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

Good morning, and welcome to the Atalaya Mining Plc Investor Presentation. [Operator Instructions] The company may not be in a position to answer every question received during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it is appropriate to do so. Before begin, I would like to submit the following poll. And I would now like to hand over to CEO, Alberto Lavandeira. Good morning to you.

Good morning, everybody. Thank you for being here in this summer time. I'll try to keep it brief, the presentation, because we have already -- we released the production results, and we are talking here about the financial results of the corresponding to the first quarter and the second quarter and the first half of '24. With me, I will have Cesar Sanchez, if needed, that he can also respond to any specific questions that you may have. We had already released the production in the second quarter. It was better than the first quarter, and showed a good improvement, especially in the tonnes treated through the plant. One of the key points in this quarter is that we maintained costs. All-in sustaining costs are $3.20 and also more or less the same, $3.20 during the first half, despite we had lower grades. And we kept the guidance of cost around $3.20, although the guidance of our production has been reduced a little bit. The reason of that is that we believe we are going to be having much better grades in the second quarter -- in the second half of the year, excuse me, but we will not be able to catch up the production loss in the first half. Besides that, the fact that we have better -- higher copper prices and good cost control, we had a very good EBITDA of EUR 26.4 million in the quarter and accumulated EUR 36.7 million, which is around over $40 million. And we continue doing some investments in E-LIX and in the pre-stripping of the San Dionisio. So at the end of the quarter, we -- the quarter half of the year, we ended up having over EUR 50 million in net cash, with a very strong balance sheet, which allowed us to declare an interim dividend of another $0.04 per share to be paid in August '24. All the things that you have -- that we have prereleased, as you know, is that -- we passed to the Main Market, and we are going to be moving from Cyprus to Spain in the third quarter, which means that likely in the fourth quarter of '24, we will be ready, and that will allow us or we think that we fulfill all the conditions to be part of the index, which would improve the liquidity and the trading of our shares. Talking about the assets, as you all know, our total project has been declared strategic by the Xunta de Galicia, the regional government. And this is a huge step forward, which will streamline the permitting process. Permitting is ongoing. I will speak a little bit more about that in the next few minutes, but things, I can say, are going very well. The same thing with the permitting of the final pit of San Dionisio. Although we continue with the interim [indiscernible] has been approved, and we -- where we have continuous stripping activities during the first half and also started to touch some of the ore already. And this will provide better grades in the months to us to come to be blended with the Cerro Colorado main pit. At the same time, we continue commissioning the E-LIX plant, which is handled by Lain Technologies. And then also, we have almost finished the construction of the solar plant finally, which is basically ready to start up almost in the -- immediately. We have also made some changes in the Board. As you all know, Neil Gregson will be the new Chair substituting Roger Davey. Roger Davey will continue the Board, but due to the fact that he had been over 12 years in the company, he was not considered independent, although he is independent. So for compliance rules with the London Stock Exchange, he will continue as our Director and Neil Gregson will take the Chair of the company. Kate Harcourt has been appointed as Senior Independent Director; and Carole Whittall has been appointed as a new Non-Executive Director. Carole comes with a huge experience in M&A from ArcelorMittal and also CFO roles in a London-listed company. So overall, a very good quarter in -- even in spite of the slightly lower rate. At the end, the results have been quite good. I have already spoken most about this already, but basically, the reason for why we had good -- better copper production than the previous quarters that we treated more tonnes. So we had the same grade, same recovery, but more tonnes, which resulted in increasing copper production of 11,600 tonnes of copper, which is quite good considering that we have been treating only 0.33% copper grade. This copper grade was already flagged. It was already known that we're going to go through a period of low rate that we wanted to mix with San Dionisio, which had a couple of months of delay. So as a result of that, we had slightly lower grade. Note that the expansion that was originally signed for 50 million tonnes, it's running at 4.1 million per quarter, which means 16 million tonnes per year. So the production-wise, things are going quite well. As a result of this production, as I said before, we had, as you can see, higher revenues. Why it was higher revenues? Basically because we had higher copper prices. Due to the fact that we had higher sales and lower costs, we have very good EBITDA, and we -- it allowed us to increase our cash balances and maintain a very good working capital position of over EUR 63 million, which is basically $70 million, which is, as you can see, is quite consistent with what we have had in the last few years, even with the fact that we have given dividends and we have also been doing some investments. The conclusion for this is that this company is very leveraged to copper price. As you can see, a very small increase in copper price, even through a small period creates a big increase in EBITDA and in cash. The summary of the results for the half of the year are summarized in Slide 9. As I said before, revenues due to the higher copper prices, even despite the lower production, have been similar to the previous year, but operating -- the same thing with operating costs, but EBITDA has been better, and cash flow has also been quite consistent with previous years, even in spite of lower production. The details of the cash costs and all-in costs are, as you know, we always break down all these details. There is an increase in mining costs versus previous year due to slightly higher waste mined and lower production, mainly. Basically lower production. The same thing happens with the other site costs. The processing costs have been kept lower, lower than previous years, and the reason for that is that the electricity prices have been also slightly lower. And also we have -- if you remember, we had some long-term contracts for 1/3 of our production. What was a big change is the byproduct grades. We had a very good byproduct grades due to 2 factors. One is that this byproduct [ credits ] is formed by silver, silver in our concentrates. So silver prices have been good. But in addition to that, we have been processing some areas with higher silver grades. Knowing those areas were quite accessible and knowing that we were going to be having lower copper grades, we at least were able to mine this higher silver to compensate a little bit the copper. Grades were then -- we were able to maintain the costs in a quite good range in spite of this lower production due to the byproduct grades. Overall, the cash -- the total rolling costs have been quite consistent during the year and within the guidance. Important to note here is we used to compare ourselves with peers, and we will see our costs in the last quarters. All-in cost in our last quarters in the left columns in orange, you will see that we have been quite consistent after the big increase that happened with 2022, but also quite well-controlled compared with other companies that are shown there. All of this is based on public information. So it's very important because we always report all-in cost due to the fact to the mining is contracted out, and being contracted out, the contractor, the proprietor, takes care of purchasing the equipment, the mining equipment, and so we will have extra cost to buy once in a while equipment to replace the fleet. We have reiterated the lower guidance that we had already flagged about 1 month ago, with copper-containing concentrates at the end of the year being between 45,000 and 50,000, which is roughly 3,000 tonnes less than we originally planned. But we have kept the cash cost within the guidance, and we will still be investing because we believe that the copper prices will stay as they are. We'll still be investing in some money in finalizing the solar plant, the E-LIX plant and the road and investments associated with the development of San Dionisio. As I said before, we have given a dividend consistent with our policy of distributing back to the shareholders between 30% and 50% of the free cash flows without considering extraordinary investments, so the mid-range of that was $0.04. And the dividend date is going to be August, and it's going to be payable more or less mid-September. So what are we doing for the rest of the year? Basically re-domiciliation, which is going quite well. E-LIX supposedly is going to be ramping up in the last part of the year. The first part of the solar plant will be connected finally after receiving a small permit and finalizing what we're spending due to a change in scope that will be collected, and you will see a picture that basically everything is finished. San Dionisio will continue with this working quite normally. Touro, we believe we are in a key period of permitting, because Touro, we have already submitted the 24,000 pages project proposal, very well received. We have had presentations to the public authorities, very well attended. And we are almost sure this project is going to be [ attended ] soon. An important thing is, as we say, in San Dionisio, you can see that in the central part of the picture, that the activities are going quite well. I mean this pre-stripping, so there's big activity there. Remember, we started in the early part of this year. And as you can see that the main roads crossing -- the main road that separates both pits has crossed in the center part of the picture. We -- this -- our escalations do not affect the main road, so we don't need to relocate anything, and we are already starting to touch the first ore, which is expected to have a better grade. The solar plant, as you remember also in the previous pictures, the solar plant was -- had some missing panels and had a small problem with the relocation of the change on the high electric line that was causing the road that in theory was going to be crossing under the road. And finally, the authorities -- the road authorities required to cross on top of the road. We had a small delay, but as you can see, basically, this is ready to start an operation. Right now, we have -- showing [indiscernible] around 1/3 of our costs hedged at a lower price at around [ 54 ], which is a very good price. And in [ Dionisio ], when this gets into production, we will get over 50% of our production at a very low range, which will help our operating costs. The E-LIX is nothing really to show, simply that they continue commissioning. They have lots of teething issues with filter, with cathodes, with collection, simply because of connecting something new, totally new with new people, with new persons, with new maintenance, new operators. It requires a lot of training. So this is taking longer than we expected. By the way, you can see the picture on the right side of the -- right side of the picture, that white area is the solar plant. You can see the quite big size, the solar plant. What you are seeing here is some rigs. Why are we showing the rigs, which normally we don't. It's because in Masa Valverde, you remember it's a satellite deposit that's around [ 26 kilometers ] from our site. We have identified an area with copper grades, with copper only, which can be added into our circuits without any modification of the circuits. Right now, we are doing some drilling to support where is the ventilation [ raises ], where is the best rock conditions. The design is ready. The land on surface is ready, and we are in basically the [indiscernible] stages with all the designs to start the ramp, access ramp, at the end of this year beginning of next year, because, as you know, this point is fully permitted right now. The idea is to bring ore from Masa Valverde to Riotinto. What can it mean? So you get an idea, and of course, we have not given too much information about this because we are quite prudent, as you know. We have areas [indiscernible] you will see in past press releases of very good intercepts of 2% copper, 2% copper with minimum territorial materials. Those can be fed in our circuits without any port. Well, if you could bring in 0.5 million tonnes of copper mine underground at 2% copper into the -- just 0.5 million tonnes would be equivalent to bringing 3 million tonnes of grade of 0.25% copper. So as you can see, with a minimum material from this area can increase the production by 10,000 tonnes at least copper, which is not in Cerro Colorado, which is not in any of our plans, but you can see why we want to develop this product as soon as possible. It's not that fast. It will require between 1.5 years and 2 years of development. Maybe we will go a little bit faster than that, but we are getting ready because it has some very promising production expectations there. On Touro. Touro, I think, it's without any question, the growth project that can give more value to our company. This thing is going quite well. We have had wonderful presentations during July since our project was declared strategic, with hundreds of people attending with -- from all the sectors of the economy of Galicia. The project is going into public consultation. It has received coverage to the media, constant coverage. And right now, the situation, I would say, is quite good because the company has made a huge effort in engaging with the local communities, with all the stakeholders from the sea, from the area, from municipalities around the project, from the potential local investors, from potential suppliers. And really, this project, we are quite sure this is going to add. The plan is to -- obviously, we don't have any control on the timing of the permits, but the way this thing is going with all the support, very likely we will get the key environmental permit at the end of the year or beginning of next year, which will pave the way to start the construction of this project, which is around EUR 250 million, which we have already -- we are working already in the funding mechanisms for this. So in conclusion, we are on our way to get to our target of getting over 100,000 tonnes of copper in 3 years, and actually, I would say, in [ next ] years. First, coming from the expansion on Riotinto, where we are treating only the copper only. The second increase is when we start increasing the polymetallic with higher grades in San Dionisio. And the third leg, I mean obviously, the more important one is the other production of very clean copper concentrates from Touro. As I said before, our company is very leveraged to the copper price. We have seen the peaks of the copper price in May get into over [ 11,000 ] per tonne of copper. Now prices have come down a little bit, but we are not, let's say, too much worried about that. The reason of that is that we are seeing that from the supply side, almost all the companies are showing lower production. Lower production in the first half, everybody is saying it's going to be weighted in the second half. And although China continues to have some issues with the construction itself, in the real estate activities, the reality is that the consumption in infrastructure, electrical infrastructure, is going very well, and it's also going very well in other countries. At the same time, what was happening with the -- used to be the biggest [ use of the work ] CODELCO is worrying because it's going down. And although it may seems -- well, that's not very relevant. You should see that this reduction of production, as shown in the left part, it means it's the likely equivalent of one very large big mine like 400,000 tonnes of copper. So although the price of copper has gone down the last months, the physical premia, so the demand for copper in China, which used to be negative, and it's a good indication of the demand of copper, physical copper, has already picked up and is positive again as well as a pickup of copper premia in the United States. So we are -- we believe that the -- when we get Touro back, this -- the copper project is going to go back over to $5 or even more. And as we have said before, our company is very, very leveraged to the copper price. And of course, we're one of the few copper price in London, so with the inclusion of the company in the index, I think the demand for shares, both from London market and from the European market, is going to be quite good. And I think this is -- this concludes this part.

[Operator Instructions] I would like to remind you that a recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A can be accessed via our investor dashboard. Alberto, as you can see, we have received a number of questions for today's presentation. Alberto, if I may now hand back to you and kindly ask you to read out the questions where appropriate to do so, and I'll pick up from you at the end.

Excellent. Yes, I will do that. I have a few questions here, and I want to read all of them and try to reply to all of them. First one is what are the next steps in the permitting process in Touro? Is the process moving consistent with expectations? Yes, we -- the process is moving according to expectations. The company have submitted already 24,000 pages of project, of designs, studies of all type of the project, the full new project with new designs, including the electric line and old auxiliary services. Right now after that, the next step is this information is going to be made available for the general public in transparency portal and also in -- it's going to be published in the official gazette for 30 days. Simultaneous to that, the main bodies of the administration are preparing what they call the sectorial -- sector evaluations, which means they look at each of the parts, let's say, archaeology, heritage, natural heritage, water, cultural roads, et cetera, and each of them gives their own opinion and their own conditions. And after that, we will have a few months of preparation of the conditions of the environmental tax statement, which we believe is going to be positive because we have corrected all the potential shortcomings that were found in the process that was launched 4 years ago. Second question submitted is, if you start the ramp at Masa Valverde at the end of '24, when can it reach production? Is E-LIX required for the [indiscernible] economic? Two very interesting questions. The -- we will get -- Masa Valverde, as you know, consists in several deposits. The main one is called Masa Valverde, which contains 2 parts. One is polymetallic, which means copper and zinc mixed, and the other one is copper-only, which is a stockwork. And then there is another satellite deposit, which is called Majadales, which is a small but high grade and quite shallow, which is polymetallic. And then we have other deposits which we have been drilling, but do not release a resource yet, which are so shallow, some of them are [ compatible ], which in general are polymetallic. So for -- to treat the copper only, the stockwork, we don't need to make any modifications on the plant, and this will be thrown into our existing circuit without any modification. In the case of the polymetallic, we have the option of using conventional flotation, which is the way things have been evaluated, but we also have the possibility of using E-LIX. We would not decide to go with E-LIX until it's totally proven and is working normally. Specifically the case of Majadales, we have made some test work, which is high copper and high zinc at the same time, and looks ideal for E-LIX. But again, we will only use it when the thing is up and running. We can mine for quite a few years copper-only without having any modification. And the next question is, at what stage are you in developing the modified recovery circuit for processing polymetallic ore? What CapEx is expected and when will it be incurred? The process, the moment of where we are is we have finished. We have completed lots of flotation tests, both internally in our own metallurgical labs, full equipment metallurgic labs, and also in some external labs, very well-known labs. We are in the process of getting the different alternatives to how we can do it. Are we going to have a separate lower flotation followed by the [indiscernible] flotation of copper, lead and zinc? And that's where we are. There are several variations, and that's the situation where we are. When is the CapEx going to be incurred? I would say in 2 years from now, so it's not needed immediately. Because as you know, in the upper part of San Dionisio only contains copper, so we don't have any zinc, significant zinc, I would say, 2 years from now. Another question is, could you please provide some more detail on the San Dionisio permitting process? What is permit required for? What is the time line and steps required to be granted the permits? Look, this thing of San Dionisio is quite a strange situation because initially, we were told that the permit of San Dionisio would only be needed based on a way which is called nonsubstantial modification. So basically a small modification of existing permit. And that's the way we were going. When we were in the middle of this process last year, they said that the footprint of San Dionisio was going out, about 100 meters out, from the original permit, and they believe that to be safer, we should go what they call substantial modification. Going out 100 meters in an area which covers more or less 3 kilometers by 2 kilometers wide by 3 kilometers long, really, we don't believe it was substantial. But anyway, in order to avoid any arguments, we went through that route. What that route means is that it basically -- it includes public information, consultation, and simply takes more time. We are in that process of getting immediate access to the public information. And in the meantime, we requested a permit, interim permit, to be mining at first stage without going out of the perimeter. And that's what we got, and that's what we are working. So it was like a way that was given by the administration to be able to continue the normal work, because really, that thing, that interpretation, was really a very strict interpretation that really probably did not make too much sense. But anyway, since the administration wants to make sure things are done correctly, we agree with that, but we don't expect any issues at all. It's a matter of time. And if -- and the time will likely be at the end of this year, more or less, without having any effect in the overall plans. Another question is to what extent do you expect the recent uptrend in electricity prices to impact cost for '24? Well, the uptrend is normal. In summer, there is lots of demand. There's less wind, less hydro, and the prices in summer are always higher than the prices in autumn and in the spring. So yes, it will affect a little bit, but not much. The reason of that is that we have covered some of our costs at lower prices. Just to give you an indication, we consume around a little bit less than 24 kilowatts per tonne, which means roughly 700 gigawatts per year. I think it's a little bit less than 700, which means an increase in EUR 10 per megawatt. Considering that we have 1/3 of that covered already, would probably mean around EUR 5 million in the year, so around EUR 3 million extra in the rest of the year. So it's not material. It's important, but not material. We're talking about [ 0.03 to 0.05 ] per pound, where you see that we are roughly producing 100 million pounds. Another question is, how can you forecast the grade quality of the material that yet to be mined? This deposit has been drilled in a pattern of around 20 by 50. We have been mining during 10 years, and the production guidance has always been quite consistent. Why is that? It's because we have a drill hole that's helping in the calculation, very close to where we are going to be mined. Of course, this is not perfect. When you have an intercept of ore x grade at 20 meters, when you said go away another 15 meters, 20 meters, it may not be exactly the same thing as what was drilled. That's why we use statistics. So far, in this 9 years, we have been plus/minus. Some months higher, some months lower. But actually, we have been having slightly more tonnes, about 1%, not a big amount, and slightly better grades than the model. But of course, it means that sometimes you may have 1% or 5% less than the model. But the model has shown to be very consistent, and we don't expect to have any -- we don't have any reason to suspect that this thing is going to be different in the future. And the reason for that is because this deposit is very well drilled. When do you expect to see the first results on commercial production rate in E-LIX? What are the main challenges you are facing here? Well, the main challenge we are facing here is that we are not making the commissioning. The commissioning operation is handled by Lain, which is the owners of the technology, which is a technology that's quite secret, which means they are very careful in showing these to people. And it means that they have to hire new people, train them, new maintenance guys, new operating guys, and this takes time to learn. The challenge we are seeing is that we are not doing it. I think there are some problems that have happened that are normal engineering, like chlorine filters or like settling in tanks that was not expected. I mean you have to have a kind of procedure that comes with experience, and the experience is not there. I have to say that from what I have seen, the problems that we have experienced or they have experienced have nothing to do with the E-LIX system itself. The difficult part of E-LIX is to how to leach the concentrates, that's very difficult to do, and that's done quite successfully. The places where it has failed is in normal things like filtering or settling or pipes [ growing ] or [ burden ] a pump, which comes from experience, and now they are set in a good team, and we hope that we will have this during this month, second half, as we said, second half of the year. Probably they will start producing more or less constant in the third -- the last part of this quarter already. But as I say, a little bit out of our control. This is an interesting question. In the case of the net cash [ for a ] statement compared to the production results announcement, what is the reason for this change? Well, it was a mistake. I mean with lots of people on holidays, the person that was to provide a number to the people that prepare that basically forgot to consider one account that was in one bank, because it was not the person that was doing it normally. And as simple as that, I mean, the cash is something that's either is there or not there. Simply when they took the numbers and nobody checked that they have been done correctly. The cash was there, simply with the rush of giving the production the final numbers. What is the cash position, and this was the cash position and it was just a mistake [indiscernible]. But not any accounting or statement. Simply they forgot to take the cash was in an account. Does the E-LIX process recovery contain silver in concentrates? In general, yes. When I say in general, it depends in if the silver is locked in pyrite, normally, the recovery is lower. But the silver is with zinc concentrates, zinc, which [ sold ] very well with copper, yes, it is recovered. Can you please add more detail to how the EUR 250 million for Touro will be financed? Well, look, EUR 250 million, about half of that will be coming from loans and the rest will be coming from our own cash reserves, which we have over EUR 100 million. And we believe that we are going to get very good loans from local banks because we have been told that from them. We are already starting the context. Just to give you an idea, we have had over EUR 60 million without any warranty for Riotinto. So right now, we have possibilities of giving warranty over the assets of Riotinto or company warranties or the assets of Touro without even going to a full-project finance package. The idea is not to go to a full-project finance, but to go to basically a loan from Spanish banks, maybe with addition to some other banks, but basically the Spanish banks. Can you tell us what -- next question is, can you tell what happens to the precious metal content in polymetallic ores that go through the E-LIX plant? With silver, as I said before, it can be recovered. It is recovered. It's recovered, it's leached. And after the precipitation stage [ and dislodge, ] it doesn't go to the cathodes. In the case of the gold, I believe that's not recovered because the intensity of leaching is not enough to dissolve the gold. In a blue sky scenario, when will you expect to have the first production of Touro? Also what's the total CapEx, and is number consistent with inflation of recent years? Yes. The original CapEx was around EUR 200 million, and now it's EUR 250 million after the inflation. And we made this check in December, January -- December '23, January '24. So we ask for quotes to everybody, look at the prices of steel, concrete, everything. And so the number is quite recent and I would say, quite sure, EUR 250 million. This EUR 250 million do not need to be spent all ahead of production. They are spent in 2 stages, like less than EUR 200 million [ restart ] production, and then the other EUR 50 million, about 2 years later after production, but we are stating the whole production. The reason of that is technical. There's some time needed to develop the tailings before building the second expansion -- this expansion. And yes, it's consistent with inflation and everything has been checked. Another one is, are you concerned about the developing water shortage in Spain considering the use of water in production? Well, actually, we had a big huge drop in -- 2 years ago. But this year, we have water like you cannot imagine. The reason of that is that, yes, there have been water restrictions in the rest of Spain. But in Riotinto, at Riotinto, it's a kind of basin that receives lots of water from the Southwest and the dams there are full. We have, right now, water, enough water that if we had 2 years of 0 precipitation, it would still be okay. The reason of that is that we have a tailings thickener that we recycle 85% of the water back to the circuits, and the only water we lose is the operation and the water drained in the solids of the tailings, which is around 25%. But as I said, right now, we have no restrictions. In Touro, it's a quite wet area, which normally it rains 1,400 millimeters per year compared to 700 millimeters, 800 millimeters in the South in Riotinto. Still quite a lot, by the way. It's not a dry area due to this range of mountains that receives the water from the Southwest with lots of rain. And this year has been very wet, and there's no restrictions at all. Can you make any comment on the [ Guijarro-Chaparral gold ] project, the initial evaluation that took place recently? With Guijarro, we continue drilling, but we are going to be stopping soon and to make some operations. It's a gold project very close to surface. We have made some test of reaching preliminary indications and leaches extremely well. So it's [ 3 million ]. Basically, gold. It contains very low amounts of sulfides of copper. And we have not given any indication of size, but we believe it's not going to be the size that can make a difference for Atalaya. It still has a value. And we were looking at other options, at all options. One of them is to develop, but other one could be to farm it out to a smaller company that can get it without distracting our teams. The next question is how do we think about the CapEx profile routine toward '25, '26? What will be the main components of no sustaining CapEx? Well, I think we have guided already those CapEx. So I would say that the next year, '25, '26, the stripping of San Dionisio will be done. The road will be -- we are starting this year will be ongoing. And the solar will be finished, the E-LIX will be finished. We have some no sustaining CapEx like a small modification in the crusher circuit to reduce energy consumption and which will be a CapEx of around EUR 3 million, which is going to be started probably later this year. Then we have the ramp of Masa Valverde, which probably will be around EUR 10 million to EUR 15 million per year in 2 years. And then in '26, we will have the CapEx for the modification of the circuit of the zinc, which I think is very early to say, the total CapEx. But in the PEA, it was around $70 million, so around EUR 60 million. I would say that's more or less the range is going to be. This question comes from Jason. Are you spending a lot of CapEx of Riotinto on pre-strip, and this project actually -- is this product Board-approved yet? Yes, the Board has approved already this, and the Board has no question about the permits that we have right now to do the pre-stripping and the roads and everything. So this is so ongoing and fully permitted, obviously, and approved also by the Board, of course. Can you please tell us a bit more about E-LIX? We thought it might -- we start to see some commercial volumes of production by now. Does this technology work at scale? Well, I mentioned before, that's true that -- I would say it's little bit of a disappointment, the ramp-up, because of the issues we see are quite normal. I mean, the solution technology works perfectly. We have seen that, and concentrates have been leached, and precipitates have been produced and cathodes have been produced, but they have had lots of teething issues with burning cathodes, with housekeeping, with filters being clogged because they stopped during the weekend, and when they come on Monday, it's totally like a brick, which they should have cleaned before. They have had a tax settle and then issues to start up, things that are basically lack of experience. So I don't think the technology has a problem, but it's true that we are -- we have to be patient with the start-up being a new thing and with new people and new technology. Is this possible to apply for grants to help fund the total expenditure? Maybe yes, but not a big amount. If there will be grants, there would be grants of small grants of [ 3 million, 5 million ] for specific cases, but not big grants of 20% or whatever for a whole project. Are you still considering wind turbines at Riotinto to [indiscernible] electricity? No. We have stopped that evaluation because we complete the measurements, and the economics were coming at an overall levelized price of electricity of around EUR 50 megawatt hour long term. And that price, you can get it with hedging without any problem, without the risk. We had a -- it would be very nice to have it from our own wind farm, but if it doesn't make economic sense, decided to freeze it. Last question so far is a strategic question. In addition to the organic growth project within the company, what is the longer-term picture for the company? What's your view on potential M&A for the company, potentially adding assets outside of Spain, and having more geographically-diversified asset base? Do you see attractive M&A opportunity at the moment? We have a team evaluating projects constantly. And right now, we were in 2 data rooms until recently, when I mean until recently, after 100 days ago, looking at things in Chile, specifically, looking at things in other countries in South America, looking at things in Spain and also in Europe, Northern Europe. And we are working right now with other opportunities, which are a little bit early to say. But yes, we look at are diversifying in different places, not only in Spain. Obviously, Spain is the logical place. But having said that, we are not looking just for the sake of growth. We need it to make sense. It needs to have the opportunity to grow and to have some value creation. If you pay 100% of the net asset value or even a premium, it doesn't come with a return for the shareholders, and it will be very hard to justify. And I think that's the last question I have.

That's correct. Alberto, thank you very much indeed for addressing all those questions from investors today. And of course, the company can review all questions submitted today, and we'll publish those responses on the Investor Meet company platform. But before we direct investors to provide you with their feedback, which is particularly important to the company, Alberto, could I please ask you for a few closing comments?

Well, briefly, it has been a challenging quarter and a challenging first half of the year, but I think we passed it quite great with maintaining the balance sheet, with good economic results. The company has a great future. We have lots of things in our plate. Touro, which is a huge [ power ] generator is there, we can see it. Masa Valverde, we believe, is going to be a new project soon. And the company has, I think, a great future because we believe that the copper price will only go up from now. Can be hiccups, but the -- we are very leveraged to the copper price, and our share price responds very well with copper price, so I think this company has a great future. We have a good team, good assets in a great jurisdiction. So the second part of the year is expected to be better than the first part, and also much better in the future. So that's the conclusion I can make for this quarter.

That's great, Alberto, Cesar. Thank you once again for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback and the Board can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, and I'm sure will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of Atalaya Mining Plc, I'd thank you for attending today's presentation, and good afternoon to you all.