Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to welcome you to Boliden's Q3 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 our CFO, Håkan Gabrielsson. We will also have a Q&A session, which will start here in Stockholm. Mikael, the stage is yours.
Thank you, Olof, and welcome everybody out there as well. It's good to have you here, it's good to have you in a rainy Stockholm today, and it's good to be able to present these results that we have here today. If we start with the key highlights, I mean, just not to forget that we are in a situation where the prices and terms are challenging. They're especially challenging for the mines, given the relatively low metal prices and also relatively high treatment charges. For the smelters, of course, the lower metal prices also play in, but the relatively high treatment charges make things relatively easier from a prices and terms point of view for the smelters. Otherwise, we've had a stable mining rate going in our mines, with the exception of Aitik.
Aitik has had an extra long maintenance stop that was unplanned, and it's also had a problem with the rope shovel. Apart from Aitik, the production and throughput is good in the mines. The grades are low and they are low as guided, and also in Garpenberg, maybe lower than perceived, but it's still within what you can say, normal differences. We've had very strong nickel production in Harjavalta. I'm very pleased that the nickel production has come back up to speed again after the expansion that we did that had a long time to ramp up. Now, we're fully ramped up, and we'll see when we come into the smelter part around exactly how good that has gone. The production in Rönnskär has also ramped up nicely during the quarter.
Of course, it started very low after the fire, but we've been able to ramp that up, and I'll come back to that. The projects that we have, our big projects, are all doing well. They're all more or less on budget and on time. We'll come back a little bit to them later in the presentation, but things are generally going well there as well. On the financial performance, we do have a profit of almost SEK 2 billion. That's, of course, much lower than it was last year, but it's a good pick-up and recovery from what we had last quarter. The cash flow is negative, and that's, of course, the situation where you're doing big investment projects that we're doing right now.
We are, as you can say, also, in these market conditions, almost able to fully finance that from internal cash flows, which we are also happy about. CapEx is moving, as I said, according to plan, of about SEK 3.5 billion or SEK 3.6 billion in the quarter. Altogether, the EBIT is at SEK 1,940, the mines at SEK 750, and the smelters at SEK 1,303. If you look on health and safety, we are also having a good development. The lost time injury frequency in the quarter was low, and as you start looking at rolling 12 numbers here, we are on record low levels, which we feel good about. The sick leave rate is not really coming off as quickly as we would have hoped after the pandemic.
I don't think that we're the only company around that has challenges to get the sick leave down again. We're working hard on that topic around how to see that we can get that down to levels that we saw before the pandemic. The CO2 emissions in absolute numbers look very good. This is, of course, partially due to the fact that we have put certain operations in care and maintenance, but also, if you look at our CO2 program and how we are working to get our CO2 emissions down in line with the science-based targets until 2030, we are performing well and progressing well in our program there.
On the market side, the year-over-year, of course, we have a clearly lower prices and terms, especially on the zinc side, which is hitting certain aspects more than others. We have strong premiums, and we have declining by-product prices, which is also playing into this role, and by-products, of course, remain in the sulphuric acid. We have a positive currency, and that's mainly the weak Swedish krona, which is helping the operations in Sweden specifically. If you look what's happening in the world, you can see there are actually quite a lot of changes going on right now.
On the copper side, you can see that the cost level of the 90th percentile is coming up relatively sharply, probably due to inflation and other issues that helping this one coming up, and will provide, at some stage, a floor also to copper prices. On the zinc side, you can see that the zinc prices are now down to levels where you're approaching the cash cost curve and the 90th percentile. The 90th percentile looks like it's going down. It looks like zinc mines around the world are doing lots of good things to cut costs down. That's probably not the case. This is due to the fact that silver prices are actually pretty strong compared to last year, which cuts down the cash cost of zinc. On nickel, you can see the big diversion.
Number one, you can see also that the price level is clearly down into the cost curves on the nickel side, and you see especially that the high-cost nickel mines have increasing cost levels. If you then look at the mines, we've had a 10 million ton production in the quarter in Aitik, which is lower than it was last year and lower than it was last quarter as well. As I said in the beginning, we've had challenges with a maintenance stop that took longer than it should have in the mill, and we've had issues with one of the rope shovels. Those things are now under control, and we should be moving on relatively well forward. We are at low grades at 0.17.
This is exactly as guided, and we feel good about generally about the guidance of the grades in Aitik. In Garpenberg, we also had strong volumes. We are clearly producing to the 3.3 pace that we are supposed to do. We've had some rock mechanical challenge in the quarter, which meant that we've had some high-grade stopes that we could not access. We've been able to replace that tonnage by other tonnage that we had in the mine to be able to get the strong throughput, but that has hurt grades, so the grades were down to 3.0 in the quarter.
In Kevitsa, we've also had a very strong production quarter, 2.7 million tonnes through the mill, which is on a higher pace than our 10 million tonnes per year environmental permit, which has all been good. The grades are low. But they are in line with what we guided for in the last result. Boliden Area has had strong production, and Tara has been in care and maintenance. With this all in all, of course, our zinc production goes down with Tara being in care and maintenance. Otherwise, you can see the nickel production picking up from the pickup in the Kevitsa mine production. On the smelter side, of course, in Harjavalta, the really positive thing is the record nickel production that you see here. You see it down to the right.
Of course, it's by far margin, the best quarter ever. This is a combination of the fact that we have now gotten the expansion project that was done ramped up, and it's working really well. We've also had quite good feed in here with relatively high nickel content that has also helped to bring this nickel in matte up very high. While nickel was doing good, we've had some challenges with the feed of copper in Harjavalta. We've had some unplanned maintenance that we've had to do there to be able to handle it, and we lost production there.
We also have an increased utilization rate in the tank house in Harjavalta because we do have some overcapacity there or have had, and we're taking now anodes from Rönnskär to Harjavalta, and thus, the production of cathodes is very strong. In Rönnskär, the ramp-up and production has gone very well. Of course, the cell house is not producing. It's down and is burnt down. I'll come back to that later. The rest of the operations have gradually, during the quarter, picked up to more or less full production of anodes. This you can see in the picture up to the right. Of course, you see cathode production coming down as we don't have any cathodes coming anymore from Rönnskär. It's only the Harjavalta cathodes that are shown there.
If you look on anodes, you can see a pickup again from the lower levels in Q2, where we've gotten more anode production now starting up in Rönnskär and in Harjavalta. We feel good about that, and we will start talking more about anode production going forward, as that is also now a more relevant number for the total production level. In the zinc smelters, we've generally had good production. There has been some challenges with getting the right feed in there. There's been a combination of the fact that Tara fell away, and of course, you need to get replacements, and you need to get replacement of the right quality. We've gotten that, but maybe with some delay.
We also had a challenge that we had problems in the Panama Canal, so things coming from South America, and we had delay of zinc concentrate deliveries during the quarter. With that, I will leave it over to you, Håkan, to talk about the financial summary. Welcome, Håkan.
Thank you, Mikael, and again, welcome. It's good to see you all. Let me dive in a little bit more and give some flavor on the financial results. As you've seen, we report an EBIT, excluding process inventories of just shy of SEK 2 billion, capital expenditure of close to SEK 3.6 billion, and a negative cash flow of SEK 1.2 billion. Looking at this per segment or by business area, mines reached a profit of SEK 750 million. That's clearly up compared to Q2, and this is due to reduced losses in Tara as a result of the care and maintenance decision, and also improved results in Garpenberg, Boliden, and Kevitsa. On the smelting side, again, that's an improvement compared to Q2.
We had some one-offs related to the Rönnskär fire, and we also had a quarter of heavy maintenance. All in all, that adds up to SEK 1,940. Looking at the changes quarter-to-quarter then, and starting with Q3 of this year compared to Q3 2022, prices and terms, when you put everything together, is more or less flat. We have lower metal prices, but we have a stronger US dollar, and we have higher metal premiums offsetting that. In this, of course, we don't include the impact of the cost inflation. That is further down on the chart. Volumes are down significantly. Out of that, a big part is explained by the care and maintenance in Tara and the burnt down cell house in Rönnskär.
Those two together makes up about SEK 850 million quarter three to quarter three last year. Then grades represent SEK 750 million here. Costs are actually lower than the previous year. Again, Tara and Rönnskär makes up a big part, about SEK 300 million positive due to the care and maintenance decision there. We also have lower costs for energy and consumables. If you add everything together, purchase materials, when you look at energy consumables and other purchase material, inflation, quarter three this year to quarter three last year is close to zero. Which then, of course, follows a number of quarters with very high inflation.
Moving on to a sequential comparison, Q3 to Q2. Again, relatively limited movements on the price side. We have a stronger dollar that helps us, but all in all, fairly small changes. Volumes are slightly down. Tara and Rönnskär more than explains the full change. Apart from that, there are some moving parts. We have lower grades in Garpenberg. We have slightly lower mill throughput in Aitik, but we have better throughput in a number of sites, and we have lower impact from maintenance stops. Costs, SEK 1 billion down compared to Q2. Again, half of that amount is explained by Tara and Rönnskär. Out of the remaining SEK 500 million, that is evenly distributed between a lower impact from maintenance stop, lower energy and consumable prices, and seasonally lower costs that we typically see in Q3.
We also, in this comparison, have a positive impact due to the one-offs that we took in Q2. Cash flow, as you saw on the first slide, SEK -1.2, and that is a function of a high investment level and an earnings level that is slightly lower. Working capital was fairly stable in the quarter. As you know, we had a challenging situation where material piled up in late Q2 as a result of the fire in Rönnskär. That continued in the earlier parts of this quarter, but towards the end, we've been able to release more of that as Rönnskär have picked up in production.
This -SEK 400 working capital here, that is basically a function of currencies and prices for those relevant products. All in all, inventories are still on an elevated level. The capital structure is strong. We have a gearing of 22%, and we have a payment capacity of SEK 12 billion. We feel good about the balance sheet, also in this period of high investments and unexpected events in Rönnskär. Good shape. With that, I think, Mikael, if you take the investments, right?
Yes.
Mm-hmm. There you go.
Thank you, Håkan. On the investments, yeah, we've spoken about the SEK 3.6 billion CapEx in the quarter. Otherwise, the expansions are on track. We are still working on the Odda to have it commissioned on the second half of next year, and we're still working on the EUR 850 million budget. The Aitik dam project is also on track. What is on track here means that we are be able to do it fast enough so that we will not get any interruption, and we will not have to stop the production in Aitik. That's working fine, although the project itself is going slower than initially planned, which in this case is good because we've gotten some other leeways. That means that we don't have to do all the activities as we thought until mid-2024.
We can probably work all of 2024 to get them out, and we have, thus, reduced activities somewhat compared to original plans. The Rävliden project is also on track. It has already started to produce from Rävliden, going through the old infrastructure. Then we are ready with the new infrastructure in Q1 of 2025 for fossil-free mining there. Now, the full year capital expenditure, we are number one. We are repeating the SEK 15 billion for the full year as we've had before. Just to get some flavor on that, that SEK 15, given that we are now measuring this in Swedish krona, we have quite a lot of investments that are done locally in Norway, actually in Europe, because that's the base currency that we have there and also then in euros in Finland.
That 15 would have everything as equal just due to currencies, would have been 16, but we have roughly SEK 1 billion that we have pushed out that's not been done this year or will not be done this year as originally planned, and a part of that is actually in Aitik. For next year, we are now guiding for SEK 14 billion, we'll come to that in a later slide, and that SEK 14 billion should be seen as SEK 1 billion being pushed over from this year. Then, of course, also we will continue to have, and now we will take that into account, a worse currency situation that was maybe originally thought. Generally, a very good situation in the projects.
On Rönnskär, as I said before, I'm number one, extremely pleased with how this has worked, given the situation that we had in the end of last quarter. The transformation from selling cathodes to selling anodes from a commercial point of view has gone as smooth as anybody could have thought. We have basically managed to handle the fact that all of our customers who take cathodes don't get any cathodes anymore. We've been able to handle that from a, you know, customer relations point of view. We've been able to handle that, sometimes buying cathodes and selling it to our customers to keep them supplied, sometimes helping to find other solutions, without, I would say, any kind of big upheaval. We've also managed to find new customers for anodes, which is a totally different set of customers.
Been able to build up a book around that, that is stronger than we would maybe initially have feared regarding this. The redundancies will be there, and redundancy negotiations with the unions are still ongoing at this stage, and we will come back once they are finished with more details regarding them. There is a loss of refining charges, of course. There's a loss of free metals with the commercial terms being different for selling, you know, purified metals. Premiums are also being lost. It's, of course, partially offset by lower variable cost, but that's all in all, a negative, which is roughly SEK 1 billion per year of Swedish krona worse situation in Rönnskär, compared to if you would have had a tank house, so about SEK 250 on average per quarter.
The working capital level will also be increased all in all because of the fact that you don't have a situation where you can take an anode from the casting directly into a tank house next door and have very short delivery terms. Now, we will have to store the anodes. The anodes have to be shipped. The customer who takes the anodes might get a bigger shipment that they can feed right away and needs to have an inventory on their side. There is naturally a bigger inventory in this supply chain, and we will roughly carry SEK 1 billion extra of working capital because of the new setup with the new supply chain. We are also having metal in the burned-down tank house. We have, as of end of Q3, not recovered any of that.
We're still pretty confident we will recover all of that metal, or at least enough metals on the book value, so that we will be able to get that back without having any impact on our inventory valuation. That recovery is starting Q4, and we hope to be done by the summer. It has turned out to be, from a occupational health point of view, a quite difficult things to get into the burned-down tank house to get all the half-used anodes and all the half-built-up cathodes in place, and then how to manage them, to handle them, and get the metal value out. That's, of course, then slowly, over time, has the possibility to release some capital. The insurance claim is ongoing, and it's gonna be ongoing for still a while, but it's going very well.
You know, it's no kind of strange discussions with the insurance company. We feel that they've done in a very professional way. The cap that we have in the insurance is SEK 3.4 billion, and since this is covering both the loss of property, but also the business interruption cost, our cost will be bigger than SEK 3.4 billion, so we are very likely to get that money. However, timing-wise, it is still unclear exactly when we will have the final deal with the insurance company. Feasibility study for a new tank house is ongoing. We started that one right after the summer. We have an ambition to finish this feasibility study by Q1, and then in Q1, potentially take a decision regarding a new tank house.
But we cannot say anything about either the CapEx level nor the timing of that until the feasibility study is done. Just jumping into more of administrative point of view, we will have a capital markets update, this time in what you can call a Capital Markets Day Lite. It will be fully online. It will be in March of 2024, and you have the date here on March 18. It is for all of you to mark in your calendars around that. If you then look at the outlook going forward for 2023, in Aitik, there is no change. We have the 0.17 that we have already guided for before. We are now also adding the guiding of 0.17 for next year, which I think is in line with what we talked about.
In Garpenberg, the guidance for the full year is reduced from 3.6 to 3.3, but that's losses that has already occurred in the previous quarters with the lower grade. For Q3, individually, there is no change around this. It should be around similar what we had before. For 2024, we are now guiding for 3.5 and 100 grams per ton of silver. In Kevitsa, we are keeping to the revised guidance for this year, as we gave last quarter of 0.25 and 0.18. For 2024, that will be increased to 0.28 and 0.20. In Tara, the care and maintenance cost of standing still is EUR 13 million per quarter as long as we're standing still there. We have, for Q4, very small maintenance shutdowns, so about SEK 30 million.
As we said, CapEx, we're repeating the close to SEK 15 billion for this year, and we are now adding the SEK 14 billion for next year, and I just gave some flavor of how that SEK 14 billion is built up. We should also maybe also say, and I think we might get some question on that, in that SEK 14 billion, we do not have a new tank house, partially because we have no clue what it's going to cost, and also, if it were to come to decision, we don't think it's gonna impact 2024 that much. The majority of the cost for a new tank house will come in 2025 or later. This is Boliden.
We have a purpose to provide the metals essential for generations to come, and we want to be the most climate-friendly and most respected metal provider in the world. With that, I think we open up to questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, that opens up our Q&A session post Q3 2023, and the first question comes from Adrian Gilani, ABG Sundal Collier.
Yeah, hello. Two questions from my end. First of all, after the Q2 report, you were fairly confident that zinc grades in Garpenberg were going to be around 4% for the second half of the year, and now the full year is expected to be 3.3. Can you just give some color on what has changed between now and then?
Well, we have not been able to access some of the higher-grade stopes that we would have put into the mix. That is coming slower than we had anticipated, and therefore, we now are lower grades for this year.
Okay, the second one from me is on the working capital release. You still have elevated inventories and some still stuck in Rönnskär. What kind of a working capital release should we expect for Q4?
I guess I'll take that. Again, it is a bit difficult to evaluate since we're still towards the end of the ramp-up. Q4 is typically a strong quarter for us when it comes to working capital. Out of the metal that is stuck in the tank house, it's a pretty limited release in Q4, but we typically have, let's say, SEK 1 billion-SEK 2 billion release in the course of our normal business in the fourth quarter. I expect something similar this year.
Mm-hmm. Okay. Thank you.
Ola Södermark, Kepler Cheuvreux.
Thank you. Coming back to Garpenberg, how confident are you that the grades are bouncing back now in the fourth quarter? Do you see it already?
Well, the fourth quarter is not that old yet, so it's a bit early to tell, but we do see that we are having, you know, we're more and more accessing the parts that we want to access. Yes, we have a good start.
Good. Going back to Rönnskär, at the last quarter, the ambition was, or the projection was that a new tank house could be up and running during 2026. Is this still the ambition when you are saying that the majority of the CapEx are coming in 2025?
I think that we can still have an ambition that we get it up and running in 2026. As I said, we need to wait for the feasibility study to be done to be able to determine this timing.
The costs, ballpark number. I know that you're having the upcoming feasibility study, but it's still SEK 2 billion-SEK 3 billion, or is it more?
No, I haven't. It depends on many things. Depends also how big we're going to build.
Thank you.
Alexander Vilval at Pareto.
Thank you. To continue on Rönnskär, given the performance in the anode sales, now that you're up and running it towards the end of the quarter, has this in any way changed your view on anode sales versus cathode sales and impacting perhaps investment decisions concerning the tank house?
I mean, we are guiding for that. With this setup, even though we think that we've done a very good job, we're earning SEK 1 billion less per year. That gives you a little bit of the kind of earnings potential of having a tank house.
Thank you. Also, when it comes to Tara, do you have an sort of outer time limit when it comes to care and maintenance in that asset?
No, we don't have specifically a kind of, you know, a specific end date. We, of course, know that if we were to stay too long, it will become more and more difficult to start again, but we don't have a specific end date as such that we have set.
Thank you. Just a final question. When it comes to what you see in the markets regarding zinc demand in Europe, can you say anything on that from a broader perspective, perhaps?
Yeah, we can make a broad perspective. I think it's a good question, and we can say that even though we don't have any problem selling our zinc, 'cause we can always find zinc customers or customers in general for our metals, it is clear that our normal industrial zinc customers are demanding less. They are all, you know, more or less, all of them are taking out less than they would normally do. If that is an indication of whether Europe is in a recession or not, I think that's a good indication that Europe is in a recession, 'cause our customer base is, of course, Europe. We don't have really any knowledge outside Europe.
Thank you.
Viktor Trolsten, Danske Bank.
Thank you very much for taking my questions. Maybe first on zinc concentrate availability, you know, has this proven more difficult than you maybe initially thought, given the closure of Tara? Just looking on the zinc smelting side, the zinc feed down in both Kokkola and Odda.
Well, you know, I'm always been on the point of view that zinc concentrate is available to anybody who wants to buy. This is a very freely traded commodity that you can always get a hand of. Now, if we do need to do things quickly, there were a couple of obstacles. One is, of course, that our own Tara mine was not producing. There are also quite a few other zinc mines in the world that have gone into care and maintenance. We are not alone, so that is playing onto it. On top of that, the issues in the Panama Canal is impacting this. We had one boat that came one month later than initially planned. It came up into the Panama Canal but could not get out because of low water situation.
All these things, all in all, meant that we could not feed exactly what we wanted to during the quarter. That is now already in place for next quarter.
Also on the zinc side, the Tara Deep exploration stopped. Maybe I need to refresh my own mind, but is that what you have communicated, you know?
Yeah
Previously also?
We said it last quarter as well.
Does that impact how you think about the timing of reopening Tara?
No, it does not really. The reason why we stopped that is, of course, one thing that it's a cost, but also when you stop Tara, that also means that the existing Tara mine will have, you know, longer life of mine, and the existing tailings facility will also last longer, so we have more time. Therefore, we're not in such a time pressure over Tara Deep, and therefore, we decided to postpone that cost.
Super. Just finally on my side, recoveries in Kevitsa, I think we touched upon that topic last quarter also. Nickel still at quite, you know, low levels. Is that a structural problem, or how should we think about that going into, you know, next year, let's say?
That's another good question. The mineralogy in Kevitsa is tricky for many different reasons. It has to do with things like talc and things like magnesium oxides and other things in there. We are in areas that are tricky because of these kind of disturbing elements, if you want to use that term. We are looking into whether we can do some investments to handle that better. We're also looking into what it will be like when we go forward, if we're getting out of some of these tricky elements. There is an insecurity regarding recoveries on the nickel line in Kevitsa, but we have good hopes that it can improve.
Sorry, just to follow up, but into next year, will you still be in the same phase of the mine, you know, in 2024? You know, we're looking at higher grades, of course, but, but.
No, the pace will be very much the same. We have a 10 million ton per year environmental permit. In the Finnish context, you can kind of go a little bit over that some years, so we had 10.2 last year, but over time, we cannot be over more than 10 over time on an average.
Yeah. Super. Thank you very much.
Any other questions here in Stockholm? Christian Kopfer, Handelsbanken, please.
All right. Thank you for that. First, on Kevitsa, you are lagging quite meaningfully behind the mine grade there, you know, this year, next year. When do you expect, you know, average mine grade, let's call it that, to be realized?
Well, as always, sometimes over time, the exact mine plan for 2020, for 2025 and forward is not yet in place, but of course, over time, we should get out what is in the R&R statement.
You don't have any mine plan for 2026?
Well, we don't have a detailed.
Unofficially. Sorry.
We don't have an official mine plan, and we don't have enough visibility to talk about that. We'll talk about 2025 later.
All right. On mill volume for 2024, you still expect that to be, you know, roughly 45 million, or?
Well, we expect it to be at 45 million pace in Q4. That means that we're not gonna catch up the ones that we have lost.
2024, I think.
I said 2024. I said then 2023.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. No, no, for 2024, yes. 2024, yes. Sorry, I missed a year.
All right. For silver production, taking quite a lot of beating, you know, last couple of quarters. When do you expect that to be recovered?
Uh, that-
In the smelters, yeah.
In the smelters.
In smelters
That's mainly a Harjavalta issue. It's good you spotted. We think that that one can recover relatively fast. We are doing an investment in the precious metal plant in Harjavalta, and while that one's been done, we've had problems with the silver production. That one is coming online as we speak. We have an ambition to, of course, get silver out of the system. This is also part of releasing working capital to get silver out of the system.
All right. Thank you for that.
Harald Lundgren Asset Management.
I noticed that there are a number of huge projects going on in your area, be it green steel times two or Northvolt, et cetera. How much trouble does that create for you, if any, in terms of demand from labor, general inflation in the area, trouble to find apartments, et cetera?
We do have a clear challenge, which is not really due to the projects you mentioned, but in the Aitik area and also to some extent in the Kevitsa area, there is a clear demand for these kind of services that is bigger than the supply. We are constantly working around getting subcontractors in place for those, in those areas. In the kind of Skellefteå area, yes, there is a high activity with Northvolt and others. That tends to affect us less, because to some extent, yes, they're stealing our resources, if you want to use that word, mainly in terms of contractors that we use, but they're also attracting more contractors. They are, in that sense, I would say, on balance, not affecting us that much.
Okay, if there are no more questions here in Stockholm, operator, please open up for international 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 again on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Liam Fitzpatrick from D.B. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Three questions from me. Firstly, just on strategy and CapEx, just interested in how you're thinking about this, because we've been in a phase now for several years where CapEx has been revised up quite materially, and now the group is delivering very limited free cash flows. How focused are you as a management team on improving the cash flows of the business over the next couple of years? On 2025, I know you're not going to give us guidance, but I think it would be helpful if you kind of outline what CapEx would fall to if we exclude Rönnskär, and we also, you know, once you complete all of your major projects that are currently being built. Third and final one is just on Rönnskär.
In terms of the inventory that's in the cell house currently, can you put a value on that? Thank you.
I can start with the Rönnskär inventory. The value there that we have, which is the kind of normal running, which is part of the process inventory, is about SEK 2 billion in order of magnitude. About half of that is copper, and around the other half is all other things that flows through a tank house. Regarding the CapEx numbers for both this year and next year, Håkan, do you want to give some light on it?
Well, I think we can start with a breakdown of 2024. I think that will answer your question for 2025 and onwards. Out of those SEK 14 that we have, you know, last year we talked about a split, SEK 7.5, SEK 7.5 between ongoing CapEx and three big projects, Aitik, Rävliden, and Odda. For next year, there is close to SEK 6 billion that remains in these three projects. That means that the remainder, the sort of ongoing CapEx in that sense, is just above SEK 8 billion. In there, the mine-sustaining, which is stripping in the open-pit mines, normal raising of dams, adds up to about SEK 4.5.
Basically, we're looking at an SEK 8 billion run rate if you exclude these big projects. Of course, to that, I mean, we do hope that there will be some additional projects, for instance, around Rönnskär tank house. I think that might give you a flavor on where we stand in that sense.
I can also answer your more general question, what's the focus on cash flow? Of course, focusing on both costs and cash flow is extremely important, but the projects that we're doing, we're doing them because they have a very strong internal net present value and a very strong value-creating. We will continue to look for value-creating projects going forward as well, and we will try to do them as we find them. If you want to say that that's not a focus on cash, I wouldn't say so. We have a focus on cash in everyday operations, but we also have a focus on developing the business.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from Daniel Major from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi there. Yeah, thanks for the questions. First, just a question on the working capital. You mentioned you expect to release some working capital in Q4. Is there any way of quantifying that? If we look into 2024, you will be targeting completion and ramp-up of the Odda smelter in the second half. Will there be a working capital build associated with this? Is this included in the CapEx guidance? That's the first question.
Shall I take that one?
You can take the working capital, Håkan.
Yeah, the working capital, typically, we release about SEK 1 billion-SEK 2 billion in the fourth quarter every year, and that's something in that order of magnitude we expect right now as well.
Yeah. Now, the working capital is not included, so the working capital increase due to increased zinc deliveries and so on, is not included in the CapEx.
Any quantification of what that might be or else equal?
No, I don't want to really guess on that one. It all depends on lots of things.
Yeah.
Okay.
I'm not prepared to quantify that right now, but I think we can say that the main working capital build that we have in the group is in the copper smelter side. That's where you have the big values. So.
Okay. Thanks. Second question perhaps relates to the sort of free cash flow debate subject around next year. I mean, if we look at your balance sheet now, you've obviously highlighted you've got SEK 12 billion of liquidity, but your absolute level of debt is probably the highest it's ever been. Your leverage of 0.8x net debt to EBITDA is, I guess, reasonably comfortable, but we don't know where metal prices, et cetera, will go into next year. Is there a threshold leverage on a net debt/EBITDA basis that you would see the regular dividend under threat?
I would say no. You're talking about the metrics that we don't really use because our EBITDA is dependent so much on metal prices. I wouldn't say that, of course, that that would never happen, but we are very far away from a scenario where regular dividends would be. I'll put it this way, we're very far away from a scenario where we would change the dividend policy that we've had for many years, and we feel have served us very well.
Okay, clear. You'd clearly allow net debt to continue to increase to pay the regular dividend?
Yes.
All right. Thank you.
The next question comes from Amos Fletcher from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Yeah, morning, guys. Just a couple of questions. The first one was just around the SEK 1 billion of working capital associated with the anode business model. Where are we now in that sort of SEK 1 billion working capital accumulation? Second question was just following up on what Liam was asking around the breakdown of CapEx for 2024. You mentioned SEK 6 billion of sort of large project spend in 2024. How does that number trend into 2025 if we ignore the tank house CapEx? I just wanted to ask on M&A. Obviously, zinc price is pretty weak, mine capacity is being closed. You've actually got quite a lot of payment capacity. Is that something you'd be prepared to look at at the moment?
I'll leave the investment one for you, Håkan. On the working capital from the new business model in Russia, that SEK 1 billion is basically in place because we have set up that already. That's not gonna be negative in Q4. On the M&A side, not really much to comment, apart from what we always say, that you know, M&A is not maybe a core part of our strategy, although we are quite willing to do it if we were to find good opportunities. Yes, good opportunities are more easily available or readily available at bad market terms, but I wouldn't really say anything more on that. We are constantly looking, and we will tell you once we find something.
Okay, the question on working capital build and whether the extra SEK 1 billion.
The one I already took.
You took that? Okay.
Okay. On the investment side, how much that will spill over to 2025 out of those big projects? They are mostly done. All that will be done. There will be some relatively small amounts in Aitik and Ravliden, but we're talking about significantly below SEK 500 million for 2025, for those three.
Thanks very much.
The next question comes from Richard Hatch from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks, Sam. Yeah, good morning, guys, and thanks for the call. I think just got three questions. The first one is just on that working capital release. I mean, we've been kind of guided to a working capital release the past couple of quarters that perhaps hasn't materialized as much as we'd have thought. So are you confident this time around that that SEK 1 billion-SEK 2 billion that you're guiding to release in Q4 is, you know, is fair? Are you able to give us any kind of steer on any kind of working capital views as we move into 2024 as well, please? That's the first one.
Okay, well, if we start with the working capital side, I think what has been a bit difficult in the last quarter about working capital was to get visibility on how the fire in Rönnskär would hit. There were inventories piling up. There were new business model being created. There was an uncertainty on how much we would be hit in working capital and how much we would take in the EBIT side. That was a difficult quarter to do. Right now, I mean, we've taken most of the effect from the Rönnskär fire, so now it's more a matter of the regular business and how much we can release primarily in Garpenberg. I would say I'm about as confident as a typical Q4 for that.
It doesn't take much to shift something over. We could have a very large amount in one vessel, and if that is delayed, it would sort of shift a couple of weeks over a quarter end. That's always a risk, which is kind of normal in our kind of business. Apart from that, I feel confident in that number.
Okay. For 2024?
For 2024, it is a bit difficult to predict. I mean, with that number, we still have a slightly elevated number, and, for instance, in the metal that is in the tank house, we are just starting that recovery, and it's a manual process, getting the anodes and cathodes off for that, from that tank house. The timing is a bit uncertain, but we do have an opportunity to release about SEK 2 billion from that as well.
Okay, thanks. The next question is just on Garpenberg. Can you just give us a little bit more color as to why you're struggling to get into those high-grade stopes? Perhaps is there any more detail you can give us on the grade progression over next year? That's the second one. I've just got one more.
I will say that regard progression over next year, we have given you guidance for the full year, and exactly how that plays into quarters is going to go up and down and vary. To give you a little bit of a flavor of why we are, well, there are two things in this. One thing that we did have earlier in the year, not now, but earlier in the year, we did have a breakdown of the hoist in Garpenberg. That was part of the lower volumes that you saw earlier in the year. When that happened, we decided to go for quite a lot of spare stopes that we have relatively close to surface and trucked ore to keep the operations going.
That ore has a lower grade, and it then ended up on surface in inventory, and we have fed it over time. We also had lower knowledge of the actual grade of those stopes than we would normally have or something that was planned to be produced. That's one thing. There's a second effect, is that we have a few high-grade stopes ground down in the mine, where we've had rock mechanical issues and where we're waiting. Do you hear me still? Is the sound okay?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah
We are then waiting to take those stopes because of rock mechanical issues. The way that, you know, this whole pyramid of stopes works out in order to keep the stresses in the mine in place, and we have decided to wait with them a little bit because of that, and they will come. I don't know if I answered your question, but those are the two main reasons why the grades have been lower.
Okay. That's helpful. Thanks. The last one is just on the Boliden Area. You haven't given us guidance in terms of grade there, but are you able to give us a bit of a steer on tons mined? You've got your new initial production from Rävliden coming online in the fourth quarter. Can you just give us a bit of a steer on volumes coming out of that mine, just in terms of ore, and then we can take a view on the grade, I guess?
On the Boliden Area, we usually don't say much more than it is normally the mill is the bottleneck at the 1.8 or what is it now that we get through the mill? That is the point. The volumes that we will get out of Rävliden will, it will be, you know, replacing other volumes that we have. It's not going to be a volume increase, it's more like a prolongation for the Boliden Area, just to have that in case, in having that said. Guiding for grades in the Boliden Area is almost impossible because, you know, we have so many different mines and so many different ore bodies within those mines that have very different grade profiles.
Suddenly, in a quarter, you can have high gold because we've done lots of Kankberg, or you could have high, higher zinc because we've been in some of those high stopes in Renström ore and so on. Therefore, on average, it should be very much close to the RNR statement.
Good stuff. No, I appreciate the color. Thank you very much for your time.
The next question comes from Johannes Grunselius from DNB Markets. Please go ahead.
I have two questions. Mikael, you said here you're hoping to sort of get most of this cap on the insurance for Rönnskär, SEK 3.4 billion. You said timing is uncertain. Can you give some flavor on that? What do you expect, though, in terms of quarter or year when you can recover this money?
I think it will come during 2024.
Okay, 2024. Okay, that's fair enough. Also a question on the grade progress. Appreciate you gave us grades for the full year. I know you don't want to go into the details, but should we see 0.17, and I guess that's the sort of very bottom? How should we think about 2025? Just to give some color on that sort of change year-over-year.
I will refer you back to what we call the thick line graph of the last Capital Markets Day, where you will kind of see, because we don't want to go in detail, but kind of point 17 might be a kind of low point. It should not necessarily-
Yeah
Go so much below that. That you could kind of look at the length that we're talking, maybe about three years, maybe a little bit more than that. Now we are doing our first year of that now in 2023.
Yeah
We are guiding for it in 2024, and maybe 2025 could, from that graph at least, look that it will be similar. Before we start heading.
Similar, uh-
Before we start heading north again.
The grade, yeah. Okay.
Before we start heading.
Okay, got you.
... north again.
Yeah, got you. Got you. All right. Thank you. Those were my questions.
Anybody else out there? Operator?
The next question comes from Tyler Broda from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Great. Thanks very much for the call. My question's on Rönnskär, is talking about the feasibility study there. Do you know when you have be able to announce the results of that? I guess SEK million of earnings per year. I guess, you know, high returning, I mean, you have to invest, you know, SEK 5 billion-SEK 10 billion back before it becomes economically, you know, viable. I guess we're looking for any comparison. It's bigger or, you know, how are you thinking about that at this point? Thanks very much.
We heard you extremely poorly in this end, so the only thing that I could make out, you were asking about when we will be able to have some more color on the Rönnskär tank house new investment. I think the answer to that is in Q1. We expect to come back with an answer to that. If you want some color on it, but of course, we're looking at is where exactly to put it. We cannot put it where the old tank house was because that one is going to still be under, you know, recovery of metal and so on for quite some time. We don't want to lose that time. We're looking for a new place to be. We are looking at things like what size should it be?
We have a much larger environmental permit in Rönnskär than the present tank house was, or the old tank house was. What's the appropriate size of it? We are looking to different degrees of automation. What is the appropriate degree of automation? We're also looking into certain things like, what about byproducts from electrolysis plants? How much should we have? What about copper sulfate? What about other things that we have not historically produced as much? All those things are issues that this feasibility study are taking care of, and that will come into then a number about what to do, and what it will cost, and what the time frame will be.
Okay, thanks very much, Paul.
I don't know if I answered your question. I didn't hear much of the question, but I answered something.
Apologies for the bad line. Thank you.
The next question comes from Ioannis Masvoulas from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Thanks for the presentation. Most of my questions have been answered. Just a couple left from my side. First, on Kevitsa, is the open pit now where you want it to be, or is there more work to be done with rock stability? In other words, is it realistic to expect something closer to reserve grades by 2025, or is it too early to tell?
It is too early to tell, but the pit is not where we want it to be. I mean, the grades for 2024 are lower than we would have liked them to be. We still have issues with the pit in Kevitsa, even though things are getting better.
Very clear. The second question around smelters and the Q3 operating profit, which was actually pretty strong. When I look at the bridge quarter-over-quarter, you do indicate higher T.C.s than premiums. I find it a bit surprising on the treatment charges side, especially as you had to source more zinc concentrates from the spot market after the Tara shutdown. Can you perhaps elaborate on this development and if there are any one-offs to keep in mind here?
Well, there is about SEK 50 million of one-off in the premium side. We do have one contract with a true-up that comes in in Q3 that is not sort of ongoing business. SEK 50 million roughly. Apart from that, I don't think that there are any one-offs in the places that you talk about.
Okay. Given that now Tara is shut down, and I guess when you buy concentrates, you don't get anywhere near the benchmark terms, are we gonna see more impact on the T.Cs in Q4? Or would you say that Q3 is the reasonable run rate for the rest of the year?
I think Q3 is a reasonable run rate.
Great. Thanks very much.
Operator, we have time for one final question before it's time for our President and CEO, Mikael Staffas, to conclude. One more final question, please.
The next question comes from Krishan Agarwal from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I have two, if I may. The first question is on the tank house impact, and given the impact of around SEK 1 billion annualized impact, is there any kind of a potential for you to further optimize this SEK 1 billion impact or to SEK 50 million a quarter as you produce more nickel cathode from your and other smelter tank houses?
Yes, the SEK 1 billion negative on Rönnskär, there is also a small positive on Harjavalta that we haven't talked about here. It's of course much less, but of course there is a positive, although small, effect on Harjavalta being able to run that tank house full, which we historically don't do because there's a little bit of an overcapacity. Yes, there is that. Apart from that, of course, we are always trying to work on the commercial terms, and you know, we will see where they go. There are lots of things that impact commercial terms in the anode market.
I understand. The second question is on the cost. I mean, the costs have gone down because of the Tara and, you know, tank house taking out, but then Håkan has commented that the cost inflation from the consumables and electricity have been close to zero. Is there kind of a fair assumption to see that, you know, the run rate of the cost in the Q3, which is significantly lower versus last quarter, becomes a kind of a normal run rate going into the Q4 and the 2024, or there, the cost can come down further?
I would say that there is one thing that's seasonal around, that we have costs that are always about SEK 200 million lower in Q3 compared to other quarters. Otherwise, given the situation we have now with Tara in care and maintenance, and Odda running, sorry, the Rönnskär running the way it's running, this is a cost level that you can say is the basis for at least first half of next year before we start getting the Odda ramp up in place, which will, of course, also impact costs.
One additional comment on that is that in the quarter, we see a SEK 200 million negative impact from lower electricity prices and some consumables, which then compensates for a small inflation in other areas. Of course, the impact of electricity prices is always significant on our cost level going forward.
It's fair to assume that electricity prices, which have been a headwind, probably will be a small tailwind going forward?
Well, it all depends on what you compare with. If you compare year-on-year, there will be a tailwind from energy prices, most likely. If you compare quarter-on-quarter, who knows?
Yeah. Yeah, understand. Okay, thanks a lot.
Thank you very much, and thank you everybody out there who have been listening. I would like just to summarize this, that I think that we've had a strong quarter. We've had a quarter where we have been able to continue our big projects in according to time and according to budget. We also have a quarter where we've been able to stabilize and build a new business model around Rönnskär. We also have a quarter where we have gotten the nickel line in Harjavalta up to full speed. Thank you all very much, and I look forward to seeing you all again next quarter.