, very valuable for our company.
Okay. Thank you, Giuseppe Turchiarelli . I just check. We have one more question. Also a follow-up question
From Andrew McCarthy that is related to his first question on the PEC stabilization.
He thank for your clarification, and he just want to confirm. $508 million plus $107 million, that's total, no? Approximately $750. This $750 for this year, no? How much do you expect to be settled via factoring by the end of this year?
We believe that, I mean, the number are correct, so we should have an accumulated receivable for PEC 2 at the end of the year, around $750 million. We believe that in terms of factoring, we are going to recover more than $300 million. I cannot give you a more precise number because it a lot depend on the timing of document that will be issued according to the process, the payment document. We believe that $300 million is gonna be the minimum amount of collecting through the factoring mechanism. In the next quarter call, we can give more detail and a better view of the remaining part of the year.
Definitely it's gonna be more than $300 million.
Okay. Thank you, Giuseppe Turchiarelli. . We have another question coming from Ignacio Erazuriz. Ignacio Erazuriz is asking us, he would like to know about the liquidity of Enel Chile that was presented here, no? The cash that we are presenting this slide, regarding the Enel Chile, if this cash includes or not the centralization cash agreement, that Enel Chile has with Enel Generación. No, that's more or less $250 million. This is his question, Giuseppe.
Yeah. Yeah. Does it include because all our group, Enel Group works in this way. Basically the concept of cash centralization apply to all our subsidiaries. This is clearly is a benefit for the subsidiary that can have a very flexible instrument to manage their cash needs.
Okay. Thank you, Giuseppe Turchiarelli. Just checking with the operator if we have more questions here from the chat. I don't have. Thank you very much for your attention today. As always, our team, Investor Relations team will be available for any other further questions you may have. Please, as you mentioned, give us your feedback. We would appreciate it. Regarding the material that was recently published, we hope that all the information published will help you in the evaluation of our company. Thank you very much. Have a nice day.
With that, ladies and gentlemen, we thank you again. This concludes today's conference, and you may now disconnect.