Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to welcome you to this Boliden Telephone Conference. My name is Olof Grenmark, and I'm Head of Investor Relations. Today, we will have a presentation led by our President and CEO, Mikael Staffas, based on the slides that you can find on our web. These slides are based on the news that we sent out this morning. After Mikael's presentation, we will have a Q&A session, where also our CFO, Håkan Gabrielsson, will participate. Mikael, welcome.
Thank you, Olof, and good morning to everybody out there, and I do hope that at least most of you actually do see the exhibits that I'm seeing in front of me, and you'll see a nice picture of the Odda Valley, and behind the white text, you can also see a large part of the roaster, the roaster part of the Odda smelter, which is where we're having the issues, what we're gonna talk about in a few moments. Anyway, what we have come out with this morning is that to look at the Odda project, and by the way, the picture you see here, you see in the background a little bit up there, you see the new tank house, more or less totally finished, and commissioning has already started.
Regarding the Odda expansion, there are lots of good news in this and lots of things that are de-risked. The whole incoming power infrastructure is commissioned and is already in place, and the new energy contract is in operation. The harbor infrastructure grade upgrade is commissioned and is in place. The cell house and the foundry will commission during Q4, and they have already started commissioning as we're talking right now. This also means that since we're getting the tank house capacity back, means that we will be able to get up to two hundred thousand tons again in Q1. As those of you who are been around for a while recall that we went from two hundred down to a hundred and sixty when we decommissioned the old cell house number four earlier this year.
Now we will have ample capacity on the cell house site to be able to go up to two hundred again once we commission the new cell house number six. The challenge we have are in the roaster and acid plant, where the commissioning date is now in late Q1, as opposed to what we have previously communicated in the end of Q4. So we have a quarter of delay here, and then we have the ramp-up starting from Q2 of 2025, up to three hundred and fifty thousand tons. The reason for the delay, there are, of course, a multitude, but it's mainly the cost increase that we're seeing here is mainly due to the extra time, and all the kind of fixed costs that you have in the project once the time goes on.
But also some added cost regarding some later surprises in terms of exactly what is needed to be able to integrate the new facilities with the old facilities, so I would say that the main reason for the increased CapEx from EUR 950-1,050 is supply shortcomings, and it's leading to the extended construction time. Just on the project financials, we are reiterating a number that you've seen already that we had on the Capital Markets Day of EUR 150 million of EBITDA per year once we get this up and running. What we are adding today is that this number that we have given has been at the Boliden long-term assumptions, as you can read in our annual report.
And those are not changed in this calculation, nor have the actual operating parameters changed. They are the same as well. But what we are adding here now is that when we're looking at the present market terms, because there's been some discussion about the TCs are very low right now, and it's true that the TCs are low and lower than our long-term assumption, but other things are positive. The precious metal prices, and as you know, there's a precious metal recovery in this one. Precious metal prices are higher than we have in our long-term assumptions, and exchange rates are also better than we have in our long-term assumptions. And when we do it with the present market terms, we come up to around the same 150.
The hundred and fifty number is true both for Boliden long-term planning assumption, as well as short-term market terms, despite the very low TCs that we see. That's also just reiterating that TC is only one part of the economics of running a smelter. Why are we achieving this? We have economies of scale in the operations with relatively few extra FTEs to cover the much larger volume. We have automation and digitization as part of this as well, both on securing that cost base, but also in making sure that we get all the right recoveries. Then we have the hydropower agreement that is also in the background that's helping us. The leach product is, of course, part of this, coming out new.
These are numbers that you would have seen, and you recognize from the Capital Markets Days with 40,000 tons of new leach product per year. And we have a metal content of about 10,000 tons of lead, 50 tons of silver, and 400 kilos of gold coming out of this. In the equation as well, it doesn't show up in EBITDA, but there is also a saving compared to a base case of reduced maintenance CapEx because of this. Just to summarize this and to get it to a bigger picture, we're also today releasing a guidance for the next year, 2025, CapEx, and we're also confirming the guidance that we have for 2024. The 2024 guidance of SEK 15.5 billion is reiterated. There are some moving parts around this...
Those of you who've been around and seen the numbers, you will see that, recognize that the Odda, Aitik and Kristineberg chunk, which we now quote at SEK 7 billion, is used to be six and a half. The new tank house in Rönnskär and Boliden Area, which I think we have before said at one and a half, is now at one, so that expansion strategic project is still at eight for this year. On the other side, we also have a little bit of moving pieces. Mine sustaining, it says four here, it used to say four and a half. That is some delays that we have, in especially in Aitik, where the dam project in Aitik has taken up resources, which means that we're a little bit behind in terms of dam raising and in terms of stripping.
We're coming back to 2025 here. We can also see that the replacement and stay-in- business CapEx used to be set at 3, that's 3.5, just to add up to the 15.5, being the same as previously announced. For 2025, we are now formally giving a guidance of 13.5. This has not been guided before as a total number, but if you would have listened to our Capital Markets Day and looked at the individual pieces, many of you have come up to about 12.5, which I think was, for those who have that in the consensus, is a number that's been floating around. With the increase in Odda, this is now up to 13.5.
We still have SEK 4-4.5 billion in expansion strategic projects. The Odda, Aitik, Kristineberg is going down to about SEK 1 billion. That's about maybe SEK 0.5 billion Odda, and then a little, little bit in Aitik and then a little bit in Kristineberg, adding up to that billion. And then we have the tank house in Rönnskär, and the Boliden Area Paste Project, now coming in next year at SEK 3.5 billion. We have mine sustaining coming up at SEK 5.5 billion, and that's, to some extent, compensated for the fact that we have not done everything this year that we should have done. That's coming into that, so you can see we did some Odda in this year, but we've done less sustaining. Next year, we will have to take back that sustaining.
And then we have replacement and sustaining CapEx, sustaining business CapEx at around the same level as today. Adding these two up together, it's SEK 29 billion over two years. Most of you might have had 28 billion SEK in your previous numbers. I want to just reiterate that the billion overrun in Odda is, of course, not good, but putting it in total context and with the other projects that we're running, we are still very close to where we have previously said we're going to be. So with that, just making a one pitch also for you guys. This is also no news, but there is a Capital Markets Day coming up. It's going to be in Odda. It's going to be in the end of March.
It will hit right away when this thing is finished, and we're gonna be able to show all of the new facilities to you guys who want to come there. The actual conference, it will be in Bergen, but the site visit to Odda Smelter for everybody who wants to join. Full invitation will follow. So with that, I leave it now open to questions.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Adrian Gilani from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Two questions here from my end. First of all, you showed us the CapEx breakdown for 2025, SEK 3.5 billion being from Rönnskär and the Boliden Area. Can you just remind us how much CapEx would then be left for 2026 for those two projects?
If you take one plus three and a half, that is four and a half, and if and I think it's been guided at seven point three altogether, so the remainder, close to three, is left. The bulk of that will be in 2026, even though something might spill over to 2027 as well.
Okay, perfect. That's very clear. Thank you. And then the second question from my end on the EUR 150 million annual EBITDA increase. You mentioned that that corresponds well with today's market conditions. So just to clarify, is that assuming the current benchmark TC for zinc, or is that assuming the spot TC for zinc? Because those are very different at the moment.
It is assuming our estimate of benchmark TCs for next year, and I'm not gonna tell you what the number is.
Okay. Presumably lower than the current benchmark, though?
Uh, yes.
Yeah. Yes. Okay. Thank you. That's... That's all for me.
The next question comes from Richard Hatch from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. Thanks for the call. Good morning, guys. Yeah, just on this, on the CapEx for 2025, are you able just to clarify how much, in particular, is going for Rönnskär and how much we should think about for 2026? I mean, just for reference, yeah, that'd be very helpful, if you could.
Yeah. We haven't separated out now between the Boliden and Paste Project and the Rönnskär tank house. We bunched these two together here, and as I said before, we have in 2024, roughly SEK 1 billion. We have in 2025, for those two together, roughly SEK 3.5 billion, leaving close to SEK 3 billion for 2026 and later.
Okay. So I mean, like, my numbers, I've got about a couple of billion in for the tank house in 2025. Is that a decent rule of thumb number to have in there?
Yeah, because you have the three and a half. I'm not gonna give you the exact, but the if you just proportionate with the Paste Project, you know, two and a half or one, two and a half plus one or whatever, you know, it's so you're roughly right.
Okay, fine. And then, just on the other projects, I mean, are you confident on the ability to keep those within CapEx budget? Or are you sort of concerned about the potential for a creep or delay there as well? Or is this the push on this one? Is it on order? Is it just a project-specific situation, and you're comfortable with the others?
And that's the point I was making, that yes, of course, every project is its own kind of game and match to make sure that you stick within the limits. But you know, if you look at them as a bulk, I feel relatively comfortable about all the other projects, and Odda is the odd one out here, where we've had these issues.
Okay. Thanks very much.
The next question comes from Krishan Agarwal from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks a lot for taking my question. I have two, if I may. Do you mind giving us a split of this incremental 100 million CapEx between the increase in the cost because of the fixed cost and also the equipment cost, which you mentioned that there were some surprises in terms of the additional equipment needed to connect the facility between the old and the new? And then what is the consequent impact of this higher CapEx in the project IRR you had earlier? I'll ask the second question later.
Yeah. We don't have the exact split, but the larger part of the overrun comes from time cost, and the smaller part comes from actual, kind of, if you want to say, real project cost in terms of equipment, other things. So this is really about the kind of the cost of keeping everything around for an extra quarter. That's the one. On then, on. What was the second question?
IRR.
IRR, the IRR. Well, the return, we are reiterating again, and just to make it very kind of, extremely kind of simplified measure, if you're looking at the returns every year and the ROC over CapEx, if CapEx goes up with 10%, of course, the returns are kind of 10 percentage point, 10% lower, not percentage point, 10% lower than otherwise. And then, of course, IRR is also impacted by this quarter delay in this one. But I'm looking at Håkan here, if you have any number on how much this makes on IRR.
We haven't disclosed the IRR number to start with, so I'm not prepared to go into an exact number now. But I think the important part is that the business case in terms of the revenues that we're expecting to see once the project is up and running is unchanged. And the negative impact we have is from a quarter delay and from a higher cost. So it will mean a slightly lower IRR, but once up and running, the cash flow should be the same as expected earlier.
Understand. Then the second question, probably more suitable for Håkan. In the slide number four, you are saying the 2025 CapEx breakdown, mine sustaining SEK 5.5, and then staying in business CapEx SEK 3.5. That gives us a kind of a steady CapEx run rate of SEK 9 billion per annum from here onwards. If you work with the SEK 9 billion in our model, and then probably some inflation taking it to SEK 10 billion in the long term, would you disagree with that number on a sustainable basis, SEK 10 billion?
Again, I don't want to give an amount, but you're right. We have seen a fairly stable level of replacement and other investments in the style of automation and so on. There is still a couple of years until we will see a decline in the mine-sustaining CapEx in Kevitsa, provided that we do not take a decision on an extension. Then what you should not forget is that over a life of a mine, I mean, now I'm talking about up until, for example, 2050 or something, for Aitik, there will be occasional additional cost. I mean, sometimes there will have to be a dam extensions, there will be infrastructure moved, et cetera.
That comes in chunks, and it doesn't come every year, and not every second either. So, I think that has to be built in, in the numbers you're referring to.
Understood. So 10 billion is not necessarily a wild number in the models? Okay, and then the final question for Mikael, probably. You're building the tank house in... Or you just finished building the tank house in Odda, and then you're doing the same activity in Rönnskär. So when you say SEK 7.3 billion for the new tank house, is it fair to assume that, okay, there's a lot of kind of intelligence you would have applied into the new CapEx, and then there are synergies as well when you say SEK 7.3 billion for the new tank house?
First, just to be clear on the numbers, the new tank house in Rönnskär is 4.8. The 7.3 is referring to the tank house and the paste investments in the Boliden Area that was announced at the same time at 2.5. So, and the, I would say that the 7.8 is, of course, for a copper tank house as opposed to a zinc tank house, so they're not exactly the same.
But of course, we do feel for every day that goes on, we feel more comfortable about the numbers that we have for tank house. And I should also say, even though it's not maybe 100% clear, but the tank house in Odda, as part of the original project, is quite on time and on budget. That one has been working well, and this is, as I said earlier, ready to be commissioned now.
Okay. Okay. Thanks a lot. That's all from my side. Thank you.
The next question comes from Daniel Major from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi. Yeah, thanks for the questions. Three questions. Yeah, the first one, you're guiding to the 150 million of incremental EBITDA when the project is complete. Can you give us any guide on how much you would expect to be in 2025 during the ramp-up period?
No, not more than it's. The ramp-up should be relatively okay, but, you know, you never really exactly know, but it may be it's, in some way, a linear effect over the year or a linear increase.
Okay. Maybe just to cut that a different way then. You, in volume terms, what's the expectation now following the delay in terms of tonnage? To get a sense of that linear accrual of EBITDA.
No, what we have said now is that by the end of the year, we should be at full running. That you could then, in theory, say that we're guiding for a nine-month ramp up, which is probably too much. So it's probably going to be faster than that, but it's gonna happen during 2025.
Okay. All right, thanks. And then the second question, just to clarify the sensitivity of the returns on the project to the changes in CapEx? Because the CapEx is 50% higher now than when you originally approved it. I think at the time, you were talking about double digit kind of returns. Whilst you articulate that the variables driving the EBITDA have changed with a lower treatment charge and higher byproducts, et cetera, I still struggle to see how we can still be within that 10% return hurdle rate when the CapEx is 50% higher than you originally envisaged when the project was approved.
Let me just take that, because if you take it from initially approved, lots of things have improved quite a lot. I mean, the precious metal and the silver prices are much higher today, both in reality, but also in our present long-term prices than they were at the long-term prices back then. The zinc prices are much higher now, both in reality and in long-term prices than they were when we announced this one back then.
So there are many improvements in the long-term assumptions that have happened, which means that without going into too much detail, but we have a similar return today as we saw when we commissioned a project. At least within a kind of a few percentage point, because of the increases of lots of these planning parameters. We were maybe very conservative when we launched a product, project back in 2021 or 2020.
Okay, thanks.
So yes. All right, go ahead.
No, no, I mean, yeah, that's clearer based on what information you can tell us. The third question was on the 2025 CapEx guidance. There's no inclusion for the Pushback 5 at Kevitsa, so within this, you'd previously spoke towards potentially moving forward this project and including it in the budget by the end of 2024. Is that still something that is possible? And I guess would be incremental to the 13.5, or should we not expect anything in terms of spend there until beyond 2025, if the project goes ahead?
It's a good point that you're bringing up, and maybe I should have been clear about this in the presentation, but I think the assumption is clear that we have lots of potential projects in the pipeline, and none of them are included in this one. So the Kevitsa Stage 5 is not included, Garpenberg expansion is not included, a potential Nautanen or Laver is not included, a potential cement project in Rönnskär is not included. So lots of things are not included. Are any of these likely to be decided upon so that they will materially affect 2025 ? And then the answer to that is, we don't really know, but most likely not. We are unlikely to make any kind of decisions this year.
We might make some decisions during next year, maybe even early next year, but it's most likely gonna have limited impact on CapEx for next year, even though there might be some impact. But that will be based upon those projects' own profitability, that we would then choose to go ahead with that.
Okay. So they're more likely probably to slot in post 2026 in terms of materiality. 2025, sorry, in terms of materiality.
In terms of materiality, cash outlay, and you're not in the Swedish kind of media base, and maybe so I can also tell you and others who don't read Swedish press, that there's been quite a lot of publicity here around the fact that we are in the process of applying for a new permit in Garpenberg to increase from three and a half to four and a half. It's very early days. We have not even formally submitted the application yet, even less gotten it, even less talked about the details, but it is something that is in there. But that a formal decision on that is also likely further out.
Okay, great. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Liam Fitzpatrick from DB. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Two or three questions from myself. The first one, just on this overrun, you're suggesting that it's because of delays from suppliers. So just wanted to check if there's any kind of recourse that you may have or compensation in relation to this latest delay. That's the first question. The second one.
I can answer that quickly. The answer is, in materiality, no, because the contracts as they work in these kind of suppliers is that the fact that we get delayed, and sometimes one supplier is delayed, and they will blame that the delay because another supplier was delayed before them, and so on and so forth. In the end of the day, we have very little recourse on these kind of indirect delay effects, which is the major part of the cost. We might be able to recover some, but it's gonna be a smaller part related to their individual deliveries.
Okay, understood. And then I think you suggested on the previous call that because of this big project that was underway, that was impacting kind of the current production levels at Odda, which are around 200,000 tons. Should we assume that that will extend for the next few quarters because of this delay to the project?
No, what I did say is that we do expect to be able to commission the. The major issue had been during this project time has been the fact that we decommissioned the tank house number four, and thus had a kind of theoretical maximum of one hundred and sixty. As we get a new tank house with a very much over capacity commissioned already during Q4, we should be able, in Q1 already, to go up to two hundred. So we will see less, if you call that, disturbances during the project for that last quarter, until we can start ramping up for the three fifty.
Okay. And then last two, just on Tara, does this have any bearing or impact on how quickly you aim to ramp up, Tara?
No. Tara is a standalone project, ramping up according to its own logic.
Okay. And, finally, on Kevitsa, I mean, you gave us the color there in the previous response. Should we start to worry about Kevitsa, kind of, steady state production levels being impacted in the years ahead because of the delay to the pushback project?
We have been able to find a solution to be able to postpone the decision on a Pushback 5, without short-term impairing the production level. Of course, if we don't do a Pushback 5, there is limitation, but we're talking at least five years out until we will start seeing limitations if we don't do a Pushback 5. So, no, you should not, in the kind of foreseeable future, see a slowing production because of a potentially delayed or theoretically a never happening Pushback 5 decision.
Okay, thank you. That's all for me. Thanks.
The next question comes from Marina Calero from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks for the call. I just have a follow-up question on your mines sustaining CapEx. You are guiding for SEK 5.5 billion in 2025. In a previous question, you explained that you will have to keep CapEx, sustaining CapEx levels elevated for a couple of years more. How do you see that sustaining CapEx sustainably? What kind of sustainable levels do you think you will need to run this business in the long term?
Without going into any numbers, just to have a sense of it, there is, in this 5.5, there's a little bit of a catch-up because we haven't done what we needed to do in 2024. But having said that, as our operation gets deeper and our dams get higher, and also that we are changing dam-raising technology at a couple of places, we are likely to see a to some extent stable, slightly growing mine-sustaining CapEx over the years forward. But I will stop there 'cause I don't have any numbers. We haven't done any detailed studies around that, so we don't have anything to say. We have only been able to get our arms around 2026 at this time.
Okay.
2025, 2025 at this time.
Yeah. Yeah.
The next question comes from Ola Södermark from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. I have a follow-up on the P&L effect for ramp up of Odda. I don't mean the actual profits on the increased volume. I'm more interested in the potential additional costs in Q1 and Q2 for the ramp up, or is it just going to be a smooth transition, or do you have an additional cost for ramp up that we need to take to get to look at?
Well, I mean, if you look at normal, normal cost, you should not be able to have to look at anything like that. That's a relatively smooth ramping up. What you need to think about, though, which we haven't spoken about, but I think you all know about it, there will of course be, as we start producing more, an increase in working capital related to the fact that we have a bigger throughput will require a bigger working capital on that side. But, and I don't know exactly what money that is. It's not that much money, 'cause zinc smelter generally have a lower working capital than copper smelter, which is the one that ties most of our working capital. But you have to think a little bit about that.
But otherwise, there should not really be any costs. We have operators already in place, and there shouldn't really be any one-off costs, and they kind of, the small but still increase we have in operators to be able to run the bigger thing is already netted in, in this hundred and fifty number.
Mike, and then I can just-
Okay, sorry. Yeah.
Just, just one additional comment. The EBIT, in addition to what Mike is saying, that if you go a little bit further down in the income statement, we will, of course, start to depreciate the assets once they are up and running. So there will be some-
There will be a big difference in between EBITDA and EBIT.
Yeah.
Because we haven't come into these details. We're still working with our auditors exactly on the depreciation schedule. But of course, an investment like this will be noticed in the depreciation.
Yes, of course, but you have to give us a ballpark. Is it fair to assume that it's going to be depreciated over twenty years or so maybe five hundred million in additional depreciation per year?
I think twenty years is a bit too long. I would rather plan for around fifteen or slightly less than that years.
Okay. Thank you, very helpful.
The next question comes from Viktor Trollsten from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you, Operator . You actually just answered my question on the precision period. But perhaps, on sort of, you know, how you view the risking of the other project now. You know, you mentioned that you have de-risked quite a lot of the other parts, apart from the roasting facility. But is it fair to say that now it's, you know, difficult to say what will go additionally wrong in this project?
Nah, I mean, I would say that the risking in terms of CapEx, I would say, is fully de-risked. Then there is, of course, we haven't spoken about that, there is always a risk at commissioning, that you find something that needs to be done. But, as I said, parts of the project is already even commissioned and already in place, and therefore and we haven't found any, in those particular pieces, we didn't have any negative surprises during commissioning. So there's always some commissioning risk that we cannot really exclude until we have finished commissioning.
Okay. And then, perhaps a difficult question to answer, but you know, in hindsight, is it, you know, anything obvious that you would have done differently on this project? You know, it's been quite a lot of overruns. Not just. I guess what I'm after is, you know, how much have been, you know, in, out of your control or in your control? It's difficult to answer, of course, but.
Yeah, it's difficult to answer, and of course, we will learn a lot. I mean, this is a very big project, bigger than anything we've done, and there are lots of learnings around this that you can make, but there's nothing kind of fundamentally we should have built it in a different way and so on. We don't see anything like that. It's in the kind of major setup, it's been there. We should have been. I mean, had we understood earlier, these delays that we're having on the roaster side, I know we would, of course, two years back, have pushed that project much harder.
But that's easy to say now, when we were kind of looking at everybody having a similar end date for all the parts, and we were pushing them, but as we thought back then, kind of appropriately for the same closing time. So yes. There will be lots of learnings, but nothing kind of fundamentally that you should do. You should have built something else.
Oh, I see. I see. And just finally, but on your, you know, sort of capital requirement of, you know, you often speak about the ROIC above 10% in your projects, and you know, you're still saying that you reached that, you know, even with higher depreciation and on your long-term pricing. I just, I guess I'm not really, you know, getting the figures right, but.
But if you wanna make the very simple one, you if you take 150 EBITDA per year, then you have to. There will be, of course, some maintenance CapEx into this place as well, but we don't know exactly how much, but it will be relatively limited, and you divide that by 10.50, that's more than 10%.
Oh, so you don't have depreciation in that figure?
No. Usually, when you have a return, you look at, I mean, that's the base of IRR. If you look at the cash flow that you're returning, and you have to get a return on the invested capital.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Oh, I see.
So that's oversimplified.
Thank you very much.
Then there is a timing thing, so it takes a while before you spend the cash, and you start getting the positive return, so that reduces the number by a little bit, but we're still in safe, I would say, safe double-digit territory.
Okay. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Richard Hatch from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Oh, thanks. Yeah, just, I wondered if you could just give us a thought on the ramp-up of Odda. You know, you've mentioned that you expect to run at about two hundred thousand tons in the Q1 . So how should we think about how 2025 looks in terms of the ramp up? That'd be helpful. Thanks.
I was vague on this one before, and I was vague on purpose, and just to explain to you why I'm vague, is that it is actually wrong to think about a zinc smelter as something that's kind of proportional to the amount of zinc you put through, so that, you know, you have a kind of return proportional to getting up to 350, and if you get to 300, you get X% of this. Because there is quite a lot of mix on the concentrates, and how are we going to mix to get the best value out of this one? How are we gonna use the penalty elements to a maximum of what this new place can do?
How are we going to use the possibility for the leaching and get the value of the precious metals to the maximum? So apart from, you know, when you have the ramp up, there's one thing about, you know, can the equipment take this much amount of things? But it's also testing all these bottlenecks against the different recipes of feed that you're putting in, to make sure that you can run high mercury content things, and how much can you run until the mercury removal is full capacity and so on. And these things you will do over time. And we are quite good at these things normally, but it also can take some time, because sometimes you want to have a concentrate in there that you don't have, then you have to buy it.
So there are also commercial aspects to this thing. And therefore, why we are a little vague. We feel very good about this general situation, and we feel good about the fact that the concentrate markets are moving towards higher value, higher premiums for those who can extract more precious metals, which we can do lots in this new setup, and also those who can take lots of penalty elements, which we can also do in this setup. So we feel generally good about it, but we want to be a little bit vague about the ramp up, because we, of course, need to test all these things.
Okay, all right. Okay, we'll wait and see. Brilliant. Thanks for your help.
Yeah.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Johannes Grunselius from DNB. Please go ahead.
Yes, hi, everyone. It's Johannes here. I just have a question on the 100 million EUR incremental cost or new cost caused by the delay. Maybe I missed this information earlier, but is it incremental cost or is it more like a shift in timing of the costs that you foresaw Q4 that is now pushed into 2025? And why do you carry these costs now? If you can elaborate on that, please.
Number one, it is incremental CapEx. We're talking about SEK 100 million incremental CapEx. Some of that incremental is happening already in 2024, and some is happening in 2025, but I think that timing is not that important. The main carrier for the increased CapEx are things like cranes, camp, scaffolding, all these things that are quite a big fixed item that keeps on ticking for months in and months out, and that's actually a relatively large part, this kind of fixed cost. Then, as I said before, that's not all of it. Some of the hundred is also that we have some increase, especially piping, that has turned out to be more meters of pipe than we had in our original, you know, preliminary engineering, has turned out to be more when we have done the detail engineering.
That's part of it. That is also part of what is causing the delay, but more of the delay is caused by our sub-supplier not being, or suppliers not being able to stick to the timetable as agreed. Some of them will have some excuses that they might have been delayed in starting, and therefore, their people, their engineers onto other projects, and then coming back to us, and then starting later. Some others, you can say, have less excuses.
Okay, that's helpful, but it sounds to me that it's like a gray zone here, what's CapEx and what's OpEx, but it seems you decide to go for CapEx.
No, CapEx. You were talking about the EUR 100 million extra, that's CapEx.
Yeah, but it's because maybe I got it wrong because, of course, I understand the CapEx overrun, but you're also mentioning the press release about additional 100 million in increased OpEx. No?
No. Did we write that wrong?
The project cost. Okay, okay.
There's increased pro.
Okay.
That's not obvious. That is, and we're trying to say that this increased CapEx is mainly things. Now there are lots of people looking at the press release here, just to make sure we haven't written anything strange.
No, because you didn't cover it in the call. It's just, you know, when I read the press release, also in the Swedish version. But then it's no CapEx over, you know, incremental OpEx. It's just the CapEx overrun we're talking about.
Yeah.
It's only a CapEx overrun, and just we write that the delay means an increase of the cost of the project of EUR 100, and then the capital expenditure is still estimated to, et cetera. So that phrase, that sentence refers to the CapEx increase just to be very clear on that.
Okay, got you.
Yeah.
Very good.
Yeah.
Very good. Thank you.
We have no OpEx increase or potential OpEx increase. There is netted out in the hundred and fifty million of EBITDA.
Very clear. Very clear. Thanks.
There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the President and CEO, Mikael Staffas, for any closing comments.
Thank you all for listening to us this morning. It's of course never a pleasant thing to be having to come to the market and announce an overrun like this, but I would also like to put it in context. It is one project out of all the projects that we're doing, that we're having this with. The general set up of Boliden is still that we tend to run all our projects on CapEx and on time. And if you look at the whole thing, you can say that we're having maybe SEK 1 billion extra CapEx, compared to what you would have thought when you woke up this morning, over the two years, 2024 and 2025, going from SEK 28 billion to SEK 29 billion. That's the kind of what you should put in context.
So thank you, and have a great day, everybody, and we look forward to seeing many of you at the Capital Markets Day, when you get to see these things in reality, in action.