Atalaya Mining Copper, S.A. (ATYM) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Atalaya Mining Plc Investor Presentation. [Operator Instructions]. Questions are encouraged. [Operator Instructions]. Before we begin, I would like to submit the following poll. And if you could give that your kind attention, I'm sure the company would be most grateful. I would now like to hand you over to CEO, Alberto Lavandeira. Good afternoon, sir.

Good afternoon. Thank you very much. And thank you very much to everybody who's taken the time to be with us today. I'm going to go through a presentation highlighting and summarizing the results of the Q3 of this year. And also, what's more important, how are we addressing the future in the near term and in the long term. We -- you have a copy of this presentation in the web page, and I'm going to be following up the slides as we speak. And after the presentation, I will be responding to lots of questions that have been coming through, and I believe we will be responding to each and all of them. In general, I believe that the company is well-known for most of the investors. But in -- so I will not go into any detail. And if there is any question required by somebody because he's not so familiar, please feel free to ask anything at the end of the presentation. In summary, we are going to be looking at the results of Q3 and year-to-date. And I won't read everything, but I will go directly to the main points. The main points are, from the operational point of view, the production of copper, up 38,000 -- a bit more than 38,000 tonnes accumulated during the year. It's taken us to the high end of our last guidance, which will be around 54,000 tonnes of copper. This production level is consistent with good performance in the operations from the production point of view. And we likely will be able to recover part of the lost production on the first -- we had in the first quarter of this year due to a national-wide strike in Spain. All-in costs were high. All-in costs were very high at $3.47 due to extreme conditions in Spain, mainly higher electricity prices and other inflation. But specifically, high electricity prices, which has a lot of influence, as I will speak to later in other costs besides electricity. These were specifically high due to the high demand of gas and electricity during the summer period in Spain. We're looking very positively to Q4 and especially to '23 because we are getting a new power agreement, which is going to be at a much reduced rate. And also, we are building a solar plant for self-consumption, which will reduce our electricity bill. Still, even with all these difficulties of this extremely complicated year, we still have EUR 37 million positive EBITDA through the year, although the results during the quarter have been negative. We have continued to invest heavily in the E-LIX and in the solar plant, but still, we are maintaining a very decent balance sheet with a net cash position of EUR 55 million and over EUR 100 million in cash and with some liquidity -- additional liquidity through loans that we have not been borrowing. Another important thing that we have seen in this last few months, following the decrease to our share price due to the decrease of the copper price, is that our liquidity and the liquidity of the shares have increased a lot. And this is something that we are very happy for because that was one of the problems in the past. And besides that, the rest, as we have already announced in the past, increases in resources in San Dionisio, San Antonio, Masa Valverde, Cerro Colorado, so basically, additional resources for the future of this company. All of them have been submitted in a technical report that has been filed in October, and we are in the process of doing additional work, preliminary studies, for these properties that will be published in the first part of 2023. We also published during this year the first sustainability report of the company. So in going -- this is a summary. Now going directly to the points. How was the quarter in production? Well, it was back to normal, slightly lower production, 13,000 -- 13,400 tonnes of copper, slightly lower than 1 year ago. Similar throughput, similar recovery, a few points lower, but slightly higher grade, similar concentrate grades, so basically, a production level which is basically back to normal since our last 4 years -- 3 years. But the financial results were poor. And you can see very clearly, and this will respond to some of the questions that we have received the -- first, in the revenue. Having produced the same copper, we had lower sales of EUR 82 million versus EUR 107 million, which means, basically, it's around EUR 25 million, which is also dollars, lower revenues having produced less. That is as a result of lower copper price. So one of the questions people say, well, your lower results, how much is due to operating costs? How much higher operating cost and how much is of lower revenue? The first part is around EUR 25 million less revenue in a quarter, which is equivalent to EUR 100 million, if you think annualized basis. It's a big amount. It comes from lower copper price. And operating costs last year and treating the same tonnes, as we said, 3.9 million tonnes, we -- those tonnes were treated at EUR 55 million. And this year, we had EUR 84 million. That means EUR 30 million. EUR 30 million extra in a quarter is a huge number. It's equivalent to EUR 120 million a year, although the first 2 quarters were not that bad and the last quarter is not going to be that bad. Basically, that's -- adding up those EUR 25 million in lower revenue and higher EUR 30 million, roughly, slightly less than EUR 30 million in higher operating cost results in a difference of EBITDA from almost EUR 49 million positive in last year to negative EUR 4.3 million in this year. Very simple math. As a result of that, the same thing happening with profits and the same thing happened with cash flow. So in summary, the lower results of this quarter are due to lower metal prices and higher operating costs, being higher operating costs, roughly 60% of the effect and 40% would be related to metal prices. Does this worry us long term? No. Short term? Yes, of course. If you look at the lower part of the graph in the Slide 8, you will see that we have shown this graph in the past, and we have been working 7 years with negative working capital. So we are used to tough times. And right now, it's the opposite. We are in a very good position from our cash flow point of view and from a working capital point of view. We know this is a hiccup of 1 quarter, and we only had 1.5 months to go to get in 2023. Looking at the balance sheet, I mean -- and looking at specifically what's shown in the lower part of Slide 9. You will see that we still have a working capital surplus of EUR 106 million. So we got still a very good position, similar debt that we had last year, similar cash and similar net cash position. So although a very difficult year due to lower operating -- lower copper prices and much higher operating costs, we're still having a very decent balance sheet. When you look at year-to-date, you will see exactly the same things that I mentioned when I was speaking in the quarter. In the upper part of the Slide 9, you would see that the revenue this year has been EUR 262 million so far, the 3 quarters, which is roughly EUR 40 million less than previous year. And the operating costs are EUR 224 million versus EUR 156 million, so roughly $70 million more. And as a result of that, last year, we had an extraordinary year, where we had EUR 104 million profits by this time of the year, versus this year, we only have EUR 23 million, which is still a very decent number in spite of the difficulties, but roughly EUR 75 million, more or less, or less than last year -- EUR 80 million less than last year. So why was this? Are we doing something wrong? Well, probably not preventing not having seen this in the past. Because in 2020, if we consider what's shown in Slide 10, the cost of the main inputs, you will see explosives, diesel, tires, electricity, steel and lime, all starting in basically at the end of 2020 with a level of 100. Explosives, basically, have doubled the price. So from 100 to 200 in relative terms. Steel balls, same thing, a little bit worse, from 100 to 100 -- sorry, diesel, going from 100 to a little bit at 250, although we are seeing a descent. Tires, 50% higher. Steel balls, 100 to 170. And lime, from 100 to a little bit less than 200. I left on purpose the case of electricity, which is in the bottom left corner of the slide, which has gone from 100 to 300 to basically 400. So we're talking about 4x. From all the cost increases that we have experienced this year and specifically this quarter, 80% of this is due to electricity. And I want to go through a little bit more in detail of the electricity and what we are seeing in the future. Electricity is higher due to the gas prices. The gas prices are higher, and they set a marginal cost of production in Spain, and they set the marginal price for Spain. And I believe this is the same case in Europe. But also, the higher gas prices have an influence on the price of explosives because explosives are form -- are fabricated from ammonium nitrate, ammonia, which is produced from natural gas. And also, high gas prices have an influence in the production of lime as well as electricity because lime is produced by burning with gas stones of limestone, and also has an influence in the steel balls because not only is the price of the steel, but the price of hardening the steel balls is done with induction versus electricity or with gas. So you can see what's the big influence of the gas in our company. So what are we seeing for -- before we get into the markets, what are we seeing for this last quarter and beyond? We believe we are going to end the year, as I said before, in the high end of 54,000 tonnes of copper. We believe that the electricity prices are going to be going down, substantially down from 290 that were the average in the quarter 3. We have seen the prices of electricity being less than half of this during the last 4 weeks. And going beyond that, in 2023, we are kicking in with a new power purchase agreement, the PPA, and building our solar plant, which we are starting to get the materials now. So in the future, no matter what happens with electricity prices and the gas prices, these high peaks of this year are not going to be there. We are seeing, for the whole year, all-in sustaining cost between $3.25 and $3.45 due to the high influence of this quarter, hopefully, in the low end of that. So let's look at the big influence of our higher cost and how do we see it from -- in the future. In the lower part of Slide 13, you will see the evolution of the year in detail, each quarter. There's a big spike at the left, which is the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. And there's another spike in September, August, which was the moment where the gas pipes in the Northern -- in the Baltic were blown. In addition to coincident with the August season, holiday season in Spain, with lots of people, and a huge heat wave that you may also remember because it also was felt all over Europe. In those moments, the prices -- the average prices in Spain were EUR 450 per megawatt hour. Remember that what we had last year was EUR 60. You will also see in that graph, in the bottom part of the graph, that we have been around EUR 100 to EUR 120 in the last 4 weeks. So we are looking with optimism in the remaining of the quarter. If you look at the upper part of the slide, you will see some shaded areas where you can see the average prices that have been experienced in Spain since 2016, always between EUR 50, EUR 70, EUR 60, and that has been the tendency with a lower spot in 2020 due to the recession. And in 2021, we had a long-term agreement of EUR 60s, which was well below what was experienced in the market. In 2022, we were exposed to the market. But the most important thing is what you see in the right part of that graph. You will see 2 lines there, 2 lines there in reddish and orange that go between EUR 50 and EUR 70, which means that we have a power purchase agreement with our supplier for 10 years, for 1/3, roughly, of our consumption at EUR 54. The rest will come from the market. And in addition to that, starting in '23, we'll have a solar plant, which will give us another 20% of our needs basically at zero price, which means that no matter what happens in the rest of our hours, it means we'll have a much lower average electricity price than we had this year. Even if the electricity price stayed as it was in '21, '22, we will still have enjoyed a very low average of sub-EUR 100 per megawatt hour, which is a huge reduction in costs for our company. Looking at the gas, I told you and you said that the gas has a big influence in the price of electricity for Europe, from Spain, specifically, but also has a big influence in lime, cost of lime and explosives. The prices -- evolution of prices since 2020 are shown in the graph. In orange is the prices in Spain; in black, the prices in Europe. You can see that in the last part of 2022, in the last 6 months, the prices in Spain have been substantially lower than the rest. And this is due to the fact that Spain has lots of availability of LNG tankers that are coming -- every place, we are not connected, almost not connected at all or influenced at all by the gas coming from Eastern Europe and from Russia, specifically. So with those conditions, actually, the prices of gas have even reached very low levels, almost back to normal levels that were experienced in mid-'21. We see this going like this during this winter, and let's hope that the situation in Russia and Ukraine is sorted out before the next winter. So this will have a positive effect in other consumables like explosives and lime and a little bit in steel balls. Although we are taking actions by importing balls from other places like Canada and Australia, where the prices of gas and steel are not as high as in Spain. Why we believe that the prices in the long term in Spain are going to be much better in electricity? Well, you can see in the lower part of the graph, Slide 15, how -- since 2018, the compounded growth of installation of solar and wind has been growing at very high levels in the last 5 years, and it continues to do that in Spain. So you understand this graph or you understand the importance of this graph. This means that almost -- this is equivalent to building almost a nuclear plant every year. So in 2 or 3 years, Spain, in theory, should be in a very good position due to the strong prevalence of solar and wind in Spain. Actually, if you look at the upper graph, you will see that, actually, the influence of -- the influence of gas is not that important. The important is it has been around 33% in '21, and year-to-date, 38%, but has been going down. So I think Spain is in a unique position to Spain's low electricity prices in the future, which would have an influence in the 50% of the hours that we have not already agreed to with our power purchase agreement and with the solar plant. What's the influence of this electricity? Well, you can see it in Slide 16. The influence of electricity alone was an increase of 280%, and basically, itself, alone, meant almost $1 per pound in our cash costs, all-in cash costs, which means that you are -- telling you here the huge potential of reduction of costs and cash generation, of course, as soon as we have this wind -- sorry, as soon as we have this solar and the power purchase agreement in place. So what are we doing? I just mentioned it. We are advancing -- fast track our solar plant. We are also evaluating other alternatives, which are -- I will show you a little bit, like wind. We are also building E-LIX Phase I, doing some studies for longer-term deposits growth in San Dionisio, Masa Valverde and Touro, where we continue with the permitting. Those measures from the cost reduction are going to lower our cost structure, besides lowering our carbon footprint. Put into production, the San Dionisio satellite will mean higher grade. Higher grade means lower costs, means higher production, higher recovery and extended mine life. [ By running ] Touro and [indiscernible] production at Masa Valverde [indiscernible] more diversification, which will result in reduced cash costs, all-in costs and, of course, there will be higher profits. If you look at solar plant, [indiscernible] but constructed or very -- almost constructed, which, by the way, is the largest self-consumption expansion in Spain. In addition to that, we don't stop. I mentioned before in previous quarters that we were looking at wind also. There's some wind in our area. The pre-feasibility study that we have completed showing that there is good potential to construct 4 wind towers, so for us, around 6 megawatts each. And for that, we have already installed a big measuring antenna or device, I don't know how you call it, tower, 100 meters high, which, well, you see in the Slide 20 on the right side, which have taken measurements at different levels to correlate to the 20 years measurements that we have on the ground level. And we believe we will be able to get a decision, if not this year, early next year. We believe that this is -- there is potential to produce another 15% of our needs from these wind turbines for our self-consumption, which is cheaper, no taxes, no access to the net and so on. In the past, we have also talked about E-LIX. E-LIX, for those of you who do not know, is a system that we have been working for 6 years with a lady that discovered this, building a pilot plant. And finally, we decided to go ahead in September, no, end of August. There was nothing there, what I'm showing in the site, I'm showing now in the picture. This is a building of 130 meters long. So it's not a small building. You can see how advanced it is, and we believe we are going to be able to put this into commissioning in the first quarter of '23. Things are going very fast. What this will do is be able to produce metal directly, copper or zinc, or both or separate. We will start with zinc, which, right now, we are not getting any value at all. Zinc containing our concentrates as a by-product, but we are leaving room to expand and produce also copper. So as you can see, we don't waste time, and things are balancing and moving extremely fast. I talked about San Dionisio. This is Slide in 22 showing you where is the San Dionisio. It's basically expansion of existing pit of Atalaya, pushing back at mine the high-grade zone that was left there. We continue doing -- drill holes in Valverde as well as a preliminary study and permitting. And in Slide 24, this is a slide that shows something that I spoke before, what's the effect of bringing in San Dionisio and San Antonio. San Dionisio and San Antonio are satellite deposits that are besides existing pits. San Dionisio is open pit with a grade of around 0.8%. San Antonio is underground with a grade of 1.5%. In that slide, in 24, it shows that by bringing in 1/3 of the San Dionisio in with Cerro Colorado gives you a production uplift of 16,000 to 21,000 tonnes of extra copper, which means that in 2 years from now, our company will be able to be producing from Riotinto, from this site, over 70,000 tonnes of copper from the 56,000 that we produced in 2021 or the 55,000 that we are likely going to be producing in 2022. So this is a big addition with our existing installations without any further big investment. And that shows you a little bit the potential of this San Dionisio deposit. A total -- just as more reminder what was there, this is a brownfield site. What you see in the upper slide is the old mine, which has been partly restored. In the lower slide, you see the actual quarry, where they are mining the waste for aggregate, and why we got a negative environmental impact declaration in our permitting attempt in -- back in 2020 was due to the legacy water -- legacy situation with us in waters from previous operators. What we did is, you know what, let's fix it. Let's show the administration that can be fixed. And we did that before advancing. What you see in the right part of the pictures, in Slide 26, is the dirty water from the river coming in, red color. And the lower right picture, the same water coming out, absolutely clear. The administration there in Galicia is extremely pleased with what we have done. The rivers have recovered back the color and the quality. And I'm very sure that this will serve to demonstrate that we have modern techniques and we're being professional. The history of -- the bad history of the previous operators doesn't need to be an impediment doesn't need to be a problem for another mine, and we believe we are going to be hitting the permits. So with that, I will pass it -- I will get into the question-and-answer session.

Alberto, if I may just jump back in there. Thank you very much indeed for your presentation this afternoon. [Operator Instructions]. Alberto, we did receive a number of pre-submitted questions ahead of today's event. And as you can see in the Q&A tab, we have received a number of questions during the presentation itself. So firstly, thank you to everyone on the call for taking the time to submit their questions. And Alberto, if I could just hand back to you to address those questions, where it's appropriate to do so, and then I'll pick up from you at the end. Thank you.

Thank you. I will try to respond to all the questions. There are lots of questions, and some of them I see that I have already replied. But as usual, I will reply to each and all. First one, I see a big decrease in EBITDA. How much is the decrease is from cost increases and how much is lower copper price? I think I mentioned that. Roughly 40% is due to lower copper price, 60% is due to the cost increases. What -- next question, what would cash cost be if electricity go back to normal? It looks like there is solar inflation, not just electricity. That's perfect. I've shown that the electricity actually is a big issue. If electricity went back to normal, normally, our electricity was around $0.15 per pound. When you go to 300, it's $1 per pound. So there is a potential of around $0.80 saving just in electricity. Other costs are linked with the cost of explosives are not that high, although the price of explosive has doubled due to the price of nitrogen and ammonia nitrate. That's only part of the equation, so it's not that influential. I would roughly say that from the spike in costs, 30% will be electricity and 30% all others. And by the way, there is a possibility of bringing lime from import, which we are looking at it right now. There's a possibility of bringing bulk from other places of the world. And diesel is still high. It looks like it's going down, but still high, but there is no possibility of reduction of electricity cost, except the way we are doing. Next question is, when do you plan to give another update on exploration results? Actually, before the year-end -- sorry, before this -- the end of this month, we'll give an update of the exploration results. I don't know if it's in 2 weeks or in that order or 3 weeks, but normally, on or around before end of November. If you get Touro permits, that's the next question, what are your plans for electricity there? Is solar possible? It looks cloudy in photo. It's true that the price of electricity is important. And are we going to build a solar plant? Yes, we are going to be putting a smaller plant of around 20 megawatts on top of the old tailings. If I give you an idea of what's the -- we have already the studies of the generation of electricity in this area. And if the cost of electricity in Spain, with depreciation in this part of the southwest Spain was around EUR 2.28 megawatt hour, there would be around 35. So yes, it's not that sunny, but is still very positive. The rest of the electricity will come from the Portodemouros dam, which is a dam from the old Fenosa, Naturgy, which is just 14 kilometers away, which is all hydro. So actually, the case of Touro will be a place where, basically, we will be getting 100% of the warranty, to 100% in renewable electricity. Next question is, what is your view of the comp price in the future? I see CapEx blowout in -- from Teck and TSX coal miners. This is a very good question. I've been advocating that the copper price will have to go up in order to incentivize prices. The case of Teck with Quebrada Blanca is one more of the cases. Even a company like Anglo American, where they recently finished the project of Quellavec, and they said it was on time, on budget. This is -- it was on time and on budget after the last budget had been made. But the reality is, this probably took 15 years to construct. The case of Quebrada Blanca is the same thing. I think there's huge CapEx blowouts in these places, not so much -- not so much for the inflation on materials, but especially due to travel complications, infrastructure complications. Most of the projects are in the middle of nowhere, and they require huge infrastructure spending. There's still limited traveling. And this is a problem for new projects, which means that the copper price will have to go exponentially high in order to get these mines up and running. I've seen lots of -- I don't know when it's going to go up, but I'm 100% sure that the prices of copper will go well over $5 per pound. I'm not sure if it's going to be in '23 due to the semi recession that we are seeing. But it will have to go substantially higher in order to incentivize these new projects in Indonesia and British Colombia, Peru and Chile, some parts of Africa. I mean nothing is easy. Whatever is left is not that easy. Another question is, what will E-LIX produce? Copper, zinc or both? Yes, correct. It's both. Initially, it is -- actually, the way it does, it dissolves copper concentrates, which contain zinc, but it could also be copper-zinc concentrates. The way it works, more or less, is that zinc dissolves much faster, like 100x faster than copper, which means if you don't apply very strict conditions, you get dissolved all of these things without touching the copper. So you could produce zinc without touching the copper and still sell copper concentrates, and that's how we will start. But having said that, we will be producing also copper in the future and copper [indiscernible] in the future. Another question is, since you installed the water plant at Touro, has the community view on the place changed? Absolutely, 100%. We have a huge support from the community, and we had visitors from the municipalities around coming and seeing the project, taking picture. We have been in the newspapers. We have been -- we have absolutely full support of the community. I think, actually, we always had it, and this was more of a political issue with some political parties. There's more political parties making -- using the Touro flag against the conservative government. But I think the situation is changing. It has changed. And right now, there are not that many industrial projects being built in Galicia. And we believe that this project is going to go ahead because, simply, there's no reason why not. The next question is solar plant. Do we have an exact date when this will come online? Or we know currently second half of '23? Yes. That's what we are saying because, still, could be some small issues. There are 2 parts. One is what we have to do. And the other thing is what electrical company has to do, building some connections and some changes in the solar station. And we don't like to give specific dates. We expect it to be around June. But we don't want to give specific dates because, remember, 3 years ago that we had a delay of the electrical company by supplier to supply the electricity for the new expansion. And they were delayed like -- we were delayed like 3 months due to the electrical company being a little bit slower than we were. So we believe it's going to be, let's say, the first part of the second half of '23. We are pushing us -- as you know, we always go very fast, but some of it out of our control. The important thing here is that this is something that goes forever, and it has a life of 20 years. So it's done and once in forever. The next question is, carbon credit, do we qualify? Are we trading this credit? Or we'll be able to trade this when solar and wind fully come online? My question -- my response is, I don't know. And I will ask some very good question, and I really don't know. AIM. Another question is AIM, when do we exit? You mentioned liquidity increase. This will help our application to Main board. This is correct. The liquidity -- important, the size of the company, which -- since our share price increase has not been so good. But yes, I think we will apply to the Main board. When do we exit? I think that by the end of this year, we will have all the -- everything ready to have moved from Cyprus, and it will be some time in the first part of '23. The other question is in Spanish, but I will translate it to English. Hello, Alberto and César. Years before, we had a very simple calculation, sales in pounds multiplied by the price and all-in -- by the difference in price in the obtained price and all-in costs. This calculation was more or less coincident with EBITDA -- accounting EBITDA. In this year, it's not like that. The EBIT or EBITDA is lower. How -- what is the reason? Is this recurrent? Well, it should be similar. I don't know why it is different. So we'll try to answer you, Walter. I really don't know. It should be the same. I really don't know. Now our numbers are quite simple, so I really don't know. Unless it's due to the difference between the obtained price and the adjustment of sales of the quarter -- of the previous quarter that are adjusted in the next quarter, maybe that's the difference, but I really don't know. I don't think it should be a big difference. But we will come back to you, Walter. When do we look at other verticals? With cost of transportation and our [ overlies ] in China, we will not supply car manufacturers directly with copper wire? I don't think so. The reason why I don't think so is that the manufacturing of wire, from what I know, is a very specialized business because it requires not only pure copper but some additional materials that are going into the mix in order to -- the very fine wires not to break. The way they fabricate the wires is basically taking a thicker wire and extending it at a constant speed. And it's very tricky that these wires don't break, especially when you get to the millimeters and lower. So it's very difficult to go directly into the manufacturers chain. And by the way, we don't feel that we'll get a big advantage because we get paid -- the LME with minimum discounts. And the smelters sell them -- the pure metals with a small premium. Acquisitions, any update on opportunities? Better to buy when assets are depressed. Well, we continue to look at things. The values have been going down, but we have been looking at lots of things. But they are not that -- there are not that many good opportunities around there, especially that they are very close to production. We believe that the best opportunity right now, so far, although we are looking at things, are the development of -- the development of San Dionisio and the Touro. That will create a huge value to this company. I have another question here, which say, will you consider entering into electricity derivative contracts as a way to hedge or stabilize your future electricity costs? Or do you consider this too late to execute these and prices can only go down? Actually, this is a very good point because, actually, the PPA that we have has been created because we force the supplier to use a long-term contract when we saw there was a decrease in price back in February. We have been looking at the future prices that are in OMIP. There was a decrease in 15 -- 14th, 15th of September, where the prices of the future for 10 years went down to EUR 65 or around that. That was a good opportunity, but the opportunity was a very small window. And now if one wanted to get into 10 years contract, they started in '23, you will be seeing EUR 85, which is EUR 20 more. We believe the market is going to be much lower than that in the long term. So as we approach '23, the prices started going up. So it's true, that's a little bit later to execute this. But yes, we are looking at that constantly, almost, actually, daily. Thanks for the presentation. When is Atalaya expecting to release the results for PPAs of San Dionisio and Masa Valverde? I would say, first quarter, we are forcing the consultants to try to have the results ready by the end of the year, January, so the first quarter of '23 would be okay. Another question is, taking first power day from the solar plant, how far along on construction to date, storage battery for wind and solar? Well, I mentioned before, we are talking about the second part of the year, likely the first part or the second part. We have, basically, panels arriving. And in theory, the construction, including substation, is 8 months. So we are around there. If we look at the storage batteries, we spoke with vanadium flow suppliers. They are not economic to the amounts that we are talking about. We will be looking at producing hydrogen because we have some ideas, but -- and also, we are looking at a water battery, which is basically pump and storage. And we have had several studies already by putting a small installation where we can pump water in this, basically, call it, free periods in the mid of the day when the electricity prices goes down big time, and then generating electricity in -- at 8 or 9, basically, when the sun goes down and when the sun goes up. But this with pump and storage water between 2 dams that we have here, too, that supply us water. The potential there for our installation will be like 7 megawatts constant. It will be produced this way. But something that's still under study, and we have an engineering company doing that. Another question is, can you provide more detail on where the zinc-containing feed to the E-LIX arises, and the approximate grade and expected recovery? The -- our concentrates right now have around 5% of zinc that's not paid, and it's also not penalized, with around 21%, 22% copper. We have been making tests or now -- which means, if you multiply by 250,000 tonnes of concentrate, basically, it means that we have roughly 10,000 tonnes, 10,000 to 12,000 tonnes of zinc in our concentrate that right now are lost and not paid. At current prices, this means around $25 million to $30 million, which are not penalized, but also not paid. Our recovery in zinc is very high in E-LIX. It's, I would say, higher than 95%. I want to be a little bit careful there, but it's very high, in that range. [ Alberto ] mention holders in the company, Urion and Xiangguang Copper. Is that correct? The shareholder structure is therefore stable? Are these 2 long-term holders? Well, I think you're looking at probably an older slide or maybe we -- or an old presentation. And sorry if we have not updated that. Urion is Trafigura, and this is -- these are 22% shareholders. They have been here for 6 years. And the company is in mining, but it's also in trading. So at the right time, they have always been very supportive. They are the shareholders that had 50% of MATSA, which, in the last year -- well, early this year, they had 50%, and the other 50% was Mubadala from Abu Dhabi, and they sold this to Sandfire for EUR 1.8 billion. Well, this thing could also happen in our case. So that is their problem. Then Yanggu Copper is a smelter that's no longer a shareholder. And they were -- it's a big smelter that was -- got into problems with real estate and debt. And their shares were liquidated, I would say, 5 months ago. And now our second shareholder is a Spanish fund or group of funds called Cobas, that you well know, Marcus, headed by Franco Paramés, which has roughly 10%. Other base shareholders around 4% and 5% are Fairfax from Canada, which is like similar to Berkshire Hathaway, Konwave, Polar, BlackRock, Fidelity. In Spain, we have others like Muza, Magallanes, [ Orus ]. Yes, in general, nobody can save their long-term holders. We are quite happy with the existing shareholder base. Another question. Can you please remind us of the dividend guidance? Is there -- for '22? Is there a dividend guidance for '23? The dividend guidance policy has not changed. We will distribute 30% to 50% -- between 30% and 50% on free cash flow. We hope that we can generate some cash flow during this quarter, and then we will probably apply another extra dividend in -- corresponding to the year. In '23, we'll go back again to the same guidance. We will distribute between 30% and 50% of excess cash flow. What percentage of Touro have we earned it in? That's the question. Do any of our projects have royalties payable in future production? Right now, we have -- in Touro, we have a 10%, but we carry all the costs, and we have the right at any time to get first to another to 40% up on permits -- another 30% up to 70% paying small amounts once we start construction. So this 60% additional is basically all limited to the risk of the project. So we will not pay anything, but we have the right to do it any time, unless we get the permits. And then we have another extra 10% in exchange of our royalty. So they will keep a royalty of 0.75%, and we will have the right to buy this royalty out and to get to 80%. So total, we will end up having 80% and have been paid, if I remember well, EUR 18 million to get to this 80%. Always, payments are linked to permits. All these payments are linked to permits and construction. And we don't have any other royalties in Riotinto. M&A opportunities, pipeline. Well, I mentioned before. We have been looking at lots of things, and we are looking at lots of things. But the pipeline right now is full with our opportunities. Those in the near term are getting some initial up and running in less than 2 years, if possible, something already next year, and getting the permits of Touro during '23. Next question is, can you remind us again what steps need to be taken? And what's the potential time line for the permits of Touro project? They are not -- the permits are not dependent on us. We believe or we have been told or we have seen the signs that we'll get the permits of this Touro project this -- during '23 and early part of '23. And as soon as we get those, we will start construction. Steps, basically, it's in the side of the local authorities, regional authorities, which basically have to submit a positive environment impact declaration, following the modification that we have done to the project, improvements that we've done to the project. And well, we are quite confident we'll get it this year. Next question is, do you have a view on the copper price for '23? It's a crystal ball. Who knows what's happening with the recession. I think, in the moment, China starts moving a little bit. It's not only China, it's the rest of the world. You have seen what has happened the moment that China gave some indications that were opened a little bit, the lockdowns, the copper prices spiked. Because the physical copper market is very tight. Right now, there's no copper whatsoever. And also, if there is any problem in the suppliers, we will really be very tight, and the copper price can go to at any moment. Any comments around the [indiscernible] came while you were presenting about Mr. Delgado selling off his shares to the company? Well, it's a private reason, and I can tell you I know the reason because he wants to buy a house for his daughters. If you knew the guy, that's all. I don't think there's more to say. And I think it's the same question that comes later. The reason why he gave this is basically he sold it is that he was waiting for the blackout period. And the moment we had the announcement out, he didn't want to take advantage of the share price going up. So actually, he sold it at the weakest moment after bad results, which, I think, speaks well for what was his intentions. And any range in cash cost for Masa Valverde, San Dionisio? How much reduction it would add, with higher copper price in relations to keep a strong balance sheet in a tough situation? Well, no, no indication for Masa Valverde yet. In San Dionisio, yes, we have certain indications because we know, and they are very easy to calculate. San Dionisio will be blended with existing Cerro Colorado. It has a much higher grade and has a higher stripping costs. But due to the higher production and higher grade, the cash costs are going to go down significantly. And production, we will probably add another 20,000 tonnes of copper or 15,000 tonnes of copper. Is there value in historic tailings using new mining techniques? We don't think so at this stage, but we keep an eye because the old -- the old things are basically gold and silver, there's not much left in the copper. We are leaving our tailings with 0.06% copper, but the old tailings have around 0.5 grams of gold, actually 0.4 grams of gold and 35 grams of silver. We have done lots of test work, and these are highly refractory. So we don't see that this gold and silver prices, they're economic. But in theory, there is like 1 million ounce equivalent in those 29 million tonnes of tailings. And if the prices of gold and silver went high enough, then it would be economic. Another question, is there a long-term strategy to become a clean power supplier beyond mine life? Beyond mine life, yes. And actually, we have certain plans that we have not published yet. But certainly, we see that the future of this was -- these areas, my doubt, there is a good possibility of having a huge solar plant in our installations or around our installations. But certainly, I think that's 15 to 20 years away from us. So it's [ our future ]. Next question and final is -- are -- at least you are building a plant. Could this be copied by others? Will you be able to monetize this outside of Spain? Well, we are the first comers and the patent is held by the owner of the technology. We have the exclusivity in [ power belt ], that's where it can be better. Can we be copied by others? We can, but it's not going to be so easy. This is the first time it's done in the world. So of course, there was the same way that a telephone is copied. I think they will be able to copy it, but it will not be so easy. Will we be able to monetize this out of Spain? Yes, because we can apply this technique to other projects that are complex. Why I say this is that I don't think this E-LIX is going to be a game-changer in easy deposits. So copper deposit that has a smelter very close by, I don't think this will be better. But this will be very interesting for projects that have high arsenic or high antimony or mercury or very remote. And for those, we have also the right of refusal if this lady sells the technology. So yes, I think we will be able to monetize this by providing these techniques in other deposits. And that's part of the game that we are doing right now by looking at other companies, where we can apply this knowledge or this investment that we have done along this in these past 5 years. Well, lots of questions. And I think I will pass it to you.

Alberto, absolutely, and thank you for being so generous of your time, then addressing every single question that came in from investors this afternoon. And of course, if any further questions do come through, we'll make these available to you immediately after the presentation has ended for you to review and then add any additional responses, where it's appropriate to do so. Alberto, perhaps, before redirecting those on the call to provide you their feedback, which I know is particularly important to yourself and the company, if I could please just ask you for a few closing comments to wrap up with, that would be great.

Yes. I think I would summarize that it has been a very tough quarter. I would say, a very tough year for us, for Europe, for Spain. The way I see it is that the worst is behind us. We are looking forward only 1.5 months to get into 2023. We have passed very difficult moments in the past, so I think we will also pass this one. It's the first time we have a negative EBITDA in the 7 years we have been operating, even with tough situations. It's out of our control, but we are doing what we can. But this is a long-term project. This is a project that initially had 12 years life, we have consumed 7, and we still have another 15 ahead of us. So I'm sure we'll have some difficult times ahead. But what I'm sure is that we'll have lots of good times. And since we believe that the copper price is going to be high for longer, we're in a very good position. And we have been able to pass these difficult times, we will be able to enjoy that in the good times. So we're just looking forward to take away '22 and start in '23. And thank you, everybody, to the support and received lots of support from shareholders from -- of all types, for our hard work, and that helps a lot to continue that way. So thanks very much for your attention.

Alberto, that's great, and thank you for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations. It's going to take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure it'll be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of Atalaya Mining Plc, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That now concludes today's session. So good afternoon to you all.