Ladies and gentlemen, it's 1:00 P.M. sharp. Let me welcome everyone to our conference on the results of KGHM Group for Q1 2023. Let me welcome representatives of banks, investors, the capital markets, and journalists here in this room, as well as our representatives of our company. We have Tomasz Zdzikot, President of the Board of KGHM; Marek Świder, Vice President for Production; Mateusz Wodejko, Vice President for Finance; Mirosław Kidoń is Vice President for Foreign Assets; who is Vice President for Development, Marek Pietrzak, Vice President for Corporate Affairs; and Janusz Krystosiak will be very active when we will have questions from analysts from capital markets and journalists. My name is Piotr Chęciński, and I'm a Director of the Corporate Communications Department, and I will be moderating this conference.
Let me give the floor to Tomasz Zdzikot, who will open our today's conference. The floor is yours. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, let me welcome you to our conference on results in Lubin. All gathered here and also those listening to us online. We're going to discuss the results for Q1 2023. These are robust results, sound performance that we can assess positively. We achieved this performance in a difficult macroeconomic landscape, and we can discuss that briefly today. This financial performance will be compared with Q1 2022. These are hardly comparable because of the macroeconomic situation. The war beyond our eastern border resulted in a lot of chaos and turbulence. This has affected our performance.
But again, it's robust and provides appropriate foundations for investments going forward and going to discuss them briefly today. This is only an introduction from me, and my colleagues are going to elaborate on these topics later. Again, very briefly about our performance. We achieved a high revenue in Q1 2023 compared with the 2022. It's almost PLN 9.6 billion in revenue, 7% up year-on-year compared with 2022. This translated into nearly PLN 1.9 billion EBITDA and PLN 164 million net profit.
The last two figures are lower year-over-year, but it's quite obvious why, with the military conflict waging beyond our eastern border, which began in the first quarter of last year, which has continued to affect our performance. On the one hand, we have seen a lot of cost pressure. We've seen rising expenses across the board really, which is beyond our control, with energy prices as well as labor, which is also on the increase. More expensive services and high inflation because of Russia's aggression against Ukraine and higher copper tax compared with last year. It's increased and affected our results for quarter one. However, these results have been positive, the costs are under control.
The situation is under control. The performance we've achieved is really sound and as expected by the market. This slide shows you what I have touched upon. It's not only about the costs, it's also about the prices for our main product lines. In the top left corner, average copper prices were 11% lower compared with Q1 last year. It's a lot of a difference, and you're going to see it in the following slides. $1,000 per ton is the difference. I mean, the price is lower, and for silver, minus 6% year-on-year. What also contributed to our results was the dollar exchange rate. This has what compensated for the change, but there were also decreases at our main production lines.
These resulted mainly from the market situation in China. Our revenues are up by 7%, so nearly PLN 9.6 billion is our revenue for Q1 . We satisfied with our domestic production. As Mr. Świder is going to discuss with you, copper concentrate has increased by 0.5%. 2.6% is our increase in dry mass output. We really happy to see the production of silver going up in the whole group and also in KGHM company. We ranked as the largest global silver mine. These increases show that our objectives have been right, and they are not threatened and will be delivered across the group. It also talked about our investment projects.
The left-hand side of the slide shows that we are true to our word, we can see the increase in spending. It's also about actual growth of our assets. Well, it's been more dynamic, higher growth. Investment has been our priority. These turbulent macroeconomic times are the right moment to invest to provide foundations to pave the way for our business going forward. The situation of our company has been stable and secure, as demonstrated by the debt ratio, 0.9%. That's the debt-to-EBITDA ratio, and we can really be satisfied. Now, very briefly about the macroeconomic situation, where at the bottom of the slide you will see the absolute values, absolute prices.
Silver prices dropped by $1,000 compared to 2022. Silver down, moly higher, but well, the share of moly in our production is really low, not enough to compensate for the changes. Also the dollar exchange rate has had a positive effect on these figures year-to-year. Well, we believe there going to be positive prospects for changes of copper prices. There may be some turbulence on the market. As we can see nowadays, copper prices are below the average compared with 2022. We see record high stocks on the Shanghai Exchange. This may be because the growth on the Chinese market has been lower than expected by analysts.
After the loosening of the COVID regime restrictions in that country. We believe these to be turbulent changes to be transitional only, with a highly positive outlook for the future with our targets. We believe that the macroeconomic situation is going to contribute positively to our results. Let me give the floor over to Mr. Świder. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. As for production of metal, 196,000 across the group, and you see the breakdown to Polish and foreign assets. Because of my role, I will discuss the domestic assets of our company. First, the output of mining, 96 million tons, 1.48. 2.6% positive figure, quarter-to-quarter.
In Q1 this year, all of our Polish mining assets, that's our deepest, Rudna Mine, Lubin Mine, and Głogowiec Mine, all of them achieved extra output that contributed to our budget. Copper in concentrate 101.5, 22.6% grade, 0.5% up quarter-to-quarter. Another parameter is electrolytic copper, 149,000 tons and 99,000 from our own concentrate, 2% up quarter-to-quarter. All together comparing these quarters, it was -1.3% because of the production calendar. The calendar is different in this quarter this year compared with 2022. Also we've had a number of investment project works in Głogów at our smelter facility.
Silver at 375,000 tons, 50.2 gram per ton, was the content, it's 10.3% up year-on-year. Thank you. Thank you, President. We are going to discuss our foreign production assets now. Now over to Mirosław Kidoń . Good afternoon. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to discuss our performance abroad. Let me begin this discussion by our flagship project in Sierra Gorda. As Tomasz has mentioned, we are very happy with our results, and although you can see a 9% drop in copper production at Sierra Gorda year to year, this is not really reflecting how our mine is operating in Chile. The result isn't very good because the copper grade is below 11%.
With a better performance, higher efficiency, and throughput, we achieved a result which is down by 9% only. Sierra Gorda has become our flagship project, and we are still continuing to improve our performance, and value of the company, and we going to mine, moly deposits, in section four. We're also increasing stripping in order to blend moly together, you know, with the copper there. As for molybdenum, it's lower because of the type of the deposit and the content of moly in the deposit. It's in line with our five-year long plans. This has been highly positive. The forecast is materializing. Well, the mine has been very effective in its operations.
It's 60% yield for moly. When I started in Sierra Gorda back in 2016 or 2017, it was 25% or 30%. If we compare the moly content at that back then, which was 1,200 ppm, and now it's above 100, which is 10x lower. There's a recovery rate is really extraordinary. You have 10 kilos of gold in 1 cu m and then only 1 g compared with another, the same quantity of waste rock. It's very difficult to extract that 1 g of gold. This is the difference. You see the content or the grade, head grade and the actual yield or recovery.
We've increased the efficiency of our moly line, and we also installed a bypass to bypass the rock, which has no moly, so that we use our condensing machine with a common concentrate upstream the moly production. This is what we achieved at Sierra Gorda. Because of that, we have been able to achieve the world record high recovery rates for moly. In Sierra Gorda, we are considering to expand the mine to step up production and achieve higher profits and build value, better value for Sierra Gorda. We're working intensely to explore the deposits and also prospectively to increase the number of minerals that we will have in the deposit available in our operating plan for the mine.
At the same time, we increasing the throughput at our facility, working strongly on the concept, to increase the throughput higher, to have better efficiency of the line. We're thinking about building the fourth line. This is being analyzed, NPV is being calculated, working with our partners from Australia, which may be highly beneficial to our project as a whole. As for the Robinson mine, well, this is where we actually have seen a situation where there have been serious problems there because of the weather. These problems started in Q3 2022. The expert was not delivered, the budget was not delivered.
It was 10% below the plan. This translated to the consumption of the stock that was to be used to add to the concentrate prior to enrichment. The weather was very cold and a lot of snowfall, heavy snowfall and transportation was blocked. Out of 10 trucks, three were used, only three out of 10. The transport efficiency dropped, our asset efficiency overall dropped down to 30% only. We analyzed the situation. In my capacity as the new vice president for foreign assets, I reported this to my board, and we decided that the Robinson mine requires a wide-scale optimization effort.
We decided to buy Komatsu, 240 ton Komatsu trucks, six of them in 2023. In 2024, another five Komatsu trucks are going to be bought. We were trying to rent five, 230 ton Komatsu trucks. We're talking to Komatsu and Caterpillar. We'll have three new 100 ton trucks, and we're also talking about a marked contract for servicing by Komatsu or Caterpillar with guaranteed availability. These talks are underway, and we're also setting up a team like in Sierra Gorda, and the team is going to analyze bottlenecks and come up with an optimization project, and then also provide a new throughput target.
We also started operations to increase the range of minerals that we mining or using.
Okay.
Let me say one more thing I am pretty proud of. We are all proud of it as the board. In Sierra Gorda, we started a new concentrator, our third one by Outotec, 80 m in diameter. We also have a new filter press that increases our process capabilities in Sierra Gorda and gives us a new potential in with our fourth line in, into perspective. A fourth line would significantly increase our throughput at Sierra Gorda. This could translate into a significant increase in the value of the mine and an additional NPV calculated on that basis.
That's it for KGHM Chile and KGHM International. Thank you very much, Mr. President. Now, Mateusz Wodejko , Vice President for Finance. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. As my colleagues have already mentioned, we are enthusiastic, very enthusiastic about our production results, and we are quite optimistic, quite enthusiastic about our financial performance. Importantly, one thing that we're not showing in the presentation, that's our budget, budgetary assumptions. As we prepared the budget for this year, we were aware of the challenges that Mr. President mentioned. Volatile commodity prices and foreign exchange rates, especially on the dollar. We were aware that our operating costs by type will remain rather high. As compared to our assumptions, the first quarter was quite good in terms of finance as well. As Mr.
President Kidoń has just described, there is a negative contribution from KGHM International, especially the Robinson Mine. This is a combination of multiple factors, both on the revenue side and the cost side, and some accounting operations as well, and some economic events, which had a bearing on the performance of Robinson in the first quarter. I will give you some details later on, in principle, I want to show you that this is the first quarter, that only the first quarter looks like this, and the next quarters for KGHM International will be positive. There are many risks out there, but we are hopeful about the situation. Let's take a look at the details.
The revenues of the capital group at 7%, and that 7% contracts with customers, PLN 640 million plus the change of volume of basic commodities and the largest contribution came from KGHM Poland. Changes in commodity prices, very high copper prices in the first quarter of 2022, nearly $10,000 per ton, and less than $9,000 in the first quarter of this year. As a result, we are down by PLN 876 million on that account. Foreign exchange rates in the first quarter of this year, zloty to dollar 4.39, 4.13. Last year, so we are up by PLN 568 million, and we have additional revenues on our derivative instruments, +PLN 281 million.
That was PLN 65 million in the first quarter last year. Sorry, minus PLN 261 in the first quarter last year. The share of revenues from contract with clients in total revenues in the first quarter of 2022, as you can see, that was PLN 7,555 million. This was roughly 84% of total revenues. In the first quarter of this year, PLN 8,370 million, so up to 87% of total revenues of our group. Now let's look at our costs. C1 costs for the capital group up by 37%. For KGHM Poland, the increase was 28%. To some extent, it reflected the mining tax. In the first quarter last year, we enjoyed a 30% relief on the tax rate.
We didn't have this relief this year, so we paid another PLN 224 million of tax. The other costs, components of C1, well, we had growing energy prices and technological process material prices also went up. Materials we use in our mining and smelting operations, and those materials are mostly based on energy. They are energy-intensive. Also, labor costs went up. I will discuss this later on when I speak about the typical costs of KGHM Poland. There are some extraordinary events. High level of mining benefits were paid to our retired employees and current employees. In this quarter, this benefit was higher than the year before. For KGHM International, you can see the increase is twofold, or twice as much.
$5 per pound, $1.4 is revaluation of our provisions and reserves. We also have another approach to the cost of removing overburden. We capitalized those costs before, whereas last year, we added them to our general cost. Our production went down, so with certain fixed costs, the total level went up to $5 per pound. In Sierra Gorda, we have C1 going up by 10%, but we are aware that inflation was actually far higher, and Sierra Gorda has been doing quite well with the inflation pressure.
When it comes to our operating performance, first, our updated EBIT in the first quarter of 2022, our benchmark, there was a record high quarter with very high copper and silver prices back then, and a relatively high dollar to zloty exchange rate. If you look at 2022 as a whole, there was a lot of volatility. The first quarter of 2022 had very high commodity prices on the one hand. On the other hand, inflation pressure was still lower. The first quarter was very good, the second quarter was a bit worse, and so on and so forth in the third and fourth quarter. Here our benchmark was pretty high.
If we compare the first quarter of 2023 to the last quarter of 2022, the results are quite comparable. Our EBIT down by $564 million. That's mostly due to the growing costs. KGHM International, -$398 million. As I said, this is a combination of multiple factors. Sierra Gorda, $271 million less than last year. As President Kidoń explained, we had lower yield of copper in the ore. We saw that this began in the second half of the last year. That's a purely technological development in Sierra Gorda. When it comes to adjusted EBIT, the share of the Polish operations, KGHM Poland is growing, has been growing for many years. 61.4% last year, in the 1st quarter last year.
This, in this quarter, over 72%. The first quarter of 2023, the Polish division had a very strong contribution to the group's performance. Let me elaborate on something I mentioned with the previous slide, namely, the growth of EBIT. A reduction of EBIT down by 40% for the group, 29% for Poland, 33% for Sierra Gorda, and 110% for KGHM International. This may somehow blur the performance for the first quarter. Our net results. As you can see, we have major differences between the first quarter of last year and this year. Why is that? Well, it's not that the things are dramatically worse now. No, we have a combination of factors.
PLN 539 million gross profits, PLN 482 million net profit. Here we had less sales, down by PLN 139 million. We sold more copper, PLN 439 million on that account. Silver, similar, up by PLN 12 million. Gold, a strong contribution in sales, PLN 124 million. Primary operating costs, I mentioned them already, I will mention them a little bit later. Also, PLN 180 million or PLN 128 million less. That's extraordinary events. It's a reversal of losses on loans to Sierra Gorda. That's PLN 64 million and PLN 536 million in foreign exchange differences. This shows you how strongly we are affected by foreign exchange rates, which is technically a purely accounting operation.
It's not that the operating situation is worse. No, it's all about the difference in foreign exchange. We're happy about a positive result on revaluation of derivatives. We sold some intangibles. The results on the profit from intangibles was down by PLN 135 million. The CIT, a positive contribution, plus PLN 260 million. Let's look at the cash flows of our capital group. In this quarter, we had more cash by PLN 379 million. Year-on-year, it's also good. Our operating cash flows in the first quarter, PLN 1.46 billion, and PLN 1.76 billion in last year, so comparable.
In the first quarter of 2023, we spent much more money on our investments, PLN 1.163. More, much more than last year. We invested more heavily, PLN 1.164 on fixed assets and we didn't have one-off events such as we did last year, the Oxide project. Gross profit +PLN 513, +PLN 936 when we exclude revenues and costs. Our provisions went up by PLN 279 million. Repayment of loans up by PLN 101. Because of the growing value of our cash, the net value of our debt went down. We paid PLN 27 million less in interest. Let's talk about our debt, the debt of the capital group.
We're quite proud of this, especially because these figures of net debt over adjusted EBITDA is, the ratio is below one. Our debt in s lot is just under PLN 4 billion as compared to over PLN 5 billion three months earlier. The change in net debt, the reduction in net debt is mostly attributable to major investments. We had a tax on mining. A positive change here. Operating cash flows, excluding operating expenses and tax, again, a positive change here. Foreign exchange rates also a positive contribution here. Let's talk about the budget. Let's compare these figures to our budget. The things I am authorized to comment on. As you can see, the total unit cost of production is below our budget, which is good. Our investment expenses...
CapEx, PLN 557 million versus PLN 3.25 billion for the year. The other expenses, PLN 387 million as compared to over PLN 2 billion for the year. We are right on track with our budget, especially taking into account that the largest share of investments is in the last quarter. The PLN 557 million included an increase of share capital of Energetyka company. We will invest into a new heat source in Legnica and another PLN 400 something million zloty of a loan for international, for the Victoria project, where we continue our advanced exploration. Liquidity of KGHM, as you can see, is very safe.
Sales results and production of the group. Copper and concentrate. The content that Mr. Świder mentioned, 500 tons above the budget, very good. Silver concentrate, also highly positive compared to our annual budget. Electrolytic copper, also highly positive in the context of our annual budget. Also from our own concentrate, metallic silver, very sound sales. They're also high. We sold some of the stock. For table silver, we have been building our stock. The production figures of KGHM International, as my colleague has mentioned, is a consequence of the weather and also some technological issues. Since well, Robinson has had these problems, or has well, in McCreedy and Sudbury Basin, have achieved higher results than expected. Both copper and TPM were better than expected.
Sierra Gorda is actually going ahead in line with our expectations. We expect to deliver on our budget. Now, sales revenue of KGHM Polska Miedź. It's up 11% from contracts with our customers. Copper and copper products, silver, similar. As for sales here, talking volume here. Well, rolled copper and copper wire and other wire products. 177 is up by 10% silver, -2%. It's a bit lower with that. Well, revenues were up by PLN 815 million compared with Q1 last year. Now, costs by nature, Polska Miedź. Well, first of all, if you add the costs of external, you know, third-party services and the higher costs of materials for the process and rising energy prices.
The energy prices have contributed, you know, significantly to higher cost. That's more than PLN half a billion of the increase. The mining tax, that's up by PLN 22 million, because we no longer enjoy the 30% tax relief. 28%, the cost of labor, that's up to PLN 1 billion. The basic pay has not increased so much, but what's in increase is actually the CO allowance. That's higher. Just to emphasize about the other part of the slide. In Q1 2023 and Q4 last year, so it was a similar level. Besides the mining tax, we have no control over it, but the costs by nature in Q1 2023 are slightly higher than in Q4 2023 two. These are.
This is a difficult macroeconomic environment, and we really doing our best to maintain a sound and stable financial position. EBITDA and net profit. PLN 1,360 million. It's lower than in Q1 , 2022, but in Q 3 and Q 4 were lower last year. This is considerably better. We're happy to see a higher result. Q 1, in terms of EBITDA, has been very positive in Polska Miedź. The net profit, which is affected by exchange rates. PLN 462 million, small loss in Q 4. It's been really sound and quite good. Now I'm talking about our net profit on sales was just under PLN 1 billion.
Pre-tax profit was also strong. What affected the year-on-year change? Higher revenue, $815 million, and also higher OpEx, $1.42 billion change in movements in products and exchange rates, or exchange differences, and also fair value loss and also reversal of the loss. The effects of hedging transactions. We're happy to see the increase. Another slide, what affected our consolidated results? That's KGHM International. What I'm showing here is a compilation of our dollar figures. $94 million, and now a loss -$76 million. Because of the profit on sales, which was $126 million lower. $47 million was a change in our revenue, lower sales, and also a smaller volume that was mined.
Most importantly, this was due to lower copper prices. What's most intriguing, the costs of coal operations are higher by PLN 96 million. Most importantly, revaluation of Robinson stock in terms of volume and quantity. That's Net Realizable Value, NRV, calc for the stock. In Q1 2022, we capitalize the cost of, well, over pre-stripping. Now, in this quarter, this revaluation was smaller. Because the initiation or the starting point for mining from another deposit at Robinson was postponed. That was moved in time, and that's what affected our operating profit. Well, the change was due to one-off event. Oxide was sold to Sierra Gorda.
The write-down was reversed or the impairment loss, and it was a higher interest by $10 million. Financial expenses were up by $9 million, you know, because of our loans, the higher value of those loans to KGHM International, mainly for Victoria project. This resulted in the net loss of $76 million. This is due to a combination of some macroeconomic factors and also our accounting treatment of these items. Thank you, Mr. President. We'll also discuss our foreign assets later, but let me give the floor to Mirosław Kidoń. Thank you. As Mateusz has mentioned, the debt ratio has been decreasing, and also our funds are more valuable in our deposits.
We've seen a record high CapEx, PLN 3.2 billion. We're focusing on replacement projects and development projects for the entire production assets. We have 700 our own machines and 300 rented ones. We would like to replace 245 machines for PLN 450 million. This is not only about replacement. These new machines will be more advanced and more available, so the failure rate of them will be lower. With higher availability of our machinery, we will achieve better production results in the future.
Replacement of belt conveyors may not sound so attractive, but this is highly interesting and important to us because preventive maintenance is increased with temperature and vibration sensors installed, and we can buy software to predict wear and tear of conveyor belt. With all of those development projects, KGHM has been able to push forward to keep abreast with the major players globally. Not to mention our electric vehicle is being tested. Our electric vehicle is, and it is quite a nice idea. It's an idea that originated from our personnel. It's almost fully made of Polish components, and it will hopefully show that KGHM is not only critical to energy transition in Poland and globally. You can't really have any transition without copper, can you?
As Europe's leading producer of copper, we will be supporting these energy transition initiatives, such as electric vehicles. Not to mention deep Głogów, industrial Głogów. The role of this deposit is it has been very important in Poland. Well, no, the share of that deposit has increased to 42% output, 44% in copper, 41% silver. Now let me move to our key projects that we are implementing. At KGHM, we have been developing, we need new shafts. We need ventilation. We need air for our mining operations and better logistics as well. Well, that's for to transport our personnel and machinery. GG-1 is our deepest shaft, 1,348 m deep. It was 61 m last time to go.
This morning I've heard it's only 50 m to go. Towards the end of June, we should be able to connect our mine with GG-1. It's going to be 10 cu m per minute. This will actually give our miners a new breath. Let me also commend our team together with the mining authorities. We modernize the lift cage, increasing the air flow from 12 m to 18 m per second. This is going to increase the shaft efficiency from 30,000 per minute to 45,000 cu m per minute. Higher efficiency of the shaft. This is a PLN 1.9 billion project.
With such measures, we're able to increase our efficiency in terms of the air flow by 50%, these have been impressive figures, really. We're also working on GG-2 shaft in the Retków and Gaworzyce ones as well. What's also important for us is the upper dewatering plant pumping plant. We would like to commission the pumping plant on time, so it's not threatened, it's going as planned. It's been tested, with 6 cu m per minute, but finally it's going to be 24 cu m of water being pumped out by minute. We're also modernizing our water surface water distribution system to improve the cooling and ventilation system for miners to improve the quality of the work, those who work there.
Importantly also, in our tailings pond, we're separating waste and, well, it's the progress is 96% and also the first stage of the hydrocyclone has been finished. As for condensation, the thicker our waste is, the better and cheaper the outcome is at our tailings pond. The beach angle is important and, well, that's our key parameter. The better angle we have at our tailings pond, the cheaper the position of tailings. We've started to thicker the waste. That's the right way forward. Sierra Gorda have recently commissioned a facility of this type.
They're using flocculants, dosing stations, and they've had a lot of experience with this, and they're going to share it with us. Another interesting project is the application of hydrocyclones for tailing ponds banks. We have this technology at Robinson. We haven't had it at Sierra Gorda. Sierra Gorda have been watching this closely, what we're doing here. Hydrocyclones plus separating to fine grain and large grain. Large grain is used for construction and the fine grain goes up in the water. It's like in the river, naturally. Larger stones would go down. I mean, rather than waiting for two years, we can have it with these machines or with cyclone hydrocyclones in two minutes and it's done.
So much about what we've been doing to develop and grow. Let me give the floor over to Mateusz, he'll tell you about the power industry.
Yes. A quick comment. A few quick comments about our power sector, because this is very important for us. As you have seen, the cost of electricity and the secondary electricity costs have been growing significantly, thus affecting our performance in 2022 and the first quarter of 2023. To mitigate this effect, we have been working on a long-term project. As you can see, we're doing a nuclear SMR project, which by nature is many years of effort, but we're doing all we can to be as efficient as possible. For nuclear power, one important thing that took place in April, actually, we applied to the Minister of Climate and Environment for a decision which, if issued, will secure a site for the plant. So this is a preliminary decision.
This is not something that gives us the title to the land, this is a first step, we are happy that we already submitted that application. The location is defined. As we spoke at our previous results conference, in 2023, our goal is to secure the title, the preliminary permissions, for the site, for the location. This is already in progress. We've taken the first step. On top of that, we are working hard with other aspects related to our nuclear project. As you may have heard on the media, on Monday, the board of KGHM hosted the representatives of NuScale, our partner who is doing the project with us.
We had a person from Fluor that's a leading shareholder of NuScale, a major engineering company that is also interested in building our SMR plant. When NuScale came to see us, we also hosted representatives of the Polish ministries. We introduced our partner. We spoke about the conditions and assumptions for the project for this year, the assumptions for the project and its timeline. We are very happy with the progress of what's been going on with the project. We are right on track. This is a many a years project and so far so good. Another important area that's renewables. In this domain, on the one hand, we're working on our PV farms on either owned or leased land.
These are relatively small projects, but they are quite important because in this way we build competence for our renewables team, and we have a concept for more projects like that's both PV and wind. Another important thing in renewables is acquisitions. We are in the middle of some acquisition processes. It's hard to say whether these will be successful or not. We don't want to pay above market rates for such projects. The negotiations are still underway, and we hope that some of them, some of the negotiations will be successfully completed in 2023. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. President. Now I will ask President Tomasz Zdzikot for a few conclusions.
Yes. Thank you. Let me thank all my colleagues for a comprehensive in-depth presentation. Once again, we are happy with our performance in the first quarter.
These are robust results, especially in the context, a challenging context. We've had some macroeconomic challenges, the average prices of our main commodities, our main products, and we've had some one-off events as discussed by my colleagues. We are positive about these results. We are happy about our domestic production. As President Świder mentioned, domestic production compared to our budget and compared to the previous quarter is quite promising. Our production plans for this year look very realistic. Maybe we'll even outdo the plans, and we are very happy about this. As for our international assets, President Kidon spoke about this, and we are very positive about Sierra Gorda. This is a good quality asset. It's quite specific. Recently we visited Chile in the company of Prime Minister Jacek Sasin.
This is a specific mine with low-grade copper ore, so we need a very high level of efficiency, of productivity. We need to keep improving processes in order to stay profitable. We have a lot of competition to face, and we have been doing quite well. This is one of the achievements of President Kidon, who previously worked as the general manager of the mine. We also spoke with the government about the specific nature of such assets, where the positive results are owed to technologies introduced by the Polish team. The copper content is below 0.4, whereas the average value for Chile is 0.8. This is good news. This is good news also in the context of the Robinson plant.
Presidents Kidon and Wodejko spoke about the Robinson project. The results from Robinson had a very strong influence on the capital group performance. Indeed, a lot of things going on, a lot of developments that reduced our results. We already have the know-how. We know how to face these challenges, how to solve the problems. The question of weather, the heavy snowfalls is very important. Weather anomalies have become commonplace, both in Europe and U.S. and beyond. Robinson was particularly strongly hit by that. We will handle this because, as I said, we have what it takes to do it. We have the know-how from Sierra Gorda and other places. We've been concentrating strongly on our developmental investments in many different areas.
As repeatedly mentioned, we care about investments in our flagship projects. That's mining and smelting. We spoke about GG-1 , GG-2 . That's our projects underway. We have the hybrid smelting plant in Legnica. A lot of projects, both Poland and abroad. President Kidon spoke about the fourth production line in Sierra Gorda. We have a pipeline of developmental projects underway. We are building our future value because we need to see KGHM's development from a long-term perspective. Mining, smelting, these industries are not a quick-win business. These are long-term win businesses. We are consistent about our strategy.
Obviously, as you have seen in our results, our results are strongly affected by growing cost, growing expenses, mostly due to energy prices, to respond to the growing prices and to respond to energy security concerns for KGHM and Poland. KGHM is Poland's second-largest energy consumer. Our energy security is tantamount to the country's energy security. That's why Mr. Wodejko spoke about the energy projects we have been doing. Indeed, earlier this week, we were visited by NuScale and Fluor, two of our partner companies. NuScale was the first company to receive certification for its SMR technology in the U.S. Right now, it's waiting for certification for 77 MW reactors. The existing certification is for 50 MW reactor.
We have also been talking to the Polish regulators in charge of nuclear energy, where we supplied the necessary documents. Final business decision will reflect an analysis that will take into account the necessary investments and energy prices generated by the SMR. This is a project we have been involved in for quite some time right now, as we have been involved in renewable projects. This is very important for us. It will ensure long-term energy security for the Group in a very challenging macroeconomic environment. We've had some volatility in commodity markets, copper markets, silver markets. We've had volatile foreign exchange rates. As President Wodejko repeatedly mentioned, we have good reasons to be proud of our results because a beat in the first quarter of 2023 is actually higher than in the third and fourth quarter of 2022.
Despite the growing cost pressure and despite some significant volatility in commodity markets, we've been doing quite well and KGHM is navigating safely across the waves stirred by the war in Ukraine. Robust results that guarantee further sustainable growth of the company. Now we have some time for questions and answers. Thank you very much, Mr. President. This is where the official part of the presentation ends. Now we will be happy to take your questions from the capital market, bankers, journalists. Now I will give the floor to Director Janusz Krystosiak from the Investor Relations Department. Janusz?
Thank you very much. Good afternoon. We have quite a lot of questions, and we are very grateful for that. We are happy to take your questions. The presidents here gave us a very detailed overview of our operations, and they addressed some of the things included in the questions we have received. I've been trying to follow a few devices where we receive the questions, and I grouped those questions into clusters to save time. I will concentrate on those questions that concern areas that haven't been mentioned. Responses to all the questions will be available online as they always are. We are also there for you on an ongoing basis. If I may, let me begin with financial questions.
A question from Morgan Stanley, cash expenses C1 costs up by 37% year-on-year. Should we expect a similar inflation level by the end of the year, or perhaps lower energy prices will bring in some relief? Let me put it this way. We don't do forecasts, I can't really give you a satisfactory answer. Energy prices have been falling quarter-on-quarter, which obviously has a positive contribution on our financial performance, which is good for us, I can't give you any specifics. Thank you. A question from UBS. In the last two years, KGHM has built roughly PLN 5 billion of current capital, and a small release of that capital in the first quarter was quite encouraging.
How much current capital, working capital can be released in the remaining part of the year?
Again, we're not forecasting here. I'm not in a position to give you that directly. As you've seen in quarter one, well, there's been a decline in working capital, lower stock and what we'd like to continue this trend, but it will also depend on how attractive market prices are. Q1 been quite positive in this context for cathodes, silver and wire rod. Later stock release will depend on market prices and whether it's attractive for our company or not. Thank you. Now we have two questions about production. Paweł Puchalski from Santander has a question.
When will the volume be revised for KGHM International, and what would be the scale of such revision? Let me answer this question. I can only tell you that, well, the production volume at Robinson will not be achieved. Well, it's got to be analyzed, and we have to wait and see what happens over the coming months. It's also related to our negotiations for a better availability of mining machinery with Caterpillar and Komatsu. As Mateusz has told you, it's too early to forecast. Thank you. Another question from Paweł Puchalski. Is the company planning to have volumes above the budget at the parent company in the following quarters? Will the quarters be lower in terms of the results and/or maybe the budget will be delivered?
If work is well organized, and we have appropriate quality and safety, we can achieve these positive, robust results domestically. I don't think we would not be able to deliver on the budget in the coming months. Thank you.
Just to add as a, well, as a side remark, so both KGHM is a major part of our operations with positive, robust results, positive for the future and we need to thank our managers in Polkowice responsible for production. What something I said at one of our conferences in the past, and then colleagues from foreign assets held it against me, so I need to also emphasize the role of Sierra Gorda and the assets at KGHM International, which have been optimized and they're undertaking measures to improve their operations. All that right, thank you for that. And we have a question asked about investment spend. When we commented on the CapEx, you had pointed to the power sector projects.
Not only renewables, but also conventional. Could you please tell us some more about your CapEx for conventional power projects? I may answer this question. Investment in the power sector is also important for our companies of our group. As Mr. Pietrzak mentioned, for this company, which the PLN 115 million of capital has been injected into the company, a new gas turbine plant is going to be installed to replace a coal-fired plant to bring our generation in line with the EU requirements. What we're also doing here is to embark on our projects with the Getka company. These are solar parks. Five have been built. We're planning to add 2 at Głogów and Legnica smelter facilities, 1.4 MW each. Thank you.
A question about our project in Chile, Andrzej Rembelski, PKO BP. How have you been working with South32 at Sierra Gorda? Have there been any new ideas to optimize or develop the project? With as for our part South32 partners, they're fully involved in Chile in our development plans and our partners fully agree with our debottlenecking program that we have embarked upon. The recent tasks that we have been doing there was to change the transition at our gearboxes at our main pumps, feeding the hydrocyclones, for separation or classification. This is going to be done this year. They fully support our exploration work to better explore the deposit and increase the availability of our minerals being mined there, and increase the value of our project overall.
They also have declared that they are fully on board for our fourth line plans and also the oxides processing facilities. That's been heavy work from the Australian part to revise the calculations that had been made by Sierra Gorda and our engineers in Poland. I have to tell you that this has been going in the right direction, and we've been very positive about that. We're analyzing everything and one of our objectives is to achieve the level of 62% solid, solids in waste. The density of waste is crucial, costs-wise. It's also essential for safety and process, the, in terms of storing the waste and handling it.
We have to operate in line with the environmental permits that we have been granted with in Chile, which specify the infiltration level to downwater and thickness of waste, which may not exceed 60%. This is why we have invested in the thickener to thicken the waste, and it was really critical in order to meet the requirements that were outlined in the environmental permit, and also to reduce the CapEx looking forward. We also obtained a permit to increase the area of the tailings pond. This way, we can reduce the CapEx by $450 million during the lifetime of the mine. There is a lot of potential which has not been tapped into at Sierra Gorda.
We can do that, if we smart enough, and we, if we have the know-how, but our personnel know how to go about it. We are the second mine in Chile. One of the only two mines, they having direct, water near to, from the ocean. We pumping it 455 km. We can use ocean water for flotation, and we can achieve up to 84.5% of that level during the lifetime of the mine. Hope, well, we hope that we can have enough water for higher throughput. With there is some potential at the first crushing stage, crushed ore. There's stock also on the belt conveyors. There's a lot of potential out there.
We're going to use it and increase the production capacity at Sierra Gorda, improving our C1 and production and winning this competition. 32 is fully supportive of Sierra Gorda and the team in this context. Yes, we are discussing these aspects with our partners from Australia. We have an impression that they are really happy to have a share in the asset, which is really prospective. Chile is a global resource of commodities, and there is a lot of potential for study visits to see our the state-of-the-art improvements which have been made there. In spite of the low head grade, where it's very effective. Also, this is a model mine in terms of the environment.
That's important for the Chilean authorities. It's about the ocean water that's being used and the renewables. It's been a highly innovative and creative venture. There are ideas looking forward to develop this, and we will be making such decisions together with our Australian partners. Thank you. All right. I don't have any more questions about our business in Chile. Mr. Trigon asks us about any other metals that can be mined at Sierra Gorda. Can we try to answer that question? As for Sierra Gorda, we have both silver and molybdenum and gold. Talking about our exploration, we can identify five more pits, which will be similar to the existing pit that we're using for mining.
These would be silver and moly, the same minerals. The pit that is near the Domeyko pit is very similar. We expect... We think that this will be, would be one huge super pit. That's what we expect with our geological surveys. We are going to see over the next years if we're not wrong on this. These have been questions from the internet, do we have any questions from journalists in the room?
Yes, we have a question from the floor. Please introduce yourself. Marcin Matysik Wiśniewski , lubin24.info.pl. Question about the introduction of exoskeletons and cooling vests. What is the current status of that project? Thank you very much. President Świder.
Yeah. The exoskeletons have been purchased and introduced, we are in the testing stage right now. The same goes for cooling vests. The tests have been positive so far.
Thank you. Any other questions from the floor? I can see no questions. I guess we have time for one more question. Jacek Frączyk from Business Insider. Mining tax, down by PLN 500 million and dividend, down by PLN 200 million. I understand we need this money for the SMR project and for more exploratory works around Głogów. Could we specify the source of funding for these CapEx expenses? Well, our recommendation for dividend is PLN 200 million, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's down from PLN 600 to PLN 200. The dividend levels have changed over the years. Sometimes there was no dividend at all.
As specified in the statement of grounds for our recommendation, we need to look at both the current situation and the future situation, and the future situation depends on the number of major investments which are essential, such as the investments in our energy projects. On the other hand, these investments are worth doing because they will build a greater value of the company. As we've heard, it's about exploring new deposits in Poland, and it's also the projects described by the other presidents, such as the projects in Chile, which are very interesting for the KGHM Group as a whole, and Sierra Gorda in particular. Is this related to the SMR? Well, not directly. As I said, the SMR is a many years project, and we've had some specific costs about this.
The major spendings, the major investments, they are still to come, and that's a few years away from now. We have a few other investments of equally essential importance for the company. Thank you very much. Robert Maj from Ipopema also asks about the dividend, and he says, "Okay, you mentioned that you will stick to your dividend policy, which actually should, which would mean that the dividend is higher." Yes, let me take this. Our dividend policy assumes, defines the ceiling, the top level, but it also specifies that we need to take into account our future situation, not only the current results of the current condition. That's exactly what's happening this year. We can see that it's worth to spend more money on investments.
We want to retain that money with our reserve capital because we want to invest this money. This is a point in time where on the one hand, the macroeconomic situation is unfavorable, but on the other hand, we have some opportunities or necessary investments, and we need to have the money to finance that. Ideally, we want to invest them with our own capital and debt, you know, because in a macroeconomic situation like this approach keeps us safe from risks or minimizes our risks, and we still can go ahead with our investments. All in all, in the long term, this will build more value of the KGHM Group and will be beneficial to the shareholders. Thank you very much. That's it from me. Questions keep coming in, but answers will be available on our website.
Director, thank you very much for this meeting. I'd like to thank all the representatives of the capital markets, bankers, analysts, everyone who watched the online streaming. Let me thank the representatives of the company and the board. Thank you very much. The meeting ends now.