Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to welcome you to Boliden's Q1 2023 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 followed by our CFO, Håkan Gabrielsson. We will also have a Q&A session, which will be led by the operator. Mikael Staffas, welcome.
Thank you, Olof, and good morning to all of you coming here from Garpenberg, where we're gonna have our AGM in a few hours as well. It's a classical Swedish spring day today. When I woke up this morning, outside Garpenberg here, it was snow on the ground. We thought that hopefully we get some warm weather, but it's rainy and snowy this morning. But it feels good to be out here in the operations. Now, the results of today are, you can say, characterized by maybe not the best production quarter that we've had on the mine side.
We've had quite a few of, can you say, minor, in of itself, each of them minor production issues, but we've had too many of them in the quarter, and therefore, the production there is not what it should be. If we also focus on what has been good in the quarter, we've also had a good production in smelters, where we have really managed to establish the smelters on a level that is quite high, and if you look a few years back, on a level that we never thought we're gonna be able to have sustainably. We also have a good progress on our big projects, in the quarter, and they are all on schedule, to be able to deliver the way that they're expected to do.
All in all, we've had a profit and EBIT excluding process inventory valuation of just over SEK 3 billion. We have a cash flow that is close to zero, which is not too bad given the fact that we're investing the way that we are investing. As I said, the maybe the disappointment is the EBIT in the mines, and I'll come more into the details around that soon, whereas the smelters have had a strong EBIT level throughout the quarter. We talk about ESG and spend a little bit of time with that, which is also an area where we feel good and feel strong. In terms of LTI frequency, we have had the best quarter ever.
by the way, followed by the, you know, the Q4 last year, which was the best quarter ever at that time. We've had two very good quarters in a row, which makes us feel very good about that we are doing that one and coming into the right direction. We're also now up to 50 years of fatality-free operations, which is in itself unique in this industry. The sick leave that we've had problems with during COVID is turning the right direction. The level of 5.8 in the quarter is still a level that is too high, higher than the four that we have as our target, but clearly lower than last year and lower than what we saw in Q4 as well. Hopefully, we are now coming out of COVID times and getting back into track again.
CO2 emissions is doing really well as well. We've had actually a super quarter in the 1st quarter in terms of emissions. We are not too obsessed about every individual quarter, but of course, it's good that we're on the right direction to meet the targets that we set for ourselves for 2030. Of course, a good quarter like this makes we feel even stronger about the ability to be able to reach the targets as we see them coming forward. Prices and terms. Well, prices and terms as you can all know and all have read about beforehand, are still pretty good. Even though they have been down from what they were a year back, they're still on a decent level. The currencies are also holding up pretty strongly.
On top of that, we've gotten an improvement compared to last year of both zinc TCs and copper TCs with the benchmarks that now have been settled. If you look into the market around our main metals, you can also see that the prices are holding up very well. There are, as you can see, also increases in prices, also increasing cost along the cost curve. You should also know that this is net here of the cost net of byproducts. Of course, the higher gold price and the higher silver price is helping to keep the cost curve down so that you maybe don't see the exact impact of inflation.
You can say that all the price increases of the precious metals is being eaten up by inflation in this situation. If you start looking at our production and start looking with mines, we're not pleased with the production that we've seen in the quarter. We've had disturbances in most of our operations. We've had disturbances in Aitik, where we've had a failure in a conveyor belt during the quarter. That meant that we had an unplanned maintenance stop that we needed to do. We had the same in Tara, by the way, also a conveyor belt that meant that we had to have an unplanned maintenance stop.
Here in Garpenberg, we'd had problems early in the quarter with the hoist, then towards the end of the quarter, we had problems with the primary mill in the concentrator that caused us problems and we needed to take an extra unplanned maintenance stops for that as well. In the Boliden Area, we've had an unusual winter in the sense that it's been cold. That's not new, but it was also warm. When you have warm and cold, you get melting snow coming into the ore, and that then froze it, froze, and we have problems getting ore into the mill in the speed that we wanted to. Finally, in Kevitsa, we've had problem with the primary crusher.
The ore production is actually very good, and it's been piling up, and we have a ROM pad that is well and full now going forward. Of course, the throughput was not quite what we wanted in the quarter. The grades, there are some ups and downs. I think it's actually better than what we have guided for the full year, which is good. Here in Garpenberg, the grades are slightly lower, which is linked to the issues that we've had with the production because it meant that in order for us to keep the production up as much as possible, we had to go to some re-reserve stopes that had lower grades, but they were more easily available to be able to truck up the ore when we had problem with the hoist. On the smelter side, situation is much better.
The zinc smelters have actually performed very well, as well as the lead smelter in Bergsöe. The copper smelters have had some issues in the quarter because in Harjavalta we have not had a perfect feed mix, and this is partially due to ourselves, but also due to the transport strike that was in the Finnish ports, which meant that we did not get all the deliveries we want to, and we had to make do what we had available, and therefore we had to do this not so perfect feed mix and what we felt feed it into the smelter. All in all, the production situation in smelters is relatively good. With that, I'll leave it over to you, Håkan, to get into the financial summary.
Thank you, Mikael, and good morning. As Mikael talked about, we've released a quarterly result of just about 3 billion SEK. Compared to last year, we are down about 1.5 billion SEK, mainly due to grades and prices. I'll come back to that. Sequentially comparing to Q4, we're slightly down on the EBITDA and EBIT excluding process inventories, but slightly up on the EBIT number. Investments are high, 2.9 billion SEK, in line with our annual guiding. Free cash flow, slightly negative, which in itself is a bit better than we expected. I'll come back to that as well. Looking by business area, as you can see in the chart to the left here, it is a weaker result in the mining side.
As Mikael talked about, we have established a smelting division on a profitability level, on a profit level, for five quarters now that we have not seen earlier in the history. If we dive in then to a comparison quarter-to-quarter and start with the comparison to the same quarter last year, we have a positive price in terms deviations. There is a big negative on the metal prices side, about SEK 1.1 billion. A large part of that is offset by more favorable currencies. We also have a good development of the treatment charges and the metal premium, which adds up to this number. Volume-wise, looking at the year-over-year perspective one year back, the main cause behind the negative SEK 663 there is lower grades.
A big part of that has been guided for. We are mining at lower grades in Aitik compared to one year back, and we are mining below reserve grades in Kevitsa as well. In addition, as Mikael talked about, there has been some process disturbances in the zinc smelters. That means that we temporarily have been mining in lower grade areas, both when it comes to zinc and silver. Again, in a year-over-year perspective, we see a significant inflation, or cost increase, SEK 1 billion, a bit more than SEK 1 billion. Of this, about SEK 750 million is inflation. We look at a 16% cost increase. In that 16% cost increase, that includes the normal inflation that we see on consumers and other purchases.
It includes salary revisions, and it also include about SEK 250 million higher electricity costs. I mean, that is price related, but also the fact that the Tara Mine has a lower hedge rate right now and are more exposed to market prices. We also have invested a bit more in exploration, and as a result of the disturbances we talked about, we have somewhat higher spare parts costs in the quarter. If we then move over to the sequential comparison and look at Q1 compared to Q4, again, you see a positive price effect here, SEK 266. That is in fact primarily metal premiums that are up SEK 240 million compared to Q4. A continued strong development of the premium and a strong European market, primarily in zinc.
When it comes to metal prices, it's slightly up. The average prices are clearly up, I'm sure you have seen. As many of you know, we are exposed to quarter end prices, especially for metals with long quotational periods, which is a result of our pricing method. Nickel and palladium are down about 20% quarter end compared to quarter end, and that actually adds up to a negative impact of around SEK 400 million between the quarters. Volumes are down SEK 800 million, and in the shorter perspective Q4 to Q1, the main reason is the disturbances that Mikael talked about and lower mill volume. We've had conveyors in Tara, Aitik, and mill maintenance in Garpenberg and so on.
The smelters had a fairly good quarter. Volumes are slightly down compared to last quarter for two reasons. One is that last quarter we had some one-off revenues connected to reducing to a reduction of gold inventories. We talked about that in a previous call, and that has not sort of been repeated in this quarter. Additionally, we didn't have an ideal concentrate mix in the quarter in smelters. This is a result of some logistical disturbances, delayed transports in, and a part of that is the Finnish strike that has had some impact as well in the quarter. Cash flow slightly negative, which is an effect of the EBITDA level and the fact that we're investing this year on record levels.
We were expecting slightly higher capital bid. We typically do that in Q1, as you can see, Q1 of last year, we tied about SEK 3 billion in working capital. We had some big shipments that were delayed coming in late in the quarter. That means that they were not paid at the quarter end. We came in significantly better than our own plans in the working capital side, but we have seen that outflow in the beginning of Q2. Finally, the capital structure, the balance sheet, and the financing, still strong position. Net debt close to zero. We are currently also at about SEK 26 billion in payment capacity. Half of that it's cash. We feel that we are in a strong position when it comes to our financials.
With that, Mikael, hand over to you again.
Well, thank you, Håkan. I will just, very quickly come to the forward-looking page and just say that this is nothing new here. We are reiterating the guidance for the full year at Aitik on the grades and at the throughput. We are reiterating the guidance for Garpenberg regarding grade and throughput. We are reiterating the guidance for Kevitsa. The maintenance shutdown is reiterated as it was before. The inflation is the one that might be more difficult to talk about. We clearly see a tapering off of inflation. As we move forward into the year now, we will get higher, you know, higher quarters from last year to compare with.
Exactly the speed of this tapering off and exactly level is actually pretty difficult to have an idea about right now, but we should hopefully be heading back to more normal levels regarding inflation. On CapEx, there is no new guidance. We have the close to SEK 15 billion for the full year, out of which about half is with our three bigger projects. With that, I will invite you all for questions, and I also invite Håkan to come up to the table here.
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 again on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Adrian Gilani from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.
ABG. Two questions from my end. First of all, you mentioned the several sort of smaller unplanned stops in the mines. Are you able to say if any of these spilled over into Q2, or were all of them resolved during Q1?
Just everything is into to Q1. The only one that was still remaining, and that will have some minor impact in the beginning of Q2 is the mill here in Garpenberg. We had that maintenance shut down to fix that right in the kind of end of, end of Q1, early Q2.
Okay. Thanks. You mentioned the small impact from the Finnish strikes, in Q1. Have there been any notable effects, specifically on Odda from the large Norwegian strikes we've seen in April?
No. we were not affected in any material matter in the operations. Regarding the project, there were some things, but I think we can make up for those small delays that came into the project.
Okay. Perfect. Thank you.
The next question comes from Ioannis Masvoulas from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks for the presentation. A couple of questions from my side. The first on cost inflation and probably one for Håkan. I think for Q1, you had mentioned annual cost inflation of around 10%, and today you were talking about 16%. Are those two numbers comparable? If so, what's driving this additional cost inflation? Maybe some indication for the second quarter if we think about the annual development, that would be very helpful. Secondly, on the labor negotiations
I believe for Norway, you mentioned a 4.5% increase in 2023 versus 2022. What about the negotiations for 2024? Can you also provide an update across the other regions? Lastly, on Tara. You talked about the higher energy costs. We've also seen zinc prices coming under some pressures. Premiums are moderating and PCs have lifted. Where does that leave us when it comes to Tara's EBITDA and cash generation, and how are we think about the operating run rates in today's margin environment? Thank you.
Should I start with the inflation side?
You will, yeah.
The 16% I talked about was an all-in number, including a significant part of energy and Tara, for instance, had about SEK 75 million higher energy cost than usual or than last year. When it comes to inflation, it is somewhat difficult to predict, and it did come in higher than the guidance that we talked about. One reason is that the market prices have increased a bit more than we expected. There is also a time lag. We see that, between development of the market until it gets into our contracts and until we've actually procured it and taken it out of our stock and used it and showed it to the P&L, there is a time lag.
I think we also underestimated that time lag slightly. It is tapering off. We will not provide a guidance for an exact number, but it is coming down from the current level that we are at. I guess that answers the first part.
Yeah. I can just say that it is difficult with the timing effects on these things, so you have to bear with us. As you said, we're tapering off the inflation. Labor negotiations, we do have a central agreement in Norway in place for the next year. It came in to be slightly more expensive than I think the 4.5% we had guided for before. I think we've been talking about 2024 over 2023. It's more like 5%-5.5% rather than 4.5%. We have had central negotiations in Sweden and Finland that have all come to an end.
In Sweden, it's about 7.5% over two years, so it's about a little bit more than four and then a little bit less than three and a half for the second year. In Finland, it's about 7% for the same two-year period. We should be clear that those two are the central negotiations in Sweden and in Finland. There is still some local negotiations that needs to be done. We don't know exactly what they will cost, but not so much. On Tara, we do have a suggested agreement, a tentative, we should say, agreement with the unions. That one still needs to go to a member vote, so it's not done yet. Regarding Tara in general, yes, it's right. Tara is being put under pressure in these kind of situations.
We are, of course, working hard to make sure that we mitigate the situation as much as possible. Of course, you know, the question from you was, are we looking into putting Tara in care maintenance? The answer is, like always, that we're always looking at that, but as long as the zinc price stays where they are now, we are not close to a situation like that.
Thanks very much.
Thanks very much.
The next question comes from Liam Fitzpatrick from DB. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Two or three questions from me. The first one, just, I guess a general question on the mines. It was clearly not a great quarter. Were you just unlucky in that multiple things happened at the same time, or could your assets be just at a stage in their life where, you know, more sustaining CapEx is gonna be needed going forward, you know, just to handle some of these issues? The second question is just on the zinc TCs, probably for Håkan.
Just wanted to understand how much of both the zinc and the copper TCs is reflected in the Q1 numbers for both the mines and the smelters, just to give us a steer on what that could mean for or what that should mean for Q2. The final third question, just in terms of the guidance, you have reiterated it in terms of throughput and grades. In terms of Kevitsa, just given the Q1, it looks like a stretch to, you know, to get to that 10 million tons. Can you just give us a feel for your, I guess, your confidence level and how that can be achieved?
Similarly on Aitik, should we forget about 45 million tons throughput as a target this year, or could you achieve that, later in this year? Thank you.
Okay, let me start with the first question, and these kind of general questions. Of course, when we have these kind of failures and so many in a quarter, of course, we've been looking to see if there's some kind of common root cause and if there's some kind of coordination between these. The only way that we looked at is that these are, you know, unsynchronized events that happen to happen at the same time. Then you can have a question, do we generally have a problem that we are, as you said, and we're hinting that we have an issue that we would be having a problem that we're under-maintained, and we could look at these kind of things happening more frequently in the future. The answer is systematically, no. We have not seen that we have a systematic issue.
It doesn't mean that we cannot do maintenance better. Maintenance is a constant thing to deal with. It is we don't really have that feel. Now, another thing that you should be aware of that, of course, is a little bit of a downside is that we have been extremely successful, especially here in Garpenberg, of being able to expand from two and a half to three to 3.3 million tons with very minor investments. While doing that, we have, of course, stretched the bottlenecks. Something like this that we're talking about right now about the mill, had it been two or three years ago, we might never have mentioned it 'cause we had overcapacity to catch up.
Now we don't really have overcapacity in that sense in the mill, which means that when we do get a disturbances, it will be felt right away. It will be difficult to be able to catch up. Yes, to that extent, we are stretching it. We don't have as much free capacity in some of these bottlenecks as we used to have. Regarding Kevitsa throughput, I'm not nervous at all. We have actually, as I said, been mining fairly well. We have a large inventory of ore on the ground. As we come going forward here and we get more availability up on the primary crusher, that should not be a big issue whatsoever. Aitik throughput at 45. Yes, 45 is always a stretch.
Think that had we had normal quarters that should be quite achievable, and we should be able to achieve the 45 pace going forward in Aitik as well. You had the question on TCs, and I'll leave that to you, Håkan.
Sure. If you take Q4, where when we had the old TCs as a sort of base period, then we had a negative deviation of SEK 74 in mines. They pay more. That reflects a full quarter of new TC. You should expect similar levels next quarter. Smelters had a positive deviation compared to Q4 of about SEK 110. I think it was SEK 111 million. That is about half of the quarter with new TCs and half with old. You should expect basically twice that amount for next quarter.
Okay. Thank you. Bye.
The next question comes from Amos Fletcher from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Morning, guys. Thanks for the opportunity. A couple of questions. The first one was on Kevitsa. Just looking at the grades, they were pretty weak, and I think the guidance implies they're supposed to be close to reserve levels this year, which implies quite a step up. Can you just give us an update on what we should be expecting for 2023 in terms of grades? And then also just wondering if there's any update on the Laver permit process? Thanks very much.
Regarding the grades in Kevitsa, we should be able to come back to something that's more close to the reserve grades. That should not be an issue. Regarding Laver, on the formal things, they're not much changing, but there are things happening underground, or under the surface, I should say, not underground. Those of you who are in Sweden will know that there is a suggestion from a government investigation to change the Swedish Mining Code. That one will be out for circulation, the ambition for the government has been stated clearly to change the law by next summer, so by summer of 2024, which would fit well.
If that were to happen, we will be able to move ahead with the mining concession application well. Things can always happen in these legacy procedures, maybe we will not get the law changed in time. That means that we need to have plans Bs and Cs, yes, we're working on plans Bs and Cs as well around how to handle that and how to get a mining concession. We have a time constraint that is October of 2024, we need to have the new mining concession in place because the exploration rights that we have will expire. that's the situation. Those who have been around know that this is, I'm gonna say, just a mining concession. We have not even started even applying for environmental permit yet.
That's, of course, a process that needs to start after that. Given what is happening on the European stage, we feel there's a good chance that we could get Laver designated as a strategic asset. If it were to be so that the European legislation moves ahead with the Critical Raw Materials Act, we will qualify for that status, which means that we are entitled to get our environmental permit within 24 months of applying. I don't know if that was a good enough explanation for you or update for you.
Yeah. That's great. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Danielle Chigumira from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Hi there. Thanks for taking my questions. Just a couple from my side. On working capital, you mentioned a lower than expected build in Q1. Could you quantify for us what builds you'd expect in Q2 and then maybe for the balance of the year? Secondly, I think in the text you mentioned a 0.2 billion SEK additional CapEx for Kristineberg. Will this all hit 2024?
I can take the second one. The answer is that they will not hit 2023, so yes, it will hit 2024. That will come in there. As that, by the way, can just mention that is clearly in line with the inflation that we've seen in other sites. We just have waited a little bit longer than we've done with the other projects for this update. Regarding the working capital build, I'll leave that for you, Håkan.
Yeah, if we start with the full year, as you know, there is a seasonality, so I'm not going to give an exact number, but I can say where we stood at the year-end. On the inventory side, we had fairly low zinc inventory and low nickel inventory, so there is some build to get back to normal in inventories. We also had clearly higher payables than what we expected, which is perhaps the big part of the build in Q2. I mean, first quarter last year, we had a working capital build of SEK 3 billion. That was in connection to, or that was like a combination of higher prices and build.
Let's say that we were expecting, as an order of the magnitude half of that build this quarter. That I think you should now feed into Q2 instead.
Very clear. Thank you.
The next question comes from Daniel Major from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Yeah, thanks for the question. Just first one, a quick clarification, Håkan, on your comment on the earnings sensitivity on the treatment charge into the second quarter. Did you say it was an extra SEK 100 million delta or SEK 200 million? Just to clarify that. Sorry.
I said that, in Q1, we had a positive impact of SEK 100, that was based on half of the concentrate coming with 2022 prices and half with new prices. I expect SEK 200 in total going forward when you have the full year impact. On the smelting side, then you have a negative, let's say SEK 75 on mines.
Okay. 100 higher quarter-on-quarter in smelters?
Correct.
Great. Thanks. The second question, just on the smelting business kind of more broadly, I mean, if we look at the progression in either quarterly or annual EBIT or EBITDA run rates, you know, rebased meaningfully higher. You know, if we look 2023, 2024, is there any reason, you know, to believe we shouldn't see these similar sort of run rates of quarterly or annual earnings from the smelting business sustained?
I mean, the answer is that and if you look at the short term, you know, bearing in mind that we're gonna have the annual maintenance shutdowns coming up now, but if you have that one on the side, no, you should be able to expect continued delivery on similar levels, as we have seen. As we come into the later part of 2024, this should of course go up as we will, start to wind up the investment in Odda.
Super. Thanks. Then, final one, longer term strategic question, but obviously seeing M&A activity in the space accelerate to an extent, you know, you've historically been, you know, acquisitive at the right times. Can you give us any insight on how M&A fits in the capital allocation sort of framework at the moment? You've obviously got quite a high CapEx this year, but easing off next year, more zinc smelting capacity to fill with the Odda expansion. How are you thinking about M&A in the context of the, I guess, changing landscape in the sector?
M&A has always been and will continue to be an opportunistic situation for us. We're not driven primarily by the fact that we would have a constraint on cash or have ample of cash. We're looking at doing M&A if we find the right deal that will create value, we will be interested in doing it. It's not a major part of our strategy. The major part of our strategy is the organic growth that we can create. As you said, we are pretty busy. It's not that we need more things to do, but if there were to be an M&A opportunity showing up that would be considered by us to be value creating, we will be looking at that one disregarding of where we are in the cycle.
All right. Thanks.
The next question comes from Christian Kopfer from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.
Thanks a lot. Just a few follow-up from my side. Firstly, do I understand you correctly, considering that you have had so much disturbances in the quarter that you expect more or less all of the mines to have higher production mill-wide in Q2 versus Q1?
Hello? Yes. Did you hear me?
No. No, I didn't hear your answer, no.
Okay, sorry. I think the answer is yes. I think we get some sign here from the technicians there was something happened with the connection there. Go ahead, Christian, I think now I hear you again.
Okay. My question, my first question is, if I understood you correctly, that you expect all of the mines to produce stronger volumes mill-wise in Q2 versus Q1?
Yes. The answer is yes.
Okay. Then, if you can have some guidance on what you expect, I think it was Håkan that mentioned that you had that quite big tailwind from a metal premium single smelters, in Q1 versus Q4. Do you still expect some positive numbers there in Q2, or how do you view that?
It is on longer contracts. Not all of them annual contracts, but most of it is on annual contracts. We should be able to keep a similar level going forward.
When you say similar level, do you, so you mean basically zero impact or a bigger positive impact also to Q2 versus Q1?
Versus Q1? Well, we have most of the impact already in Q1. Basically a continued advantage compared to last year, not necessarily an increase compared to Q1.
Okay. then finally, when it comes to TCRCs, what do you see in terms of impact, sequentially in Q2?
I think, yeah, we had that partially on an earlier question. The net, I mean, part of Q1 is on last year's TCs, and we expect roughly another SEK 100 million on the smelting side from Q2 and onwards to reflect the full quarter impact.
Okay. Okay, that's great. Thanks.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad. Please state your name and company. Please go ahead.
Hi, this is Krishan from Citigroup. Most of my question have been answered, but a quick follow-up on, you know, Daniel's question on the CapEx. You're saying that Kristineberg CapEx is going to hit the 2024 cash flow. In that context, I mean, I'm not asking for the guidance, if you look at the consensus, there is a 25% step down in the CapEx for 2024 to around, you know, SEK 10.5 billion. Do you guys feel comfortable with that level of, you know, CapEx expectation for next year? There is a bit of a, you know, bump coming because of the general cost inflation you are flagging?
I think generally regarding the CapEx levels for 2024, we'll come back to that in the fall. What we have said and what is of course true, and I think is part of those guidance numbers, is that the three big projects that we have are tapering off. They have their maximum year in 2023. Of course, naturally, if there were to be no other new projects coming online, we would see a reduction of CapEx. If it's gonna be at that level that you just mentioned or not, we'll come back to later.
I think just adding to that, Mikael, out of the seven and a half billion that we have for these three big projects, about SEK 4 billion is expected to come for next year. There is a reduction there. Then you're right, on the remaining seven and a half billion, the sort of ongoing mine-sustaining CapEx, there is an inflation component. It remains to be seen how much that inflation is when we get to the later part of the year, but we'll come back to that number.
Okay. 10.5, 11 will definitely have that inflation component. Understand. Final question, if I can now just now push you a little bit. You guided for 16% or the actual inflation in Q1 was 16%, and you're saying, there are a lot of uncertainties. Would it be okay if you were to extrapolate, you know, 16% cost inflation for Q2 and then kind of a step down in the second half, purely from a cost inflation point of view?
I think I would put it this way, we had a, we had an increase connected to prices that it was about 16%. In there, electricity was a pretty significant one. There it's not only market prices, it's also the fact that we are running out the hedge portfolio in Tara specifically that had an impact. When it comes to what we see on the markets, on general purchases, excluding electricity and excluding personnel expenses, it is about 14% in Q1 looking back. Then on the salary side, Mikael talked about the various revisions. That is where we stand. Given the fact that there is a time lag between markets developments until it ends up in our P&L, we see it tapering off.
If you look back for last year also, there was a pretty big uptick in inflation in Q2 of last year. Of course, we get a higher comparison quarter as we look at Q2 numbers year-on-year.
Yeah. Okay. Actually helpful. Thank you.
The next question comes from Ioannis Masvoulas from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi again. Just a couple of follow-ups from my side. The first one talking about again the operating profit bridge. I see a negative delta from by-product prices, and I just wanted to check how much of that relates to sulfuric acid and any indication that you could provide for the second quarter on acid. Secondly, Håkan, you talked about the lower hedge ratio for Tara. Can you talk about where you were in Q1 and how that energy hedge ratio tapers off for the balance of the year? Thank you.
Well starting with the number on byproducts, I don't have the exact part that is sulfuric acid, but it is the main part of this number. It has come down a bit compared to the higher numbers that we saw last year. I'm not going to be able to give a forecast for the coming quarters, but just confirming that it's mainly sulfuric acid that we're looking at that line. The question was about the hedge ratio in Tara. We have been able to close some so to lock in some parts. Mikael, do you know the exact rate that we are at?
No, we are building.
Yeah.
Just to be clear on Tara, we had a similar situation as in Tara with everywhere else, where we have a portfolio that is taking us to 80% for the next 24 months. Lots of that was tapering off, as we came into 2022, it was impossible to lock in any kind of prices that we're at all interested. We decided not to go into any hedges during 2022. We came into 2023, basically at the market prices, which was a big problem. The beginning of Q3 has gotten lesser problem over time, we've also started to build the book. Again, to build up to our normal hedge level as we are now more to normal prices in Ireland. Exactly where we are in that book building, I do not know. It's coming up again.
Great. Thanks again.
The next question comes from Liam Fitzpatrick from DB. Please go ahead.
Morning again. I guess it's the danger when you let analysts ask, too many questions. Two more from my side. On the working capital, I think you're guiding us to an increase in Q2, given there wasn't much of a build in Q1. Can you give us some sort of range at this stage? The second question is, just on disclosure, and I'm sure you've had this question before, but what is your latest thinking on reporting quarterly results by mine and by smelter? You know, something that most of your major peers do. Thank you.
Yeah. When it comes to working capital, I was comparing with Q1 of last year when we built SEK 3 billion. We weren't expecting quite as big build this year because last year also had a price component in there. Let's assume that SEK 1.5 billion would be kind of a normal build in Q1. That is what we've now pushed into Q2. So we should expect another release during the later part of the year.
Yeah. I will just finish off by saying that we do not have any, at least not for now, any plans to change any of our disclosure or any of our forecast guiding going forward. I think that we are, at least for the time being, gonna stick to the formula that we have used so far. With that, I think that we've come to an end. I'm looking at the technicians there just to make sure I haven't missed anything. I think that we're at the end of the line. Thank you all very much for listening. I hope that you will have a very good day. Hopefully better weather where you are compared to where we are, but we're gonna enjoy having an AGM here anyway.
I think that we've just passed a quarter, where things have been very good regarding the projects and also regarding smelters, but where we had some challenges on the production on the mining side. We look forward to being able to talk to you all guys in a quarter from now with some more better news than this time. Thank you all. Bye-bye.