Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to welcome you to Boliden's Q3 2021 results presentation. My name is Olof Grenmark, and I'm head of investor relations. Today, we will have a results presentation led by our President and CEO, Mikael Staffas, and our CFO, Håkan Gabrielsson. We will also have a Q&A session where we will start here in Stockholm, and then it will be followed by the web. Mr. Staffas, welcome.
Thank you, Olof. Good morning to everybody. It is good to see so many here in the room. It is a little bit new to be able to have people in the room again, and also all of you standing there behind the camera. It is a privilege to be able to be here today and present these results. Just on the key highlights. Start with the obvious one. We do have very strong prices and terms, and you all know that, and it has been clear to everybody.
It should be pointed out a little bit just to be aware of it, that in the general euphoria of high prices, actually, on the closing day of the quarter, the prices were down a little bit, especially the PGM, the nickel prices, which plays quite a big role in terms of the financials, where more it's the end-of-period prices that matters rather than the average prices during the quarter. We have had production disturbances during the quarter, which to some extent, the mining company always has that, but it's been a little bit larger than what we've seen before. We had the crusher in Garpenberg. We've had issues with COVID in Kevitsa. We've also had issues with the fire in Harjavalta. We'll come back to all those a little bit going forward. We've also had very big maintenance stops.
This is a big maintenance year generally, and we're to some extent catching up from last year. We have been able to carry out the maintenance stops according to plan, more or less in the quarter, even though they were maybe slightly more expensive, but we're quite happy with the way that it turned out. Financial performance, the SEK 2.4 billion in EBIT excluding the process inventory revaluation, slightly up from last year. We'll come more into those details and what's behind that. The cash flow is at about SEK 1 billion or less, but then SEK 1 billion. That is maybe a little bit lower than what everybody would expect. We've also had a buildup of working capital in the quarter.
The build of the working capital, we'll also come back to a little bit, but it's mainly due to the combination of maintenance stops, which always ties working capital around that. Then we also have some issues of getting some of the products out in the end. You've also seen that plays into our internal profit elimination. That was also worse than I think many of you expected. CapEx at SEK 1.5 billion in the quarter. We are doing these things according to plan, and we will come out a little bit less than what we said last year in terms of the-- what we said last quarter, I should say, in terms of the investment for the full year. I'll come back to that as well.
On the project side, of course, the other project just started, so there's not much to report back on there, but it started well, and there are no issues so far in that project. The Rönnskär smelter has been commissioning quite a few projects. We've commissioned the leaching plant. We've commissioned the new copper expansion with the dual converter operations during the quarter, and the underground repository is right about as we speak now, as we speak, ready to take on the first deposits into it. All of that has worked out very well and also according to plan. If you look at the EBIT numbers in general, we're pleased with the level as such, with the relatively high EBIT that we do have, higher than last year.
Compared to what I think many of you expected, we're slightly lower on the mining side, has to do slightly with the, I think, with the pricing and the fact that we had some production disturbances. Smelters, I think quite in line with what the guidance would have led you to think. It is lower than last year, but that's of course a totally different maintenance quarter this time than compared to last year. On the ESG side, if we start there, we've also had a relatively okay, I would say, quarter. The LTI frequency is a little bit on a higher level, even though it was lower than it was last year. The sick leave is slightly coming back. We are still on higher levels than we should have and what we had before COVID, even though COVID is slightly going out.
It's not going out totally. I think we will continue to see some issues with it also going forward, even though COVID is coming back. The stricter regulations around how you have to be home when you feel slightly sick also plays into us. The CO2, which is maybe too short to measure on a quarter. You can say at least the quarter was better than the same quarter last year in terms of CO2 intensity. We're still very much on target with our or on plan, I should say, with the target to reduce by 40% till 2030. Prices and terms. Spoke a little bit about it. The prices and terms are on a very high level.
Even though they are slightly below what they were in the last quarter, they're still on a high level, as you can see on that graph up to the right. You can also see that it's coming down a little bit towards the end, and that's what I also said before, that some of these prices were lower right on the close of the period. The exchange rates are very stable from our point of view. Looking at the prices, well, the metal prices are high. We said that a couple of times. You can also see on this chart that we show every quarter that the prices are quite above where the cost levels are in the industry, which you can expect because there's a very good demand situation and demand outlook for the metals, which drives up the prices.
Of course, being at this high price, there's always a risk of a setback on prices. You can also see that even compared to average prices, the prices right now are on a high level, which is something that we feel good about, of course. We start coming into production. Well, in the mines, we've had a couple of setbacks in terms of production. I think the grades came in roughly around where they're supposed to come in, so we feel good about that. We did not reach the volume in Aitik. Once again, we've had issues with availability, both of people, but also availability of some of the equipment that we're working on to solve. In Garpenberg, you know that we had a crusher failure. In the Garpenberg system, there are two crushers.
Each of them have enough capacity to handle the whole production, so there's clearly an overcapacity. One of the two crushers is out of operations for over six months due to renovation of a shaft that is right behind it, which means that it's offline. We're relying only on one crusher in Garpenberg since this summer and all the way through Christmas. Of course, when you have this situation, there's always some kind of bad luck, and we had a failure of the bearing system inside the operating crusher. That's a 10-day renovation that took place. We were both getting spare parts, but also a relatively big operation to change those inner bearings. That's all done and finished, and the system is working very well.
We also managed to catch up a few of those days because this happened in the middle of the quarter, but we did not catch up the full effect of the 10-day shutdown. Kevitsa had a stop for four days due to COVID. We were having enough people that were either sick or into quarantine because people around there were sick that we could not get enough people to have a safety level for the staffing of the mill. We had to shut the mill for four days because of that, which of course plays into the production numbers. Boliden area, the relatively stable situation around our plants. Tara did have a weak situation.
Tara is in a situation, as I think you know, where there are relatively few alternatives, and when things happen, we have to go to worse stopes, and those worse stopes are both lower in grade and lower in volume, and that shows off, and we are working hard to try to get Tara back on speed to be able to be ahead of the curve in order to handle those situations. On the smelter side, well, Harjavalta has been a busy place. It started to have the fire in July. We talked about it already a quarter back because it had happened before we had the presentation then. It turned out to be slightly more expensive in the end than what we indicated when we met then. With that then being done, we've had one of the bigger maintenance stops that we had in Harjavalta ever.
We're still in maintenance as we're speaking today because we're still working on the nickel line with maintenance, but the copper line is done and finished. The maintenance in the nickel line is also linked to the expansion project on the nickel line that is also moving ahead and will become operational in this quarter, in the fourth quarter. All in all, the maintenance stop has worked out well. In Rönnskär, we also had a stable production. The copper line expansion is now commissioned. The dual converter operations has been working since late in the third quarter, which is also very good. We've had also the inauguration of the leaching plant, which is also good.
We do have a limited supply or have had a limited supply of e-scrap, which has played into the operations. We'll see if we can get new sources and see if we can get the e-scrap to come up again. Odda and Kokkola and Bergsöe, basically stable production in all these units. Also here we've had maintenance stops in Odda and Bergsöe that of course play into the production. With that, we come back into the financial summary. Now I'll let Håkan to come up and give you the run-through of the numbers.
Thank you, Mikael. Good morning. Just to summarize what Mikael just talked about, we are reporting a stable EBIT excluding process inventory of SEK 2.4, and that's compared to SEK 2.3 and SEK 2.6 in the comparison periods. We are up on CapEx, but we still reduce the guidance for the full year. Mikael will come back to that. Free cash flow is down due to working capital. I'll come back to that in a minute. It all adds up to an earnings per share of SEK 6.57. Looking by business areas, Mines is up compared to last year, about SEK 300 million. This is due to strong development in base metal prices. Smelter is down about SEK 200 due to a strong maintenance quarter and a strong maintenance year. Other eliminations, that's primarily then the internal profit eliminations, which is an accounting adjustment for timing of revenue recognition.
That's influenced by inventories and price levels. This is better than the comparison periods, but it's still a couple of hundred million SEK higher than what we expected, and the reason is that we've tied more precious metals in the system. It's silver from Garpenberg, but above all, gold from the Boliden area. The reason is that we have moved one process step in the gold manufacturing, the gold processing from Boliden to Rönnskär. In that change, we pile up a bit of material that we expect to be able to realize externally within a few weeks. About 200 million SEK that is sort of extra in this amount. Going through the comparison Q3 to Q3, we've improved the result by 200 million SEK. We've been helped by better prices, and it's primarily the base metal prices that have gone up compared to last year.
On the negative side, we've got the currency, but also lower treatment charges. A strong price development year-over-year. Volumes are down SEK 451 million. Lower grades in Aitik is one of the main explanations. We have SEK 200 million in lower grades. This is in line with the guidance that we've given. We also have lower mill volume in a couple of the other mines, Garpenberg, Tara, and Kevitsa, that are down due to disturbances and the challenges Mikael mentioned. Compared to last year, we also had a fairly big maintenance in Q3 of last year, but this is a heavier maintenance year, so we have lower volumes due to maintenance in smelters, and then also finally due to Kylylahti being closed. On the cost side, we are seeing some inflation, and this number then includes, of course, inflation on labor cost and energy as well.
Everything included, we're talking about slightly above 5% inflation year-over-year, and that is included in this number. We also have the cost effect of higher maintenance stops. Then in the other direction, working towards lower cost, we have lower mine production and the fact that Kevitsa is closed. Inflation is back as we talked about already last quarter. Comparing quarter-over-quarter, Q3 to Q2, the price change is fairly limited. It's a negative of SEK 92. We have lower metal prices, offset by stronger currencies. As Mikael also mentioned, the end-of-period prices are important for us, the price of the last day of the quarter, because all the preliminary pricing is valued at end-of-quarter prices. In particular, palladium and silver and also nickel were lower in the quarter-end than the averages.
Having said that, they've come back after the quarter end, so this looks good for the future, but it did have an impact on this line. Volumes down quarter-on-quarter. Lower mill volume, we've talked about that. This is mainly in Garpenberg. Garpenberg was running at a 3.2 million tons pace in Q2 and comes down due to the disturbances that Mikael talked about. We have lower grades in Kevitsa. Again, Q2 was a strong grade quarter where we were mining significantly above reserve grade in Kevitsa, and that's now down to normal levels or to reserve grade levels. We have, again, extensive maintenance stop in smelters, primarily in Harjavalta this quarter. Costs are lower. We have lower production in mines, and that is visible in the cost line. We also have seasonally lower personnel costs, about SEK 150 million in Q3.
On the other hand, we have a higher maintenance cost that works in the other direction here. Cash flow is lower. The reason is that we've tied more working capital in this quarter. The typical seasonality that you see in Boliden is that we normally would build working capital in the first half of the year and then release it in the later part of the year. That was, for example, what happened in 2020 and in most years if you look back in time. This year, we have not built working capital during the first half of the year, but we have built SEK 841 million in Q3, which is much related to the maintenance stops. Typically, Q4 would be the strongest quarter that we have from this perspective, so I expect that a lot of this will be released in the next quarter. Finally, capital structure.
As in previous quarter, a strong balance sheet. We have a net debt of just over SEK 1 billion, and that converts to a gearing ratio of 2%, so it's a strong balance sheet. We have a net payment capacity of SEK 14 billion, which is the cash that we have and the liquidity reserves. We have an average interest rate of 1.6%, which we consider as a competitive level. Mikael, continue.
Thank you, Håkan. Just to draw your attention to that we've also announced today that we're going to go ahead and start the journey towards mine optimization in the sense that we are going to fit 11 of our existing trucks in Aitik with an automatic system to be able to run automatically. This is something that will be a first in Europe, which means there is some regulation that needs to be handled and some laws both around how you can operate it. There are also some HR issues around how to make sure that we have all the staff with us on this change, and I think that we've gotten quite far on that level as well. This is a little bit more than SEK 200 million that we're investing into the system in a cooperation that we're having with Komatsu on this development.
Of course, the aim is to get a better productivity, which is coming both with the fact that we're increasing the production, but also because there is an increased transport demand over time as the mine gets deeper and as the waste rock hills get higher and get further away, there is an increased travel needed for every ton as we move forward. On the guidance going forward, there is not really much change here. The Aitik 0.21 is still the guidance that we have for the year or for the rest of the year, I should say. For 2022, we are now putting in the guidance for the grades in Aitik at 0.20, and the gold slightly below down to 0.10. In Garpenberg, we are also not changing any guidance for this year with the 3.8 and the 110.
Here, we're coming up with the guidance for 2022 at 3.6 and 110 as the guidance for the grades. In Kevitsa, we were guiding that for 2022, that will be slightly below the average grade there as well being mined. In terms of the maintenance shutdown, we have now the maintenance for the total year of SEK 560 for the total year, of which SEK 200 ends up in Q4. This is a slight increase of the previous guidance that we've had. The inflation pressure is a very difficult thing to get a number around.
Håkan mentioned one number, which is 5%, which in some way is the order of magnitude of the inflation that we're feeling. It's very different from different parts, and it's lots of moving parts. You can understand that the kind of annual negotiation with suppliers of everything are very special this year compared to other year.
It is the higher metal prices, which we benefit from one side, but that comes in on the cost side from many of our suppliers. It's also the higher energy prices that come in as a cost base for many of our suppliers that plays into this discussion. Of course, you have energy prices themselves, where we are maybe to 80% hedged in terms of electricity prices. We're not hedged in terms of diesel prices. That all comes into this mix. It's very difficult to give an exact guidance, but there is clearly inflation in the system right now. The CapEx, finally, we have reduced the guidance for this year from 7.5 to below 7. The reason is that we are a little bit late on many smaller projects, and we are not really on time on that, and that shows its effect.
This is not thing that we are really happy about, but that's the way it is. Regarding guidance for 2022, we are at slightly above the SEK 10 billion mark. The big reason here is, of course, that we get in Odda at around SEK 2.5 , and then we also get some of the things that we don't get done this year, we will have to do next year. Therefore, we end up with these numbers. I should say that there's, of course, a big uncertainty around this number because it will depend quite a lot on exactly what happens in late 2022 and early 2023 in Odda, what happens before and after New Year, which is a little bit difficult to have an exact plan for, as this will be a very intensive investment phase of the Odda project.
With that, I will open the floor for questions. Olof.
Ladies and gentlemen, that opens up our Q&A session. We will start here in Stockholm. We have a question from Christian Kopfer, Handelsbanken. Please.
Yeah, thanks for that, Olof. Thanks, guys, for the presentation. On the guidance, you're very precise on the copper, zinc, gold, et cetera, for Garpenberg and Aitik. What is the reason for not being or adopting the same approach for Kevitsa?
You could theoretically do that, but we feel that we've taken it to Aitik and Garpenberg because they're more material. Kevitsa is not quite as material to the total numbers, so we are more soft on that one in the total guidance.
It still would help, yeah? This kind of soft wording, slightly below, doesn't say very much. Much better if you can provide. No one will blame you if you are a little bit wrong because there is always underlying uncertainty and so on.
Yeah. In the Kevitsa pit, there are more uncertainties because it's different from other areas because there's quite a lot of grade difference within the pit. Exactly where you go will vary, and therefore we decided not to be too perfect around that one.
Okay. In Aitik, what is the underlying uncertainty there? You typically say that it is 10% or so.
Yeah, it's typically 10%. That's where we are everywhere. That means that, of course, since I'm saying something on Kevitsa, it's because we're heading that lower kind of 10% expectation. Otherwise, I wouldn't say anything. Otherwise, I would say keep to the average.
Okay. Previously, you have been pretty explicit on milled ore guidance, how much ore you will mill during the next year.
What is the answer here on Aitik? You have previously stated 45 million tons. Yeah. On Garpenberg, when you will reach the nameplate capacity there?
In Garpenberg, the guidance that we had for this year is the 3 million. We've also guided when we came out with the fact that we got the permit, that we should be able to get, for 2023, 3.3 million. Exactly what the number will be for 2022 is, of course, somewhere between 3 and 3.3. Exactly what, we don't know because some of the bottlenecking investment that needs to be done to get to the 3.3 will happen right towards the end of 2022. It's somewhere in between there. I think that's not in the numbers here, but we spoke about that when we got the permit. By the way, maybe I should mention to everybody who hasn't seen that we have gotten the environmental permit for Garpenberg clear.
It can still be appealed formally to the Supreme Court for another week or two. That's very unlikely to happen, but just so I haven't promised anything that theoretically could go wrong. If that doesn't happen, we will have the environmental permit ready and done and can go with it. We have, by the way, also gotten the environmental permit cleared in the appeal court in Liikavaara. Maybe I should have mentioned that earlier as well. There, the process is not quite as simple because that went so fast and faster than we thought. We have some other permits, including zoning permits and some other thing needs to come into place. It's of course a major milestone that we have passed in terms of the Liikavaara permit process as well. Now I have said that as well.
We come back to the other part of the question, Christian, which is the guidance for Aitik. Well, the guidance is to work at 45. We will need to get the COVID out of the system, and COVID is a tricky thing in Aitik, and it has more to do with people and the fact that We have a labor market where an hour that's not driven by a driver doesn't get driven because there is basically no other substitute they can take with the labor market situation in that part of Sweden. We need to get the sick leave level down and get more hours in the trucks. That's the challenge. 45 is still the ambition for next year.
Okay, for Kevitsa it's 9.5, right?
9.5.
Okay. The Tara 2.5?
Yeah. 2.5 to 2.6 in that order of magnitude.
For 2022?
Yes.
Okay. That's great. I was a little bit surprised on the byproducts because you said that sulfuric acid prices came up during the quarter, and you still recorded a minus figure on byproducts. What happened there?
Well, we had strong prices already last quarter. Depends if you compare it to last year or to last quarter. The thing with sulfuric acid is that we operate a big part of it in long-term contracts, and it's also very sensitive to mix changes, because depending on where you ship the material, the freight cost will be a very big part of the price. I would say those are the two reasons to that. You're right, market prices, spot prices have been very good during the quarter.
Okay. Finally from me on CapEx, you have roughly SEK 5 billion on growth CapEx, or call it growth CapEx, but strategic CapEx for 2022, of which SEK 2.5 million Odda. The other SEK 2.5 million, just roughly, dividing them into the four categories.
First of all, we've got about SEK 1 billion- SEK 1.5 billion that is what we earlier labeled as stay in business CapEx, which is environmental improvements, debottlenecking projects. We have a harbor project going on in Harjavalta. Of the pure growth projects, we have Odda, which makes up SEK 2.5 billion, and then Ravliden, which is a significant part. In addition, there are smaller parts classified as growth, but not of the size where we have communicated them externally.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Any other questions here from Stockholm? Yes, Gustaf Schwerin , also Handelsbanken.
Yes. First a follow-up on the Aitik sequential development on the throughput. If you would have had full availability of truck drivers, because the COVID situation shouldn't have been worse quarter- on- quarter, right? The equipment you're talking about, what's the underlying run rate there?
It's a difficult question to answer, but the underlying run rate is exactly right now because we do have the lack of people. We also have a lack of availability, by the way, which I think we haven't spoken about, but those of you in Sweden will know that we also had a fire in Aitik where one truck got burned up and is now out of the system. We've had availability issues, which are partly labor related and partly non-labor related, and it's linked to the trucks and the trucks availability. That is the major challenge that we've had in Aitik.
All else equal, would we have been at a SEK 45 million run rate if we had full availability in Q3? Or is there something else that's disturbing the picture?
I would say that it's relatively clear that it is the mine and it is the availability of truck to some extent, availability of shovels that is the bottleneck. It is not the kind of classical ones if you've been around for a while. There is no bottleneck that is one problem on the crushing side or on the mill side. Things can vary a little bit. We don't talk too much about maintenance in the mines because it comes a little bit erratically and up and down. Of course, there's also some maintenance that plays into this.
Yeah. All right. Then second, on the cost inflation side, the wage part for next year, what are you seeing there?
Well, we're seeing about 2%-2.5%. That's in order with the collective bargaining agreements that we have in place.
All right. Thank you.
Any other questions here from Stockholm? Yes, we have Viktor Trollsten now with Danske Bank.
Thank you very much for taking my questions. Just on Liikavaara that you mentioned here in the report. Just interesting to hear your view. I think you have talked about 0 to 15 million tons of milled ore from that deposit in 2023. If everything goes right, is that where we should be thinking? How much can you put in the mill from that deposit?
Well, you know that the plan is to have, as we get going, roughly 20% for the next eight to 10 years from Liikavaara. If we're at 45, then we should have around 9, 8 to 9, 10. That's the kind of order of magnitude that should come from Liikavaara. The exact start, as I said, we've passed one major milestone, but there's still other things that needs to happen. Regarding exactly how much we'll get into 2023, we'll have to come back with. It's not going to be more than 15 for sure. It's rather not more than 10, but somewhere in there, hopefully.
Okay. That's clear. Also, just in terms of the grades guidance for Garpenberg, I think that is still quite impressive relative to reserve grade. I know you don't guide for 2023 and so forth, but could you just discuss regarding the grade profile? I think you mentioned previously we will be around three years above reserve grade. That should be now, basically. Just how are you thinking for the coming years?
I think regarding Garpenberg, we will always be above reserve grade, because what happens when you have an underground mine like this, you have degrees of freedom where you go, and of course, we will aim to go at the better parts first. So what happens, you go at the better parts, eventually that will drive down the average grade because you're taking the better parts out and you have the worst parts left, but you'll continue to always be above reserve grade. Of course then, the grades will decline over time. Exactly how fast we are not that detailed about, but as I said, they will always be above reserve grade, and at some stage they will become below the present reserve grade, but at that time, the reserve grade would have lowered. Of course, all depending on what exploration finds we can get in the meantime.
Okay. No, that's clear. Just finally from me in terms of the short-term risks here, you mentioned in the report that you're planning for normal production in the coming quarters. You obviously highlight certain risks, but you're planning for all of this is behind us sort of, if everything goes right.
All the things that happened in this last quarter are behind us. There's nothing that is continuing regarding that. What we did highlight is that we are running on one crusher in Garpenberg till the end of the year. Of course, there's an elevated risk if something happens with the crusher that is working, then we don't have a crusher. That should not happen. Normally, these crushers are extremely reliable. It's kind of whatever you call it, Murphy's Law, that when you only have one or they get this kind of one in 10-year event with the broken inner bearings.
Okay. No. Sorry, one final from me. Sorry. In terms of the ramp-up of the smelting projects, I didn't really understand. Are you still on time on that? Should we see a production uplift now in Q4? When will those be up and producing?
The one that's tricky here is Rönnskär. I think we've spoken about that before. That is, we think, is a very good expansion project, but just remember, it's an expansion of input, not an expansion of output, because the output is still the same. What's the point with it? Well, the point is that we can feed lower grade material and still keep the production up. Lower grade material typically have a better than, for us at least, a better average earning. That is what you will see, but you will not see more copper coming out of the process. That's if you talk about the two double converter.
operations that we're doing there. Also then we talk about the leach plant. Once again, the leach plant, yes, you will see, but it doesn't really show in the big numbers, the increase that will come through the lead and the copper and so on that will come out of the leach plant. There the important thing is that we're getting through and starting to work down the stockpiles that we have on site.
Okay. No, thank you very much. Thank you.
Any other questions here in Stockholm? Okay, operator, please, then we go over to the questions over the phone, please.
We have a first question. It's from Liam Fitzpatrick, Deutsche Bank. The line is now open for you.
Good morning, everyone. Thanks for the presentation. I've got three questions. The first one, power. You've given us a useful number there on the 80% hedged. If you could maybe just elaborate on that a little bit, how far out do you hedge? Am I understanding that correctly in that it's 80% of your power costs that are hedged, so 20% of power is spot exposed. Again, I'm trying to work out when these high power prices will flow through into higher costs when the hedges roll off. That's the first question. Number two, just on the CapEx, would you view this as a fully loaded number for next year? Should we still anticipate that there could be some smaller project approvals that could come into that number next year?
Third and final question, just on the, I guess, supply bottleneck theme, is there anything that you're seeing that concerns you that could impact your operations, either at the mines or the smelters in the course of the year? Thank you.
Okay. Let me take those. I can take them from the back. Regarding the supply bottlenecks, I've said many times, and I'll say again, that we have quite a few yellow flags. We don't really have a red flag that we see right now, but we have yellow flags. One of the ones that we spoke about last time, and those of you who are in Sweden will know about it, is the cement situation. The cement situation is not fully cleared out. We're of course working our way around with both plans B and C and so on to handle them if the Cementa permit will not come through. Of course, there's a risk on that one. Otherwise, yeah, we're seeing all kind of strange thing that happens, and it's linked to flooding in Europe in the summer and some suppliers declaring force majeure.
It's linked to transportation out of China. It's linked to the high energy prices. As I said, as of right now, not really any red flags, but quite a few yellow flags that keeps us busy. The CapEx number, I would look as a fairly fully loaded. We don't really have any project that we foresee as of right now that we will come to take a decision on during a time that would affect the 2022 number. All the other potential bigger investment that we have that we could make a decision on will be after that time. Regarding power, we are on purpose a bit fuzzy because power is of course also a commercial game and where we don't want to tell exactly to our counterparts exactly our situation.
You're right in the sense that for the next 12 months, we are roughly 80% hedged, and with roughly 20% open. We should also be clear that even though the local prices in Sweden have also gone up, but the spot price have gone up, they haven't gone up quite as much as they've done in other parts of Europe. This hedge goes down according to some measures, of course, after you get out of 12 months, the hedging effect goes down. Exactly how it goes down, we don't want to go into the details, not to tell too much to our counterparts.
Got it. Thank you.
The next question is by Jack O'Brien, Goldman Sachs. The line is now open for you.
Just one second. I'll get to you. I just want to make sure that everybody understands, I think this is an important point, that having hedged electricity, just to be very clear, if the prices go high enough, and we're not there yet, but if the prices go high enough, we will shut down operations and we will sell the power and make more money on that. That is clear. We're not going to spend very expensive power on producing something if we don't make money. We're doing that very carefully. Now, we have not yet hit any time period, any individual day so far where the price has been high enough that we have sold off the hedges and pocketed the money and not run the operations. That could, of course, also happen. It's very open that it could happen.
We are, because of our cost productivity in general and because we are in areas where spot prices, even though they go high, don't skyrocket the way than they do in other places, we don't foresee that, but it could happen. Now, Goldman Sachs, back to you. Sorry about that.
Thanks, good morning. A number of the questions have been touched on, but I just want to come back to this PowerPoint, given its relevance at the current juncture. As you see it today, given your regional mix, and you mentioned that prices do vary somewhat by country and region, based on the 20% open, and I guess we can do this maths afterwards, but what would you envisage the year-on-year impact to be in the fourth quarter, just so we can think about the profit bridge here?
Should I take it?
Yeah.
I can comment what we’ve seen in the third quarter, and I think then you can extend it. We’re about 12%, 13% inflation on the electricity. Now, when we talk about energy, we spend roughly SEK 3 billion a year, and that includes some diesel and a few other things. The electricity side of that, the power side of that is SEK 2 billion. In this quarter, we’re seeing a bit over 10% inflation.
Okay. Terrific. Just press you on one more point, if I may, which is that, as I understand it, you typically hedge around eight quarters out, and you've mentioned in the past that you see power as a source of competitive advantage for Boliden. When you're coming to renegotiate hedges for, I guess, eight quarters, so we're now talking Q4 2023 and into 2024, how are those planning out? In terms of agreed contracts prices versus the spot we see today, clearly, I would imagine there'd be some fairly heavy discount given the spike we've seen, but what sort of order of magnitude are you seeing there?
Those are the areas that we don't really want to get into, but just to get a little bit of a flavor that what you said about eight quarters might be true on an average. You know that we have certain power prices that are hedged, or at least long-term contracts with indexes where we don't have to negotiate anything, that they are either fixed or they're moving with an index for 10 to 15 years connected to wind farms, for example. It's going to be difficult for you guys to say that we have a clear hedging strategy and that we're always hedging something that is eight quarters out. That might be so on average, but it's not so in total.
It's lots of different things moving in this one, and we are also using the fact that we can play a little bit around the timing effect to make sure that we do this in an efficient way.
If I may just ask one more, following up on Liam's question on supply bottlenecks, obviously, clearly a theme that's coming through. You mentioned a number of sort of yellow flags. Which are these sort of materials that you're keeping an eye on that could potentially be at risk as we look through the rest of this year and into 2022?
They go across a wide spectrum. They start at kind of simple things like spare parts for underground equipment or a spare part for mobile equipment in general. They move across to specialty chemicals of different sorts. The reason for specialty chemical shortage could be either that there was a specialty chemical plant that was hit by the flooding in Germany in the summer, or that you have a very high energy component of producing some specialty chemicals where the supplier either wants to hike the price very high or say that they will put their operations into care and maintenance. Those are the type of things. I would say specialty chemicals, but also normal spare parts or things, and then cement on top of that, which I spoke especially about.
Appreciate it. Thank you.
Our next question is by Ioannis Masvoulas, Morgan Stanley. The line is now open to you.
Yes, good morning, and thanks for the presentation. A few questions left from my side. The first one on Aitik again, just to push a bit on the throughput rates. You mentioned the ambition to reach 45 million tons throughput next year. If we look at the COVID restrictions and challenges around truck driver availability as we go into peak winter season, and given that you also have weaker seasonality in Q1 in terms of throughput, how realistic is it that you can get to 45 million tons as an average for the year? Should we be baking in more of second half run rate for that 45 million tons? Thank you.
It's clearly an ambition that we will have the run rate for the whole year. You're right that Q1 can be lower on the average because Q1 is a winter quarter.
Okay. Understood. The second question on the Odda Smelter expansion. We talked about inflationary pressures, we talked about some challenges around the supply chain. Could you give us an update on the progress you've made since we last spoke about this project on locking in some longer lead items? Is there any risk around the CapEx figure you gave us earlier in the year?
Well, there's always a risk of these things until you're really done. As of right now, we see no need to change any kind of guidance regarding that. It's a relatively straightforward process. Of course, when we gave the numbers only three months ago, we, of course, already knew about steel prices, for example. That was factored in to that number. Now, there might be we haven't factored exactly everything in, but so far as we're now locking in the prices, it fits very well with the budget that we've had.
Understood. A very last question from me on scrap availability, which you mentioned as a headwind. What are you seeing on the ground? Is China pulling a lot of material in the past few months? How do you see that playing out in the next year? I'm just trying to figure out what sort of a headwind could it be for the smelting business.
I think that from where we are today, it shouldn't be more of a headwind. I think that we will hopefully get the situation that eases out, and the question is more of how we will get the tailwind of getting more supply there. Once again, this is also a competitive market where supply could be available if you put on other prices and terms, and this is something that we're negotiating constantly and that we're working on. It's, of course, a matter of both volume and also the price and terms of the volume that you purchase.
Understood. Thank you very much.
The next question is by Luke Nelson from JP Morgan. The line is now open for you.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. I've got four, if I may. Firstly, just a quick one back on power. You mentioned that you had some supply from wind. Is it possible to break out how much of your power needs come from renewable PPAs?
I think that's possible, and it's also not really a secret because we have announced these as we have been putting them in. Now, the question is, do you know the number, Håkan? I don't know if I know it off the top of my head. We're talking about order of magnitude.
For renewables, if you include hydro-
If you-
it's about 70%.
The question was.
The wind.
wind PPAs that we have announced.
Wind PPAs. I don't have that on the top of my head, so we'll have to come back on that.
My answer, but don't quote me on this, is that it's roughly 20% that's on wind PPAs. That has been announced in separate order once we've done them all.
Yeah, I can take that up after. Yeah, no problem. Just following up on your comment from Jack's question before around supply chain issues. I think you mentioned specialty chemicals. Can you maybe just break out exactly what specifically you're seeing within that supply chain issue? Anything in particular? If I look in the chemical sector, there's obviously some large price moves. Any additional color on that?
No, I think that this is not really that special. Ammonium nitrate, very high energy intensity when producing. Of course, the producers there have ideas around pricing that might not be in line with the contracts that we have, and that leads to discussions. We have a situation on something like zinc sulfate that is linked to production disturbances in the chain, which means there's a lack of availability, not maybe so much a price issue. We have some of the special chemicals coming out of China, xanthates, for example, where there's been also some interruptions in the supply chain and so on. As I said, all of these I would put under the label of yellow flags and not red flags.
Okay, great. Third question is in capacity in Europe, we've obviously seen some announcements from some key players around capacity on power. Just interested to get your view on the read across to your business, particularly more from, say, TC/RCs, even byproducts with acid prices. Are you seeing any benefit come through in that? I suppose as we think to 2022, do you expect that could potentially play into where the contract TC/RCs could rest?
You're pointing at all things that are good for us and that could play in our advantage. Exactly how, we don't know. Of course, you can think both about acid prices, you can think about premiums, and how premiums would work out in this situation. You can also think generally about the TC/RCs or the TCs from the zinc side more specifically, and you can also think about the actual zinc price and what this does to the whole balance. Exactly how, this can be very difficult to understand. Some of the players that are behind these shutdowns or capacity are, of course, also very big traders, and we have no transparency into what their books look like.
Okay. Very clear. Sorry, final question is just on the quarter-on-quarter waterfall group level. The FX benefit looked like it was around SEK 250 million, which was a bit higher than expected. Is there anything special within that I should be aware of or not really?
There is nothing really special there. The big part, of course, is the dollar rate compared to our other currencies and then euros. You should be able to find every background information in the sensitivity tables that we issue.
Okay, sure. Thanks a lot for the color.
The next question is by Daniel Major, UBS. The line is now also open for you.
Hi, guys. Thanks for the questions. Three, if I may.
Can you give a number on the impact of the provisional pricing during the quarter? That's the first question. Second, maintenance outlook for smelters in 2022. Any guidance there after what's been quite a big year this year? Final question on the special dividend. Any reason to think that you won't pay the special dividend for the fourth quarter to take your net gearing back up to your targeted level?
Take the two last ones, I'll leave the first one for Håkan. If you start from the back, we have no intention of changing our dividend policy. If you take the second one regarding maintenance for 2022, we will guide that in three months, so you'll have to be patient. Regarding the first one, I'll give it over to you, Håkan.
Provisional pricing. Yes. The first part is the open positions from last quarter and that got their final prices in this quarter, and that effect was more or less zero. That is one thing, zero effect on the open position from last quarter. Within the quarter, as we talked about, we have a difference compared to the realized prices and the average prices in that the later part of the quarter is more important, and that we're talking about a few hundred million SEK. You have the open positions in a backup slide to this presentation. I think you can work that out, but a few hundred.
Okay, thanks. Maybe if I could just push you on the maintenance question slightly. Just as a reminder, what is the normalized level, and has that changed in recent years?
It has changed. You have to know that the impact that we're giving, the EBIT impact, is of course very much dependent on prices and terms, because the biggest part of our maintenance is the fact that we don't produce. We lose the gross profit from that. Therefore, as the prices and terms have gotten better over time with higher metal prices and also improved other prices in terms of smelters, it becomes more expensive to have a maintenance shutdown. That's part of it. If you look at the other thing, do we have to maintain more? I would say on the margin that is also true that we do have more to maintain. Our smelters are expanding all the time. They get bigger. They have more equipment in place that will need maintenance, which means that the maintenance itself is expanding.
Not drastically, but slightly.
Okay, thanks for that.
Any other questions, operator? Okay.
I remind you.
Yes, let me just say then that I checked with our head of energy and your answer regarding the wind power's share of our overall energy mix of 20% was perfectly fine. It's perfectly right.
Thank you, Olof. Now you can quote me on the number.
Okay. Operator, did we have more questions? I thought we were at the end, or do we have more questions?
We have two more questions. The first one is from Shan, Citigroup. The line is now open for you.
Can you hear me? Hello?
Yeah, we hear you.
Yeah. Thanks a lot. My question is on more on the CapEx side. You've said in the release that the maintenance CapEx is going to be SEK 5 billion for next year versus SEK 4.5 billion this year. Is this sort of a steady state level we should consider for modeling purposes going forward? My second question is, you've made an interesting point on Rönnskär expansion that this is basically the input capacity expansion rather than the output. Would you be able to discuss the normalized level of copper and the lead production at Rönnskär, for example, like 2022?
Should I take the first one?
You take the first one, and then we'll think about the second one.
The maintenance CapEx, you're right, SEK 5 billion is what you should plan for going forward. In there, it's about SEK 2 billion that is replacements and about SEK 3 billion that is mine sustaining, basically stripping. With the knowledge we have today, that is what we plan for going forward until the time when the stripping volumes comes down in Kevitsa, for example, that has a shorter life of mine, and that's a few years away.
Regarding the production guidance at Rönnskär, you know that we don't issue production guidance because it depends on so many things, including exactly what feed mix you have and so on and so forth. It's not just a matter of copper content, it's also other things that could affect the throughput level, it can still be very profitable because there are better precious metal content or other things around that. The answer to you will be that you should not see any change in output in either lead or copper because of the investments that are done right now. The actual output in the end will be about the same. We might sell some lead intermediaries more than we've done historically, that's something that doesn't really come into those numbers.
I understand. Thanks a lot.
The next question is by Jack of BNP Paribas. The line is now open for you.
Thank you, operator. Good morning. Jatinder Goel from Exane BNP Paribas. Couple of questions. On Liikavaara, what does this recent milestone mean in terms of timing? You're indicating this came quicker than you were expecting. What level of risk would you ascribe to the remaining permits versus this one, and what does it imply in terms of timeline? Is it still 2024 when the first volumes will come from this satellite deposit if everything goes to plan? Second question on concrete availability and procurement? Is there a plan B in process, if anything? You have managed to buy more time courtesy regulators, is there any active plan to diversify that sourcing, or is it practically not viable?
I'll take those. If you start with the concrete, yes, we're doing all kind of plans to diversify the sourcing. This is not an easy task because it's not just finding the source of the actual cement. There's a whole logistic chain that is involved in this and that we are working with. On top of that, which is both a good and a bad, lots of other customers of cement or concrete are in the same boat. We can, to some extent, cooperate and try to find new logistical solution. We're also competing for the supply. As you can understand, kind of an interesting situation in that market right now where everybody's trying to juggle to cooperate where that's doable, still try to compete to get the resources. As I said, we are very much on top of the issue.
We have lots of different plans, but exactly how it will play out depends on what happens with the permit and what happens with a few other discussions. We don't have a ready solution to do without the cement to 100% as of right now. Your other question's on Liikavaara. Liikavaara is an interesting one. We got the permit in the lower court already back in April. That was an interesting kind of environmental permit as such because it had a one-year delay. Typically, you get a permit, you have it, but that one was given, but with a one-year starting delay. That's because we need to clear out a few things, including there's still a village that needs to be moved, and that wasn't really done. As this got appealed, we thought it was very clear that the appeal court will listen to the appeal.
That was our base plan, and then that would take a longer time. It would take at least until, what I know, the summer of 2022, until that's all heard through. What happened then last week or two weeks ago was that the appeal court decided not to take up the case, which we are, of course, happy about because we have an environmental permit that is then valid, unless this, not reading it, is appealed to the Supreme Court, that could theoretically send it back again into the court system. It's not quite done. We have then, apart from the Supreme Court path, we do have an environmental permit valid as of, I think it's May 1 to be the number. However, normally you need many other permits as well, which we have on purpose not pushed so hard because we thought that we had time.
You need a zoning permit. That is normally never a problem. We actually need an alteration to the mining license, and that is usually not a permit. We also need a road permit. That is usually not a problem either. Suddenly, all these things ended up on the critical path, and now we're working with them. On top of that, before we do anything, we also need to make sure that the villages have been fully moved, which has also suddenly become on a critical path. We thought that we had ample time until summer. You understand with all these things that we are happy where we are. We're happy that we've gotten where we've gotten. Exactly how fast we will be able to get the remaining permits and also be able to get the village finally moved, I can't answer right now.
There's still some uncertainties, which means that, as we had a previous question, the volumes for 2023 are, of course, questionable unless we can get going early in 2022 with the stripping. Volumes for 2024 should be less risky. I mean, that's still quite some time out.
Excellent. Thanks, Mikael.
I wish you a very happy weekend. Is there anybody else?
Operator, are we done there? Okay. Yeah,
No further questions at this time.
Mr. Staffas, please conclude.
Okay, I will conclude this. Thank you all for attending. We've had a quarter that you can say that we've had some production issues, and that's true. In general, we are in a very good situation. We've been producing relatively well, and we're in strong price and terms. As you look up at this going forward, I think that we are very much sticking to the guidance that all of you should know. Thank you all, and have a very good weekend.