Aurubis AG (NDA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Aurubis Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Let me hand the floor over to your host, Angela Seidler.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Angela Seidler, and I would like to welcome you to this conference call, which was scheduled at short notice. The occasion is extremely pleasing for Aurubis. In its extraordinary meeting today, the Supervisory Board approved the construction of a new multimetal recycling plant in Augusta in Richmond County, Georgia, United States. We invite you to this conference call to provide you with more information about this important project for Aurubis. The CEO, Roland Harings; the CFO, Rainer Verhoeven; and the COO, Heiko Arnold, will lead you through the presentation. After the presentation, we will, of course, also be available for questions. We appreciate your interest. And with that, I'd like to move on to Roland.

Thanks, Angela. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm very proud today that this project, which is an important step on Aurubis growth path, was approved in the extraordinary session of our Supervisory Board because it puts us in a position to set course for the recycling business in the U.S. And in a few minutes, I and my colleagues of the Executive Board will show you why this step is highly attractive for Aurubis. Megatrends boost demand for recycling. This is not a new story. In the first-ever secondary smelter for multimetal recycling in the United States, circuit boards, copper cable and other recycling materials containing metals will be processed by Aurubis. We will further process the intermediate products into various industrial and precious metals at its European smelter site to a great extent, but also sell them directly to the U.S. market. With this investment, Aurubis creates front-runner position in the highly attractive U.S. recycling market, which has significant annual growth rate of about 4% to 6% throughout 2035. Our new plant in Aurubis -- in Richmond marks a milestone to deliver an updated growth strategy, unlock new growth areas and further strengthen our earning profile. The selected site located in Augusta, Richmond County in Georgia featuring very attractive conditions, has close proximities to suppliers and markets and also significant options for further capacity expansion. This investment additionally creates competitive advantage by capitalizing on existing market know-how, proven technologies, a flexible -- highly flexible application mix, input mix and also our highest sampling and laboratory standards. Some facts and figures about the project will be presented by Rainer in a minute. But first, I would refer again how this fit into our overall sustainability targets and our ambition to strengthen and expand our position as the most efficient integrated smelter network worldwide. As we discussed in calls in the past and we will elaborate on this in our Capital Market Day, beginning of December 6, with this new site, we are implementing our strategic agenda, and we will -- we are combining profitable growth with sustainable business activity. The U.S. itself is a highly attractive recycling growth market with a lot of potential already to date and in the future. Hence, the demand for modern, sustainable and local processing capacities is extremely strong. We will invest in this extremely attractive market with proven Aurubis technology, which, of course, also fits in with our sustainability agenda and strategy. We are already using this technology and my colleague, Heiko Arnold, will give you more information about this in a moment. As a fact, this investment in Augusta in Georgia will create the largest multimetal recycling smelter in the United States. This recycling plant also demonstrates the increasing focus on sustainability in Europe and also in the U.S. Regulators and also electronic manufacturers have sustainability requirements that lead soon and fast to higher recycling rates also in the United States. Here we are convinced. Aurubis opportunity is the very limited number of recycling smelters in North America, very small ones, nothing in the comparison of our investment. And at the same time, the export opportunities for U.S. scrap to China and other Asian countries are decreasing significantly, driven by import bans, which have been imposed already by some countries and are in discussion with others. It can be seen as the fact that the U.S. market for recycling materials will continue to grow in the coming years. And this is precisely the opportunity that Aurubis will take advantage of and that was decided today. This chart shows the growth potential of the recycling market. Divides -- it's divided into scrap and alloys, complex materials and also precious metal containing materials. And as you see, up to 2035, we do expect -- and you see the sources of the numbers here of the data, a growth rate, a significant growth rate of up to 6%, between 4% and 6% per year. And just as a reminder, today's market size is already around 6 million tonnes in the United States. This growth is based on rising economic activity in general and in electronics, in particular. Although collection rates of e-waste will continue to rise, and currently, again, a very important number, it's only at around 30% in the United States. All in all, it's a very attractive market in which Aurubis will play a pioneering role with this important step decided today. Just one idea regarding regulation in the U.S. you see it's still very different from what has been always established in Europe. Today, each state has a different -- or there are very different approaches in the states, and it's not a comprehensive legislation or landfill bans or e-waste recycling in the country. Nevertheless, it can be assumed that legislation will be standardized, and it will continue to progress in this decade. If you look at the map regarding the -- today's competitive situation for recycling smelting in the U.S., you see it's only very few sites of primary smelter in Utah and Arizona, which use direct melt copper in their primary production, similar to the process we do in our primary smelters. And there is only one smelter for recycling -- with recycling capabilities, which is in the north of Canada, operated by Glencore, and it has a production capacity of around 100,000 tonnes of recycled material input, again, in a 6 million tonne market. This recycled material is currently -- the remaining of recycled material today is mainly exported to Asia. And also, quite some quantities are being put into landfill. With this, I would like to hand over to Heiko to talk about the technology and approach we have chosen for our investment in Richmond.

Yes. Thanks, Roland. Let's start with the selection of the site. After having established the Southeast as the sweet spot, we didn't make it easy for ourselves with the choice of location. And we considered a huge amount of different opportunities, which, by the way, was not very easy in corona times. We started with over 700 counties and narrowed it down in 3 phases to 3 finalist sites. In the end, we had a choice to choose between 3 very good alternative sites, and we did an in-depth analysis based on the above criteria and weighed in the support of the local committee. As an outcome, the Augusta site in Richmond County in Georgia was selected as the final site after a comprehensive qualitative and quantitative evaluation. This selection did include technical facts and political and socioeconomic factors. The quantitative comparison covered site-specific operating cost as well as different economic development packages. Essential planning principles for the layout, you can see here were as follows: planning for future expansion steps; building best available technology from an environmental standard and considering the impact of future expansions; safe and efficient traffic routing; minimization of space requirements; and last but not least, value engineering steps that minimize the material and handling needed by optimizing the equipment arrangement. A new air separation plant, which will supply our process with oxygen and nitrogen, will be integrated into our current layout. In parallel to the search for a location, we have, of course, spoken and prenegotiated with suppliers for services and equipment. Security of supply at attractive conditions is ensured by the development of a diversified supplier structure. As for the main metallurgical process equipment, we found a reliable European partner. As a respected globally active company with a long history in the field of metallurgical and rolling mill technology and a large presence in the U.S., we are very confident here. We will use an equipment type that is already in use in our existing operations. We know exactly what we are doing. When we choose the location, it was also important to us that we could expand. Consequently, we have developed a modular system so we can add further capacity using synergy with the first phase project. Initially, as you can see here, 2 top blown rotary converters, or TBRC, for short, will be used and 1 lead tin alloy furnace. This technical concept was frozen during the basic engineering, including process engineering, heat and material balance, utility demand and the design of the metallurgical equipment. A full integration of all products from the new facility into the Aurubis smelter network completed the exercise of the basic engineering. Off-gas and water purification plants were defined as well as utility and space requirements. With this U.S. investment, Aurubis will produce about 35,000 tonnes of blister copper on site. And we will employ around 100 employees, a first step for Aurubis but a step with several technical expansion possibilities. The new plant in Augusta will fit perfectly into our integrated smelter network. We will produce copper blister, which we will sell on the market on the one hand, but also process in our European smelter locations in order to extract the largest possible volume of different metals. And with that, I hand over to Rainer Verhoeven.

Thanks, Heiko. Welcome also from my side. I will just give you a short overview on the time schedule. After we got the approval of the Supervisory Board today, we were able to sign immediately the Memorandum of Understanding with the local representatives of the Georgia development agency. We'll now start, of course, go into the detailed engineering and start the preparation of the site in summer '22. Land preparation and construction of the facilities will take us roughly until the end of 2023. During this time, of course, we will set up the on-site organization, recruit the staff and also do the training necessary. After the commissioning of the facility, which will take place in the first half of 2024, we expect the first full year of production in the year '25/'26. So finally, going to the financials, on this slide, you can see them. We calculate with a CapEx of roughly EUR 300 million. The corresponding financing will come solely and completely from our group's operating cash flow, which means there is no need for further funding of this investment. After the full ramp up in '25/'23 -- '26, we expect an EBITDA of about EUR 80 million and an ROCE, which is higher than 20%. Of course, this will add to the U.S. dollar exposure of the Aurubis Group. There will be investments funded in the U.S. dollar. The mix between what to spend in euro, what to spend in U.S. dollar is not yet clear as of now. However, we are, in generally, having a strategic U.S. dollar long position, which means we always avail ourselves of U.S. dollars. And we will use those funds, of course, and have a natural hedge here during the buildup. After that, of course, with an EBITDA of about EUR 80 million. Here, we will hedge to our strategic exposure, and we will hedge that accordingly in our strategic hedging. Yes. With that said, I'll hand back to Roland.

Yes. Thanks, Rainer. Thanks, Heiko. And after we have successfully acquired and integrated Metallo, and also delivered on our Performance Improvement Program, we are sending with this position, with this investment bold signals for further sustainable growth. And we will become a pioneer for multimetal recycling in the U.S., a role that we already play in Europe today. As you have seen from the financial figures that Rainer presented, this project is a very profitable investment. Aurubis has a very strong metallurgical expertise. These innovative market technologies, combined with a very promising recycling market in the U.S., will allow us to be a pioneer in the U.S. and start a very profitable business in the U.S. And with this, I thank you for your attention. I will hand back to Angela.

Yes. Thank you, gentlemen, for the presentation. And now I would like you to answer questions, if there are some. And I think the operator will assist us again of what you have to press.

[Operator Instructions] And the first question comes from Ioannis Masvoulas.

Congratulations on the announcement today. Three questions from my side, and I'll take them one at a time, if that's okay. The first one, in terms of executing on the new greenfield plant, can you talk about the -- some of the challenges that you could face? And how you have managed to derisk this investment? In particular, we've seen very tight labor market in the U.S. So you talked about 100 jobs. I guess, on a steady-state basis, how many more are you going to need for the construction phase? And how confident are you on having the right skill set in a timely manner to deliver this project. And I'll stop here for the first one.

Thank you, Ioannis, for this congratulation. We are, as we felt very proud and pleased that we took the decision. Clearly, to the challenges. We are well advanced in the preparation of the project. We have completed fully in all detail our basic engineering. We have very advanced, as Rainer has mentioned, negotiation with all project partners if it's building and construction, if it's equipment, if it's assembly. So all the areas are well advanced and close to be kind of contracted. So here, we have really soon to announce very important steps and also the confidence that we have the right partners and the capability to execute. We have also, as Rainer mentioned, we have signed the MOU with the State of Georgia and the economic development agency of Augusta. So also here, regarding the utilities, the preparation of the site, the availability of site, the permission process, we're also in a very advanced status there. Regarding the very valid question about jobs, one -- and Heiko referred to the many criterias we have looked at in the election period for the site. One of the key criterias, knowing the job situation in U.S., was availability of workforce, availability of the qualified workforce that we need for this plant. And here, Georgia and Augusta has a strong support. And we see, specifically in the Augusta area, a good availability, given also the size of the community, of the city, of the area around so that we can attract these 100 to 150 people that we will need for the phase 1 of our investment there. So we looked into all areas, and we are highly confident that we are going to deliver this project on time in full.

Understood. That's very clear. The second question, from your presentation, it looks like the U.S.'s scrap market looks very attractive in terms of growth and in terms of the economics. So what has prevented other players to invest in this market or even Aurubis? Because 2 years ago, you decided to go ahead with the Metallo acquisition. And to my numbers, the announcement today looks more attractive from a returns point of view as compared to Metallo. So interested to hear your thoughts why now and not 2 or 3 years ago.

Yes. So I think if I'm a bit, let's say -- it's also about management. So we have started this transformation of the company, this growth agenda or the speed of the growth agenda about 2 years ago, and we have decided to put the right priorities in place. Metallo was our first priority. We acquired, and we integrated the company in a very timely and very successful manner. In parallel, as you can imagine, we have started to work intensively on our investment projects, greenfield and brownfield, one of the major ones in the U.S., we are announcing today. Regarding profitability, Metallo and also our project here in Richmond, they play in the same ballpark. If you look at the profitability, EUR 300 million investment, EUR 80 million EBITDA. This is the same magnitude that we have also published or announced with the integration of Metallo. So for me, for us, it's a very reasonable continuation of our growth agenda.

Understood. And a very last question for me on the EUR 80 million of EBITDA. Does that include any synergy gains from internal processing of blister in Europe? And does it -- is it also predicated on the milestones around new waste and landfill regulation in the U.S.? Or is it just based on the status quo?

So it's, of course, also considers the synergy effects. However, those synergy effects are rather remote. So we produce roughly 35,000 tonnes of blister in the U.S. Part of it will be sold locally or to other competitors. Part of it will be substituting blister copper that we are currently consuming here in the plants in Europe. However, let's say, the big earnings driver comes from the first production step here. It comes from the digestion of the material in the TBRCs. That is the main focus, and that is the, by far, biggest driver in the EUR 80 million.

And the next questioner is Jatinder Goel.

Got a couple of questions. I'll go one at a time as well. Are you able to share the EBITDA composition? How much of it comes from scrap refining charges, precious metals and other components that might drive that? And what's your scrap RC assumption in that EUR 80 million EBITDA number? And I'm assuming the underlying number is in dollars and you've probably converted it in prevailing exchange rate.

Yes, absolutely. Of course, as you can imagine, there is a couple of earnings drivers, a couple of components, which we compared to, let's say, the averages that we know of this and last year's. The metal prices have gone through the roof put on to a conservative level. That's very clear. There are scrap RCs. There is some free metal in for sure, but please understand. I mean we do have our assumptions. I can tell you so much that these were very conservative, so we will be sure to deliver on the EUR 80 million. But we will not go into any details on the split of the EBITDA. I'm sorry for that.

No worries. Are you able to share any indicative sustaining CapEx number for the plant to get a sense of cash generation? And if what sort of tax rate will be applied? Or is there a tax already in place?

Well, the taxation topic, of course, we'll try to make use of taxation in the U.S. because we are there still at 21%. However, there is plans to increase this to 26.5% by the Biden administration. Nonetheless, we'll try to have as much tax in the U.S. as possible. Nonetheless, that will be to be seen with the financial authorities at the end when we have built up the plant and when we run the plant also.

And sustaining CapEx?

Jatinder, this will be in line with the -- if you have an investment of about EUR 300 million, you have the normal profile of investments CapEx over the life cycle of this plant. So there's nothing extraordinary or different to our other type of business.

What we can add here maybe that helps. It's 2 TBRCs. It's a lead tin alloy furnace. There is a regular refurbishment, necessary regular relining. So the refractories will have to be renewed on a regular basis, yes. That's the main recurring investments, yes.

Understood. And just a last question for now. Is that -- do you think you've got enough growth with this project for the time being? And could you still commit to any more meaningful projects before this is completed in Richmond?

Yes, Jatinder, good point. And if you look at the market size of 6 million tonnes, and we are putting now around 90,000 tonnes of processing capacity in, there is room for growth. We are doing this first important step. We are building here the platform. And with successful execution of this project, we will have on the site in Richmond significant space for further expansion. And all the utilities, all the kind of infrastructure will allow us to grow here significantly in the future. But we do now this very important bold step: first establish ourselves as the leading recycler in the U.S., and then we go for the next step.

And we have a question from Bastian Synagowitz.

I've got a few follow-up questions, please. Maybe just first of all, on the assumptions taken. We appreciate if you're not going into much detail here, but maybe if we, say, rephrase this in a slightly different way. Obviously, if we look at the RC level we've seen in the U.S. over the last, say, couple of years, I think we've been hovering around sort of the mid-700s. Obviously, at the moment, we are north of $1,000. So that's obviously a very high level. But is it at least fair to assume that you've gone significantly more conservative than the $700 level for RCs to make the EUR 80 million level?

Yes, absolutely. Of course, we have been conservative. So we are announcing this EUR 80 million EBITDA on the basis of very conservative assumptions for the metals and for the TC/RCs, yes.

Okay. Very clear. Then my second question is just like a follow-up also on the support you're receiving here on the economic side from the local government. From your comments, I thought that here, there is no tax break or anything which you're receiving for that investment. Or is there any other form of economic direct support which you will be entitled to?

Yes, there is other support. So Georgia is very interested to get our technology, to get a company like Aurubis. You see also the speech of the governor, Mr. Kemp has been posted. So we had a very good dialogue. And also we get other support in -- not just the lower income tax that we see in U.S., but also regarding property tax or the infrastructure support to prepare the site for the investment. There are several packages that have been negotiated and signed with the authorities, but we have agreed on confidentiality, that we are not disclosing in detail these numbers. But it's also important to mention that this is good to have, but it was not any decision point for this investment. And investment itself is highly attractive with the support and also without the support.

Okay. Okay. Then my last question is on the CapEx number of EUR 300 million, so I guess part of that obviously is clearly property and maybe more generic infrastructure. Because, as you say, you're basically building a platform here, which is required, obviously, is ready for expansion. So what I'm wondering is if you were to invest and extend beyond the 90,000 tonne capacity level, basically what is the CapEx number, which you wouldn't -- or what is the CapEx portion, which you wouldn't have to reinvest, i.e., how much of the EUR 300 million CapEx number is basically generic CapEx for property and infrastructure, which is in place but is literally oversized? Versus then the bottleneck being the production output of that. If that comes across, clearly, I don't know.

No, no. Clear. I understood your question. The point is with this first phase of the investment, this first step, we will do already some preparation also from the layout, but also from some infrastructure for a potential phase 2, so expansion of our recycling capacity here. So you're right, there will be some synergies or some lower cost for a second phase, given that things have been already implemented. At this point, I hope you understand that I will not disclose the number here, but our today's decision is a very bold, a very strong move into the U.S. And as soon as we are up and running, we will certainly discuss after a successful phase to go into a second phase. And then we will announce it with precision. So therefore, no number for this expansion at this point in time. But clearly, it will be lower than what we need for a phase 1.

And the next question comes from Christian Obst.

First of all, concerning the scrap sourcing, all of these scrap collectors there in the U.S., they already they have their customers. So how have you secured sourcing for your plant going forward? Or what is your policy there? The second one is, again, on sourcing. How have you secured power sourcing? Or how will you run the site? I would expect on electricity and what is the main sourcing plan there? And then I have some follow-ups.

Thanks, Christian. First, sourcing of our input materials, we are already buying significant volumes of input materials of different qualities in the U.S. market. So we have an established network of suppliers and partners there, and we are in advanced discussion with many of them in order to come with the sourcing plan for these assets. Important is again here to underpin that we have -- our design allows higher flexibility on the input mix side so we can really tap into the most attractive available materials in the U.S. And so we will keep a degree of freedom going forward to benefit from market opportunities. Hence, we will only go with a certain baseload in the contractual relation with our suppliers. And the rest, we will go more spot and more shorter. Power, U.S. in comparison to Europe for power is a paradise. There is very, very attractive pricing for energy, for gas and for electricity. And in the State of Georgia, there is a very reliable, strong power generation, electricity generation. Just next to our site, there are large power stations. Next to the site, there is a 230-kilowatt main transmission line with a substation directly close to our site, was one of our decision criteria is to go to that site. So now with the decision taken, we will enter and finalize discussion with the authorities, with the electricity companies to lock in PPAs, long-term supply contracts at -- especially in comparison to Europe, at very attractive rates and stable rates going forward. And CO2 free, that's why it was important. So we want to have green electricity to source our plant, which is part of our sustainability agenda to reduce our Scope 2 footprint.

So it's not then gas powered or oil powered or something like that. So not -- but in the longer term then green energy, right?

So electricity, the main point, electricity will come from hydro, solar, wind and also from nuclear power. That will be a mix of CO2-free sources of electricity production.

Okay. And then concerning how to handle this from a management point of view. So how much of your -- from your staff from Europe has to go for how long to the site to really secure that you can ramp up the facility in '25?

So also an important point. Augusta, I don't know how many on this call are golf players. So we have already a short list of golf enthusiasts from our Aurubis team. We have been listed. But no, joking aside, Augusta, or this region, Georgia is a very attractive part of the U.S. And we have identified a list of positions and key positions, which we want to nominate European or people which are already part of the Aurubis family today. And over time, certainly, we will have a strong team, but a diminishing team in the U.S., which will be, step-by-step, also replaced by local people that we are going to hire. So to give you an idea, we will start with a core team with all the necessary function, which will be then enlarged over time and localized with the ramp-up and the running production in U.S., but it's all identified. And clearly, the project management team, which has been very successfully executing the project so far, will come from the Aurubis Group, from Europe and will localize then with the progress of the project into the U.S. in the mid, I'd say, mid of next calendar year.

All right. And you are currently in process to invest in Lünen, and on top of that, of course, integrating Metallo, then you have this next project. Is it right to assume that then for the next 2 to 3 years, this enough of management intention, and we don't have to expect further bigger announcements when it comes to growth?

No. This is a wrong assumption, Christian. We have, and we will talk about this in more detail in December. Clearly, we see huge opportunities for Aurubis going forward. We have laid out our strategy, our landscape and road map for the next 5 years. And we see additional very attractive, profitable, sustainable growth opportunities for the company, which we are going to pursue. So clearly, there will be no pause in our agenda. More announcements to come in the future.

And we have another question from Ioannis Masvoulas.

I have a couple more questions, if that's okay. The first of all, regarding cash flow. What sort of working capital investment should we expect to have this asset fully up and running? And secondly, taking a step back around growth and your strategy going forward, is there still a place for, let's call it, plain vanilla copper smelting, primary smelting in your business? Or could you consider divesting some of the plants and particularly Bulgaria, which, I guess, is not as integrated as the plant in Hamburg? Any color there would be very appreciated.

So Ioannis, you caught me on the wrong foot here. So of course, we have considered that we free some net working capital and that we will have some days sales outstanding, days deliverables outstanding. So that has been considered. But in principle, I mean, we are, today, getting the materials from the U.S. So we rather have a longer period. If we produce directly, we will be closer to the markets. We will be quicker. And don't forget that we will be able to sell parts of the material also in the U.S., still generating EUR 80 million, which means that there will be an effect on, let's say, the net working capital here. But this will be rather remote.

Yes. And regarding your -- the second part of your question, primary custom smelting, primary smelting, clearly, our focus, and we will explain this in more detail on the 6th is the catch these huge growth opportunities in recycling and circular economy. That's our focus now, and that's where we would put really a lot of effort and also significant projects into. This doesn't rule out any other steps, but that's now the area of priority and -- that we are pursuing.

And just to push a bit on this point then. Could primary smelting be seen as a source of funding for your ambitious growth plans in recycling?

No. No. No, that would be a very wrong view on our, say, primary business. It's a very attractive, well-managed setup that we have on that slide with the 2 large smelters, where we have the capability to process complex concentrates. And our methods are more and more needed. So recycling is one important pillar, but primary is an as important pillar in which we invest. You saw the announcement about our environmental investment arm here in Hamburg to be clearly the cleanest smelter worldwide, close to a city. And you will see other statements in the future about how we strengthen our core business, how we strengthen our primary business going forward. So it's definitely not something that's just providing financing to the other growth. It's a strong business in itself.

And there is one more question from Jatinder Goel.

On the first one, the ramp-up period, how long will it take to get to full capacity? You're indicating FY '25/'26 as the first full year. You have at least 3 months in your FY '24 as well to ramp up. So still the '24/'25 FY, what sort of average output should we expect based on what you are budgeting currently?

Yes, we will be in full production in '25/'26. Please understand, of course, that we also here have a conservative approach. We are taking the first step in the U.S. there is some unknown factors so, therefore, we are careful. It can be a bit quicker, but that we know once we have the project built. So you need to calculate from '25/'26 onwards, the EUR 80 million will be there, and we will use '24/'25 for ramping up.

But we have the ambition, certainly to be faster. And I'd just take as a reference point, the synergies for -- with the Metallo integration. We stated to the market that we will achieve EUR 10 million to EUR 15 million after 2.5 -- about 3 years, I think we stated. And as we announced, we have already overachieved this target in the first year of integration. So it shows a bit our philosophy. We are not -- we promise and we over deliver. That's our philosophy going forward, and that the same here with our timing.

Understood. Have you factored much green premium in that EUR 80 million EBITDA number?

Sorry, help me again. Premium? I didn't get it clear, your question.

Any green premium because it's all coming from recycled material? So something which is not in today's market, but by the time you are producing in the U.S. market on 100% recycled material, is there any green premium assumption built into?

So you're referring to Tomorrow Metals, that we get a certain -- special premium in the marketplace. No, nothing has been factored in, in the financials of this project and -- as we don't do this in our overall numbers. We are pushing Tomorrow Metals. We are offering sustainable and also, from a footprint, CO2 footprint, low CO2 footprint metals to the market. And at this point in time, we are not considering to get premiums for that.

On the other side, it pays in on the European taxonomy question of where do you invest, in which investments do you go? And for sure, this plays in on, let's say, sustainable investment, and that will be a benefit in itself.

Yes.

Okay. The last question on what sort of average copper content are you planning to process in this plant? Is the idea to take much lower the scrap that China cannot take? And whatever China can import will continue to go that way, that will work for both sides?

Yes. If you look at the numbers, which are also in the presentation, we announced to process around 90,000 tonnes of input material, to process and/or to produce about 35,000 tonnes of blister copper. So you see about the rate, let's call it 1/3 is the metal content. However, clearly, it's a very wide mix of different input materials that we will source for this site in Richmond. So very low metal-containing, low organic, up to very high organic, high metal. Again, we will play the whole range of different recycled metals. But in the average, you see the number of 1/3 is a good assumption.

Currently, there are no further questions. [Operator Instructions] It seems that there are no further questions from the audience. So I hand back to you, Angela.

Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you very much all the participants for your participation and your interest in Aurubis and in this project. The next event, we will meet will be most probably December 3, that is Friday, when we are going to announce our full year results 2020/'21. And then on Monday, after that date, the 6th of December, we are going to host our Capitals Market Day. And I would love to remind you to register for this event so that we, at the end, will be prepared. So thank you again, and see you in 3 weeks from now, I think it is already.

Yes.

All the best. Have a nice evening and see you then. Bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-Bye.

Bye.