Boliden AB (publ) (BOL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to welcome you to Boliden's 2022 Capital Markets Day. My name is Olof Grenmark, and I'm Head of Investor Relations. I will also be the moderator during today's sessions. When I say a warm welcome, of course, mean a warm welcome to you all here in the audience here in Stockholm, but also to all of you that are listening in and watching us on the web. Once again, a warm welcome. At Boliden, we always take safety first. So it's my job to take today's safety session. And in case of an emergency, we have 3 emergency exits here, 2 are at the end of the room and one is to my left-hand side here. At the reception, we have all the safety gear, you can imagine. And in case of an emergency, if we were to go out of this room due to this, we have a gathering, please, just outside here at [indiscernible]. We have a busy agenda today, but we do have some deadlines. We're already underway, but we will, of course, have a coffee break, very important in Sweden. And during that coffee break, we will have an exhibition. We will show you how we're underway to get our first fossil-free mine in Kristineberg, in the Boliden area, something we're quite proud about. We will also have a sharp deadline that we need to end 15:30 at the latest because we're very glad that many of you will follow us this evening via chartered plane and go and see our nickel plant, our copper and nickel plant in Harjavalta, Finland. We encourage you to ask questions today. I will lead the questions from that we'll get here -- that we will get here in the -- from Stockholm directly. And if you listen in via the web, please ask questions via the question form, and I will see them on my iPad. I will make sure that as many questions as possible get forward to management. We will have a few questions after almost all the presentations, but we will also have a Q&A session at the end with the whole management on scene. Today's team is, of course, our group management, led by our President and CEO, Mikael Staffas. Okay. I think we're ready to go. Mikael Staffas, the President and CEO of Boliden. You're most welcome. The stage is yours.

Thank you, Olof. Good morning, everybody, I should say, maybe good lunch, whatever time it is, wherever you're listening from wherever you are. Welcome from my side as well. It is nice to see you all here again. It's now been 18 months since we last had our Capital Markets Day, and I was standing in very much this spot. The only difference was that there was nobody in the audience at that time. It was all empty in these chairs, but you had to go 3 years back, and we had a similar event at this very venue, where we had a chance to talk together. This is, of course, an event where the point is that we will give you some news and some updates on where we're standing. But it's also an educational events where you are allowed to ask questions to get clarification about what we are doing. So I would also like to encourage you all to ask the questions as Olof already talked about. Now first of all, this is also an event that is not mainly about me. It is very much about my team and you get a chance to talk to them, those of you who maybe don't meet them that often normally. And they will do the bulk of the presentation and also answer the bulk of the questions. In this presentation, also we'll have to me talk about our vision and also around how to become the most climate-friendly and we will also talk about some news that we have regarding our targets on the CO2 arena. Then we will have Stefan, who will come with the mines and he will talk about the update on the products that we have and the update on the production that we have around those things and also the products that we have going forward with the potential new mines that we could have or extensions. Then Daniel will come and talk similarly about the smelters around where we're standing around production and so on, but also talk more about how we're going to meet the challenge on the CO2 from the smelter side and also around the products that we are developing for the customers. And finally, Hakan will talk about the financial implications around everything that we have spoken about. Now when you're preparing an event like this, you always like to have something to think about. And I have picked as I usually do a quote from somebody. And this time, it's a quote -- and by the way, it's also in the line where that there's not much new that has happened because this core happens to be from a book that was published in 1965, which happens to be the year I was born. So this thought was thought about already when I was born, so it's nothing new in that sense. Those of you who are Swedish or Finnish in this room will probably notice very much around the Swedish/Finnish author Tove Jansson in her Moomintroll. And the quote that you can see that was already said already way too many years ago, is that Moominpappa who has said that "Isn't life exciting? Everything can change all of a sudden and for no reason at all." The world is full of great and wonderful things for those who are ready for them. And is that also what we're doing right now. We are in times that are changing, and we don't know exactly which way they are changing. But if we are ready for the change, it will be wonderful times for all of us. You've already seen the film regarding our values where they are. This is something that hasn't changed. It's been standing stable for quite a few years now, and we don't intend to change them either. These are values that we perceive to be in that sense, internal and will stand around any change that you will see otherwise. We are very clear that we are a metal provider, and we're providing metals not primarily, maybe not to make money, but primarily because somebody needs the metals and somebody needs the metals to do something good and somebody needs to metals to do something good for many years forward, not just now, and that's what we are all about. And we intend to be the best of the ones who are doing the first thing, and we intend to be the one who has the most climate-friendly and also most respected provider in the world, and we're doing this through care courage and responsibility. In going forward and seeing all these changes, I would also claim that Boliden is uniquely well positioned at this time. We do have the products that most everybody is looking for. And I would say that there is a large optimism for the long-term base metals demand out there. Europe is also weakening to the situation that there is such a big reliance on imports into Europe. And as Europe is coming to grips with that, that could only mean that it's better to be in Europe, which we already are. We do have already before, I would say, I wrote here outstanding sustainability performance, good sustainable performance, whatever word you want to use. We know that we cannot stop where we are. That's what we're also going to talk about today, how we are increasing our targets to make sure that we remain ahead of the race. We have a strong financial position. We have a strong balance sheet. And when we talk about the strong balance sheet, Hakan will also come back and talk about our energy portfolio, which is also part of having a strong balance sheet in this situation where you're having at certain times. And we have a flexibility, I would say, both a mental flexibility as well as a financial flexibility to be able to handle changes as they come. Part of this ability to be as agile as you can be when I usually say, we try to be the dancing elephant. We are an industry that is not that easy to change. But given that where we are, we're trying to be as agile as ever possible. And then a very important part around this is our management governance setup that we have with very independent units that work by themselves. I usually make the point that when we had COVID, we altogether lost maybe 1 week of production in 2 of our units and the other one didn't lose anything compared to what happened to many other places. Then people ask me, "So what did you do?" And the truth is, very simply, we did lots of things, and we did it differently in all the 10 places did not do the same thing. They were all trained to handle situations themselves. Maybe they were more trained from a situation where there could be safety issues or other things, that means that you as a management really need to act and you can never wait for instruction from some headquarter, you need to act all the time. But that was transferred very well in the COVID situation where we had to learn to live with the situation we had to adopt and we managed to adopt in a way that was working out relatively well. By the way, those of you have seen this picture before, we noticed that there are not really any changes. We have a very stable management situation with people who have been around for a long time, very well knowledge, but also very good at taking responsibility. And those of you who come with us to [ Hailuoto ] tomorrow, we'll have a chance to meet [ Timo ] or you meet him already tonight and get a chance to meet one of these 10 people a little bit more in detail. On the short-term perspective, I've been asked to also make sure that we talk a little bit about the short-term market perspective, and I will do that now. So that hopefully, when we have the real presentations coming from the team here in a while, they can focus more around what we're doing and how we're trying to become competitive in the long run. We are and we acknowledge that there is lots of uncertainty out right now. There is a geopolitical situation that is uncertain, inflation development that is uncertain, energy prices that are heading different ways, availability of energy is getting problematic, and we have the Chinese who are playing around in this situation. How this is going to play out, we don't really know. It is clearly possible that also in the short term, we could have a more of a downturn than we're seeing right now, but it could also be that it's turning up relatively soon. I also make the point that metal prices, especially if you measure them in our currency, the Swedish krona, are strong and have remained strong. And that also when you look forward into '23, what we can see, we have an improvement of smelter terms that we will get through the year, which is also good for us being a net smelter. And the demand situation is stable for copper, even though we do see some demand decline for zinc right now, that's mainly linked to the energy situation again where lots of electric car furnaces in the steel industry are curtailing their capacity and thus, there is less need for galvanization. But as long as how long this will continue, we don't really know. The real one news that we have today, which is a new thing, it's our new targets that we set up regarding climate and regarding CO2. These targets, I will just present very quickly, and I will then leave the word for Ã…sa. But the targets that we do have and that we've had so far have served us very well, and you know that we've had a target of reducing 40% to 2030 base year 2012. We're now doing a very slight little tweak on this target. It's still 40% production go 1 and 2 to 2030, but the base here is no longer 2012, it's 2021. Slip 2 numbers. This basically means that we're doubling the ambition because the -- out of the 40% we had in the old target, we had done roughly 20%, and we had 20% left for the -- up to 2030. Now we have 40%. That's all going to be doable. We will hear more about exactly what we're doing around it. We also are adding targets throughout the value chain. We're adding Scope 3 targets that we haven't had before. It's, of course, a little bit nervous to put out targets on things that you don't really control because you don't control your suppliers fully. But we have indirect control of our suppliers, and we feel very strong about adding a new target with 30% reduction of CO2 in the value chain upstream from us in our Scope 3. We have also applied to get these targets approved by the Science Based Targets initiative, which we also feel very hopeful about. So with this quick introduction, I'd like to introduce to all of you Ã…sa, who run sustainability for Boliden. And Ã…sa, please come on and talk more about what we're going to do.

Thank you, Mikael. I'm also very happy to be here today, and I'm happy to be here to talk to you about sustainability and to talk to you about our new climate targets as well. Our vision, as you saw in the film, and as Mikael also talked about, is to be the most climate-friendly and respected metal provider in the world. And to be able to reach that vision being continued to be a sustainability leader is, of course, crucial. And therefore, we have raised the bar, and we have set new targets. And I will talk to you about them more in detail. I will also cover some other sustainability topics in my presentation. And sustainability, when we talk about that, it is totally integrated in our business strategy. It's care for people, it's care for environment and it's care for society. And it has a very strong link to value creation. So let's start with our people. Care for people and creating the workplace of tomorrow is of course, of highest importance. And at Boliden, as we heard already in the beginning, Olof said, health and safety is -- always comes first. We are proud of being unique in this global industry of being fatality-free for 14 years now. Unfortunately, there are fertilities happening still quite often on a yearly basis in this industry. We have been focusing also on our high-risk incidents. And those of you who remember from our last Capital Markets Day, at that time, we had reduced the Risk Class III, the highest risk incidents with 50%, and we have continued since that to decrease with another 50%. We are, of course, not happy about still having accidents and accidents are a challenge, even if they are less severe. So our ambition is, of course, to be accident free as well. And the way for us to become that is, of course, I've been talking to you about this. This is my third Capital Markets Day here. And we continue the way forward with proactive risk management to ensure that we learn from the best. We have many, many areas -- department sites within Boliden that are really high performers when it comes to safety. We learn from them, we share experience, and we continue to learn also from the outside world. Of course, with having the best available technology integrated in Boliden that also ensures a safe environment. Vision purpose and values are extremely important also for safety performance. The right behaviors will increase safety. The right behaviors will also strengthen our leadership and by that, empowering our people. And our vision, as you've heard several times already is, of course, really important to ensure that everyone we have are -- all the people who have are involved in the strategy implementation. We know why we exist and where to go. And this, of course, also increases our ability to attract, to retain and to develop the people for the future. And we all know that, that is a challenge, not only for us, but for many industries to ensure that we have the right competencies and skills for the future. So care for people is one part. Care for environment and the climate is another important area. And here, we come into our more ambitious climate targets. So for us to be able to reach our vision and also very important for us to inspire others in this industry, we have set the new targets. Our current target, as Mikael talked about has been in place for many years. We have come approximately half way when it comes to that target with the initiatives that we have implemented. But what we're doing now with our new CO2 targets is that we are going from an intensity to an absolute target. We are going from a base year of 2012 to the new base year 2021. We are adding a scope 3 target, which we have not had before. And we're also introducing product intensity targets. And as you have also seen in our published press release, and as Mikael said, we have also now -- as we are in line with science-based targets with this new target setting sent in the application for that. Before I go into details around these targets, let me just remind you of our strong competitive position that we already have. Last Capital Markets Day, we launched first in the industry, our 2 low carbon products, the low carbon copper and the low-carbon zinc. That shows that we are really well positioned when it comes to carbon footprint on our metals. Our copper, low carbon copper is approximately 1.5 kilos of CO2 per kilo copper compared to above 4 kilos as a global average. On the zinc side, it's 1 kilo or less than 1 kilo compared to almost 4 kilos on the global average. And how come we can be as good as we are. We have good access to fossil-free energy. We have world-leading productivity, and we are early adopters of new technology. So if we have this in mind that where we are and our current situation, let me then move into our new targets. So, what are they, what do they mean and what targets do we now have? We have, for Scope 1 and 2. Scope 1 is the emissions coming from our own productions, our own operations, our own sites. Scope 2 is the emissions coming from the electricity that we use. And we will -- with the base year 2021, absolute emissions reduced another 40% by 2030. Scope 3, that is a challenge because that is not in our own control. That is upstream emissions coming from the production of the material that we source, the raw material that we source, the emissions from the production of other kind of materials that we buy, explosives, for instance, and also transports before coming into our operations. And we have set a 30% absolute reduction target on Scope 3. And we will do that by working together with our suppliers. We know quite many. We have a huge amount of suppliers. We know quite many of them. And we will work together with those not having any targets at all or having very low ambitions to help them to increase their ambitions. We will also look into our supplier portfolio to see where can we do changes. And we are also monitoring what our suppliers have also. They might be committed to Science Based Targets or they have published their targets. So what we see that they have promised is also, of course, included in this. So those Scope 1 and 2 and 3 targets are aligned with Science Based Targets. So we have then also added another target just to show because there are many, and that's really good that are applying to Science Based Targets, committed to Science Based Targets, announcing targets and ambitious targets when it comes to CO2, but to show that we have already a strong position and that we are strengthening that position now. We have added also this product intensity targets, meaning that we have today our low-carbon products, but today, approximately 25% of our copper production qualifies for being low carbon, and 20% of our zinc production qualifies for being low carbon. And by 2030, we will have 100%, on average, being on those levels. So it's not like we're starting now. We've had the target and we have had a lot of initiatives ongoing at the last years to come to where we are today. So just to give you a few examples, some of you are already familiar with many of these. But of course, we have completed a lot of things and we have a lot of things in progress ongoing already. And it's a lot about electrification but also process improvement, energy efficiency and both Stefan and Daniel will come back to what we are now working on, what kind of initiatives are in the plans for smelters and mines to be able to reach these new ambitious targets so you will get more details around that. And as I said in the beginning, sustainability is not only about safety and climate, even those 2 are really important things to work on. But we are committed not only to be -- continue to be strong in those 2 areas, also to have strong and world-class sustainability performance in all these areas. And these are examples within people, within environment, within society that we also have in our strategy, in our business plans. We have targets, we have plans in place to also ensure being an attractive employer, the competence skills we need to have the right leadership, to work with biodiversity. That is really, really important also where we get a lot of attention now around our target setting that we have talked about when it comes to biodiversity, also where we want to be in 2030. Our vision, we talk about climate-friendly metal provider but we also want to be the most respected metal provider. And then it's really important, of course, to ensure that we have strong ethical behaviors, perform business in an ethical way, to have due diligence processes for human rights, to ensure that we have and listen to all kinds of stakeholders in this area and not least to also have the same expectations when it comes to our business partners on sustainability as we have on ourselves. So that is something that we work really hard with. And to summarize, strong sustainability performance will lead to stronger business performance, people management and value creation for all stakeholders. So our commitment is to ensure that we will be here for another 100 years running a successful business. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much Ã…sa. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Then we start the Q&A session, and we will start here in Stockholm. Who has the first question? Christian Kopfer, Handelsbanken, please.

If you look at -- in the steel industry, there is quite a clear message that -- called green steel providers are able to get the premium paid for carbon-free steel. That's at least what we hear. Now the question for you is that obviously, low-carbon products are very good for the environment. But have you seen any willingness from your clients to pay a premium for your low-carbon products?

That's a really good question. Thank you so much. And there's a lot of people asking about the premiums. And yes, there are premiums on our low-carbon products. It's a very high interest in our low-carbon products. They are contracted and we are getting premiums. We are not on a level today where we can say that it's a huge premium on these products. But I am convinced that this is something that we will continue to develop. Our base metals are quite in this side of the value chain and as soon as customers, customers and the end customers starts requiring this, which I am convinced that they will, I see that premiums will start developing. And it will also be a requirement, I think, going into the future, whether there's a premium or not. And Daniel will also talk a little bit more about our low-carbon products in his presentation.

Okay. One more question, if I can. On the electrification, you have a lot of electrification projects in the company. And how do you take into consideration perhaps a complete different energy price environment, especially on electricity going forward as consumption in Sweden and in Europe is completely escalating? So how do you take that into consideration when you're doing your investment projects on this?

Okay. Yes, it has been -- as Moomintroll also said or Moominpappa, a very, very special situation we are in. And we have made a lot of simulations and scenario analysis when defining and deciding on these targets that we have. And those targets, we are convinced that we will be able to reach them even though we will have situations that are a bit unpredictable now. When it comes to investments and the cost for ESG-related initiatives, they are always integrated into our normal CapEx process. So we take this into consideration in an integrated way in all our investments.

Excellent. We had a question from the gentleman over there. Can you please start by stating your name and company name?

Yes. My name is Gillian Gailliaert and I work for PGGM. We're an asset manager from the Netherlands. We manage the assets of the Dutch Healthcare Pension Fund, which has over 3 million participants. So I had a question about your Scope 3 target because I'm kind of confused. I read that it is specifically for reducing supplier emissions, which would come down to Scope 3 categories, purchased goods and maybe capital goods as well. So am I right that it only covers that part of Scope 3 or the entire Scope 3 emissions?

No, it covers that what we have specified, the upstream Scope 3 parts.

All right, because the SBTi criteria does include a scope coverage of Scope 3 in general. So what can we expect from a verification process? Do you expect that you will be granted SBTi verification?

Yes. As we have also studied, of course, a lot around the requirements and also have been in dialogue with SBTi, we expect these targets to be accepted. And the -- it's good that you mentioned it. The whole -- we have applied now but there's a huge line of companies now applying to commit to the SBTi. So we expect to see the results from this validation process somewhere in Q3 next year.

All right. Very good to hear. And congratulations on the new targets. Very glad to hear those and also to apply for SBTi. If I may, I have a second question, which is about the low-carbon products. Very well to hear that you also have targets on that. And I was wondering about alignment with the EU taxonomy because the EU taxonomy, its technical annex includes screening criteria for aluminum, iron and steel but not specifically for copper and zinc. However, there are criteria for the manufacturing of low-carbon technology, which includes key components, which carbon -- sorry, copper and zinc would probably be included there. So can these products be labeled as sustainable under the taxonomy criteria as well?

The taxonomy is a topic that we can discuss for a long time. It has been postponed and postponed and postponed, things that relates to our company and industry. And we are monitoring this all the time, and we are very involved in the development of what will happen. But as long as we haven't seen anything yet, it's very difficult to say. But I would say that with the SBTi commitment and the way we have been working with this and our low-carbon products, I think we are very well positioned.

Excellent. My inbox is almost crashing here. I have many questions, so we should have some questions over the web as well. And the first one comes from Martin Inger [indiscernible], What CapEx is associated to your new CO2 target?

I try to answer also. I think we will get more financial input later on. But our CO2 investments, ESG-related investments are integrated in the way we are working with CapEx and investment. So it will not be a separate process around this or separate cost investment. They are fully integrated and will be communicated together with our CapEx communication. And we don't see any major changes there.

And while we're on the web, Patrick Jones, JPMorgan. What does your 40% reduction target or your new target imply for recycling volumes?

Us having new climate targets will not change the way we are working with recycling. And yes, recycling is a very important part of our business as it is contributing to circular economy. But how recycling will develop going forward is not really related to this target as we see in our plans.

Yes. And finally, we have Jason Farkas, Bank of America, and it is, how does the old or the new emission targets fit together? Will you keep the old ones?

I would say that the old ones, they have been good. As I said, we have reached halfway. These new targets are more ambitious. So that is what we are now to follow and to monitor and to deliver on. So that is also what we are going to communicate and report. But we will keep track on our old target as well just to see how we develop towards those old targets. So we will have that information, but the communication and reporting will, of course, be now for our new targets.

Okay. I think we have time for a couple of more questions here from the audience. We have Viktor Trollsten, Danske Bank, please.

Maybe just clarifying, it was an absolute reduction target of 40%. And just how does that fit with your say, expansion plans for this coming decade? I guess, [indiscernible] coming 8 years would be difficult in terms of reducing by 40%? Or how do you think about expansions in relation to an absolute target?

All known expansions are included in our calculations in the target setting.

Known to us or known to you?

I will hand that over to someone who feels that they want to ask that. But of course, we have considered expansions in this target setting as we know that we are developing this industry and this company, yes.

That's clear.

We have the final question. Yes, from the -- you there. Yes, please. The woman there, yes, please.

My name is [indiscernible], I'm from Bank of America. My question is a follow-up on the premiums. From the Scope 3 targets, would you kind of foresee the premiums on those low-carbon suppliers be setting pressures on margins and essentially increase your cost of goods or raw materials?

Thank you. It is difficult to see how premiums in the whole value chain will develop, but I am sure that we can handle that also in a profitable way going forward.

And we had a final question from the gentleman at the back there. Yes, please.

Ioannis Masvoulas from Morgan Stanley. A couple of questions for me, the first around the low-carbon metals. You talked about copper, you talked about zinc. When are we going to hear about nickel? And then maybe the second question around Scope 3 and the 30% reduction target. Does it mean that you could move away from your -- some of your suppliers? And could that lead to a higher cost of running your business?

Okay, thank you. Two very good questions. If these are the last ones. I think it's a good way also to finalize this session. First, if I answer the first one related to nickel. Yes, we have 2 low-carbon products today in our low-carbon portfolio. But of course, we are working with the calculations around our other metals and products as well. And Daniel will talk about our nickel so I will leave that for him. But we will continue to include things in our portfolio going forward. And the last question around Scope 3. Yes, it might be so, or I think definitely it will be so that we are now, in our supplier portfolio, really looking into also this dimension with the CO2 emissions when choosing which suppliers to continue to work with.

Okay. Ã…sa, thank you very much. We will welcome you back when it's time for the panel session. And now ladies and gentlemen, it's time for our next speaker. It is time for Mr. Romedahl, President, Boliden Mines. Welcome.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Olof. It's a great pleasure to be here again, talking about Boliden Mines. And I think it has happened quite a lot since last CMD. Some of the highlights since last year is that we have delivered on the 3 expansion projects, Aitik 45, Kevitsa 9.5 and Garpenberg 3 million tonnes. And that this is -- have been done during a quite difficult time with the pandemic as well as disturbance on global supplies. So I think that the teams in all our business units have done a great job. And you can see on the upper left graph how the throughput have developed over time. That's our production numbers. We have also completed the reclamation of Kylylahti mine site. The mill in Kylylahti is still in care and maintenance, and we have investigated what to do with the cobalt metal that we have in one of our tailings ponds. We haven't decided what to do with it yet but the results from our testing is promising. We have also decided to finalize the exploration around Kylylahti and Outokumpu area. Another big thing that has happened is the implementation of global industrial standards for tailings management. We have upgraded our organization as well as our competence in this area. And we have investigated the tailings itself in all our operating facilities, basically based on -- to try to figure out if we have a potential for status liquefaction. We have also conducted investigation of the ground around our tailings facility. And that have led for, as you know, for investment in Aitik. I will come back to that later on. But that's not the only thing that we have done when it comes to tailings. We have initiated also research and development program, looking into what can we do more with our tailings. And we have quite good potentials around here. But also how can we bring in value when we are closing down a mine site? So this is things that is in a bit long term, but we are doing that and we have initiated that lately. And if we look at the graph to the lower left, you can see the financial performance from the mines. And the last year is actually the best performance we have ever done in Boliden mines. So that's quite good. And you know that it's mainly maybe based on external factors. But the thing that we have increased our production is part of that as well, of course. Mikael and Ã…sa talked about CO2 initiatives. And in the mines, we can actually do a lot. We have done a lot and we can continue to do more. And we can say that we have -- the big thing with the CO2 reduction that we will do going forward will be seen after 2025. But the electrification underground, that's quite in a good pace, and we are doing good things here now as well as the suppliers. They have been able to develop the battery equipment in a higher pace, and we will be -- possible to implement them when they come. On the lower right pit, you see the truck that we use for transport ore from Renström to the mill in Boliden. This is a battery truck, 74-tonne truck and the tailing distance is 15 kilometers. And the company who have delivered this truck, they will continue to develop it and that we start to do serial production of it. And that brings in positive possibilities for both Boliden Area as well as Garpenberg and Tara to actually also get electrified when it comes to transportation above ground. So that's great. And this is a quite high pace in this development for the moment. So that's good. And in the open pit, you know that we have worked with our electrification with a trolley system in both Aitik and Kevitsa. We will continue to increase the use of the trolley systems. But in the long run, we need a battery solution for big trucks for open pits. And we are discussing with both those Komatsu and Caterpillar on [indiscernible]. And we need that to be on the market in the next 3 to 5 years because that's the big thing for us to reduce our CO2 emissions going forward. And I do think that it looks promising because both of those companies are really had honor to try to get that in their development route. The last bullet on this slide is actually very interesting. We have tried out a new kind of explosives. These explosives have a very low footprint when it comes to CO2 emission. But the best thing with this explosive is that this is Nitrate free. And from an environmental point of view, that's actually fantastic. And this, ladies and gentlemen, can be a game changer for the industry going forward. It will take some time. We have tried it on a blast in the size of a development site, but this can be something to really keep the eye on. That brings me into our productivity improvements going forward. We will go up in production in Garpenberg to 3.3 million tonnes. We will stabilize the production in Kevitsa at 10 million tonnes. And our technical team as well as the team in Aitik have prepared themselves for implementation of the AHS system. That will be a very important point going forward when we increase the waste rock production from '24. The same technical team are also working to develop an agnostic positioning system for underground mixed fleet. And this is like creating a safety bubble around the person as well as around the machine, so they can coexist in the same working area going forward. When we manage to do that, optimization can be really good for improved productivity. And this is a really interesting thing. The last bullet on this slide, Robot charger. This explains more or less how Boliden always work with technical development to become better as a mine operator. And the good thing with this Robot charger, this project is done with a few suppliers. The good thing with this is that this can actually charge around with Nonel technique and not like the competitors with electronic capsules that needed to be done for detonators, electronic detonators. Nonel is much cheaper. But the really good thing with this is actually that this is a missing piece. Well, this is in place, and we can do this remote then all the sequels in the drift cycle can be done remotely. And the next step will, of course, be optimization. That will take some years before we are there. But this is the way Boliden have worked with development. We will have a full scale equipment in the end of this year. And that brings me into the next success area for Boliden Mines, and that's our exploration. We will continue to focus on the area where we already exist in the Nordic countries, in Northern Europe. On the right side, the lower left diagram that I talked about last CMD as well. I think it's time to repeat it a bit because this is a very good graph. The light blue [call the stable] is what the reserve life for our operation was 2011. The dark blue is a reserve life 2021. In between that, we have mined out 10 years of production, and we have still been able to increase the reserve life of our operation. And that's done basically based on good exploration as well as the way we are doing our expansion projects. And we will continue with this kind of strategy and where we'll start to focus more around the Kristineberg area. Rävliden is a part of the Kristineberg mine, as you know. But we think that we can in more. And we have been there for a very, very long time, but now we changed a bit how we are actually addressing our exploration going forward. The same goes for Garpenberg, we do have a long reserve life. But here, we have want to open up unlock potential towards that. And if we are successful with this exploration, then Garpenberg might be something else in the future, that will take some years, but this is a key. We will also, as Mikael mentioned in the beginning, get more focused on nickel exploration. And that we will -- we have already started to do that, but we will accelerate that in 2023. We have good potential around Nautanen and to extend the resources around Nautanen. Now that's bring me into Aitik. And on the graph to the lower right, then you can see the development of the grades over the years, as well as the grade going forward the stick line here. And that we are mining under the average grade, which is a dotted line, some years, that have to be like that. Otherwise, it will not be average. And we are going in such a period now. The dam investment in Aitik SEK 5 billion is done to stabilize our tailing facility constructions around the tailing dam. This investment is -- have a good pace. It's a high pace actually, and we are delivering on function, cost and time. And the reason why we are doing this is that the investigation of the static liquefaction say that we can't say that it will not happen. So we have to calculate with that in our calculations, as well as we could see from the investigation on the ground, the technical investigation that we do have a layer that is weaker than the main part of the support ground. So that's why we need to do it now. I mean, the tailing pond today is about 70-meter high. And that if it should cover the full life of mine, it will be one or a full mine. But the projects are in line with what we expected it should be. So that's great. Another important thing is that we will increase the stripping from 2024. We have always said that Aitik is a one-to-one mine, meaning one ore -- 1 ton or ore and 1 ton of waste. That's not the case every year, of course. Sometimes, we are producing more ore than waste and some period, it will be the opposite. And from '24, it will be more waste than ore - for a period of time, later we'll come into production in mid-2024. We will put in a new permit for renewed permits for Aitik, the big one, in February '26, that have to be granted. And that brings us actually into -- over to Ireland, and Tara mines. On the image to the upper right, you can see Tara mines in brown. You can say [Cardean] black. And between those, you have a black line, that's to our deep drift. And then you have a vertical black line and that's actually the position for the ventilation shaft. You can see the drilling side on the lower picture. A year ago, when we was drilling the pilot tool for the mentation shaft and hitting the drift as planned, what wasn't planned was amount of water that we get into the -- through this hole. So we actually had a water flow of 2,000 cubic meters an hour, and that exceeded our pumping capacity. So it was flooding the tunnel as well as part of Tara mines. Now we have pumped away the water. Tara mines is up running on normal production, since quite a long time ago, actually. And the exploration into our deep drift will start now in this quarter. We have lost 1 year in exploration on the ground. The exploration on surface haven't been affected by the flooding. And the great thing is 3D seismic that we have done and the result from that. That take up a few very good promising exploration targets. And when I say target, this means that we haven't drilled towards those targets yet, but it does look promising on the -- from the 3D seismic. So that will be very interesting to follow going forward. We have done prefeasibility study around Tara [data] as well. Coming up to Boliden area and the Kristineberg operation on that image to the upper right, you can see the Kristineberg mine in gray. You have the Rävliden ore body in yellow shade. And in between here, you have a red line, and that's actually an existing drift on the ground. We will start to produce from Rävliden ore body in 2023. And when we are doing the development of the ore body, we will take the ore through this tunnel and through the old system in Kristineberg. The blue line is new hole system, that's 5,600 meters long. We have done more than 1,500 meters for the moment, and we will continue to develop that and that will be ready in '25. And that's the time that we will go free faces production in Rävliden mine. So that will be electrified with Trolley and the machine around the scopes and trucks and so on will be battery and no trolley. We have done the ventilation shaft that's done. We are doing the construction of the heat exchange. That's also a very important part to reduce our CO2 emission, that's done in the end of this year. And we are constructing the water treatment plant on the ground, that water treatment plant will serve both Kristineberg mine as well Rävliden ore body. When it comes to Strömfors, we're still doing a lot of exploration. It's still an exploration project in early stage. We have done some scoping study and we still look promising around this. But we haven't done any more resource calculation around Strömfors. So that's pending, that will come in the future. Going over to the major permits pending. And starting with Aitik. In Like, we have the environmental permit that's granted. We need a change of the mining concession, and we wait to get that in the end of this year. We will have addition to the exchange of the existing permit and we will put that into application next year. And that's basically based on what we are doing around our telling facility, but it's also to have to increase the storage capacity for waste rock. And that will also change our reclamation plans going forward. In '26, we need a new permit in February. In Garpenberg, we have put in an application to change the rising method for the dam in Garpenberg, and we hope that we get that granted in the end of this year and beginning of next. In Boliden Area, we need a new permit renewal of the permit for Tank Bay. And here, we will increase the production level to a new production level as well as a bigger production area, especially in this. In we get a move from the government, as you know. And here, we still have the license for exploration. And we will put in a new application for a mining concession before 2024, I would say. Now that leads into what's the focus for us in the mines going forward. And the focus will still be on safe and stable production as well as extension opportunities. We will work hard with the activities around CO2 reduction and new technique will help us to get to a better productivity. And now we will continue to work with increasing social and legal license to operate. This is an area that is very important for us. On the local side, we have a good social license to operate. But I think on the national and European level, we need to increase that. And here, we really have a good momentum now because Europe can see that they need more metals. And they can also see that they haven't been as proactive as they should be when it comes to mining. So it's a good momentum in European now, but it will take time before we are there, I guess. So with this, thank you for your attention and looking forward for your questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Romedahl. Who has a question for Mr. Romedahl? Johannes Grunselius, Den Norske Bank.

I have a question on the grade curve you are showing us here for Aitik. Thanks for sharing that, by the way, I haven't seen such a great curve for a few years from Boliden. So thanks for sharing. Is that sort of only for Aitik or should we see -- what's the impact when you blend in Liikavaara? Just to clarify, is this only for Aitik?

Liikavaara is in to that graph. That's in that growth. And we will do the same kind of guiding for, as you normally do. We normally just have as only 5 quarters is longest peer that we do. But when it comes to Aitik, we realize that this curve can be good to see for you guys.

I understand it right, you have some flexibility on Liikavaara. You can mine out some more in sort of meager grayer. But that's not helping you so much apparently for 2024, 2025.

Now it's included, but we'll get up in close to full production in mid-'24 Liikavaara then -- And the average grade for this 60 million tonne in Liikavaara like is about '26. So that will help. But it's same with Liikavaara, it's -- you have your different kind of grades depending on where you are in the mineralization in the ore body. So...

Next question. Adrian Gilani, ABG Sundal Collier.

Yes. Just to follow up on the Liikavaara deposit question. If we were to see some sort of delay in 2024 on production start there, can you say anything about what the Aitik grade would be excluding that in 2024?

Now I don't want to go into that and give you that actually. And -- but the quantities that we will produce from Liikavaara when it's up to full production over a year is around, let's say, 7 million to maximum 15 million tonnes per year.

Stefan, let's break in with a question from the web. It's from Liam Fitzpatrick, Deutsche Bank and he says, just to clarify, is 2023 the low point for Aitik in terms of grades?

Yes. I mean, you have to see the curve that we have showed you now on this presentation, and I think you have to try to figure that out from that curve.

Okay. So it's up to us to judge?

Absolutely.

Exactly. Okay. We have Ioannis Masvoulas, Morgan Stanley at the back there. So I didn't see it before. It's too dark down there. Welcome to Stockholm.

Again on Hi-tech, you mentioned street pressure, which is going up from 2024. Can you give us an indication what sort of level we should be expecting? And for how many years it's going to remain above one-to-one?

Yes. If you go back and see how we have produced, it has been quite a few years that we have been mining more ore than waste. And that will be the same kind of period that we will have to mine more waste than ore. And that goes with the sequence of the pushbacks, of course. So that's the reason. And yes, the increase we will meet with the AHS system. That's why it's so important to get that into operation in it. And we will increase the AHS usage over the time to meet this increased production levels.

And I guess just a follow-up to clarify. So that increased stripping ratio is reflected into your CapEx profile when it comes to maintenance sustaining CapEx?

Yes, it will be included in the sustainable CapEx going forward, yes.

Over to Robert Redin, Carnegie.

This is on the same topic there. So just a clarification on the increased waste ore production. Will you still have enough capacity with the AHS and so on to put on 45 million tonnes into the mill? Or will the Harjavalta production impact that?

Our intention is, of course, to do 45 million tonnes every year. And that's the prioritization. So ore always go before waste. And -- but it's, of course, a challenge to increase production in both ore and waste at the same time. But we are preparing ourselves as good as we can to make that happen.

Okay. I think we have time for one more question from the web and then two more questions from the audience. And please remember, I mean, it's lovely to see all these hands, but we will have a panel discussion afterwards. So there will be more room for questions. But coming back, -- this question is from Jason Fairclough. He works for Bank of America, and he says, can you please update us regarding this Swedish concrete situation, which was a trouble someone some time ago? What's the latest there?

Yes, I don't exactly know where it is in the court when it comes to the process for fleet. But I don't know when we have this discussion when it was up last time. Then we have a Plan B, and our Plan B look like that we will be able to handle that situation. We still have this plan B. So I think that we will be able to handle this situation even if it will be difficult for fleet.

Okay. We have a question from the gentleman there to the left up there then. And then we have a final one over there. Yes.

Sri from RBC Capital Markets. My question is on the permits. So for Aitik, should we expect the waste rock storage permit to come through in 2023? And if it does not, given the highest strip ratio, how should we think about the production impact for Aitik?

Sorry about can you repeat it once again. Sorry.

Sorry, no worries. About the waste rock storage permit for Aitik, if it doesn't come through in 2023? How should we think about the production impact given the strip ratio is moving higher as well in the future?

Yes. The reason why we apply for higher waste rock storage is to have some kind of margin up to an increase the limit for it. And hopefully will not be needed to use that. But we need it into our plans in a way to get better. So we don't get into a colors when it comes to the waste rock production.

Okay. Then we had a final question from the gentleman over there.

Mini from CD Capital. I think it's a bit of the same theme. I don't know the mines as well as some of my colleagues here, so forgive me for my question. But Aitik looks a very deep mine, a deep open pit. It's only 0.25% copper grade, and you're about to be entering quite a period of capital investment, not only with the project itself, but with your CO2 ambitions and you have ambitions to use. I like that nitrate-free explosive. We'll look into that, clearly more costs there. Is it worth doing all of that work at 0.25%?

Yes. It's -- I think it's fantastic in a way, but we can run a mine on those low grades. And we get actually visits from all around the globe, even the big copper mines, asking us, how do you do this? But we have been able to do the same kind of trick, if I say so, with Aitik for at least the last 25 years, and we will continue to do that. And I think Aitik will with the changes that we are doing now will be a very solid, stable producer of copper going forward to the world of 50s.

Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for our coffee break. Once again, we are proud of our exhibition, the fossil mine that you can see up here. And for those of you who listen in to the web, please stay tuned, we will have movies rolling. And finally, we will start 15 minutes past sharp. Welcome back. [Break]

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. I hope you enjoyed the coffee break and our exhibition. By the way, this is a beautiful picture. It is a beautiful picture. It is Daniel Peltonen, but the intention was to show this coffee break slide. Maybe we can have that back, this coffee break slide? This one. Yes, there it is. You're wonderfully beautiful as well, Daniel. But what I was going to say is that this is a beautiful picture of our grand old lady within the Boliden mine system. It is the Kristineberg mine in the Boliden area. And this is the mine where we had the exhibition about. And in the Kristineberg extension called the Dalton, we're aiming to be fossil-free. Once again, that's enough of that. And it's a pleasure for me to announce the next speaker, Daniel Peltonen, Head of smelters. Welcome.

Thank you very much, Olof. This was -- I think the nicest way of presenting someone ever. Let's talk about it later tonight. Anyway, I've been with Boliden now for some 3 years and enjoying the ride a lot. We are focusing a lot on this culture journey with people said a change in mind. Value-based leadership is highly appreciated for me and to create a workplace where people thrive. Today, we are, however, going to talk more about what we are really doing in business. And just looking a little bit backwards, we are also in smelters doing great results. We have just 3 quarters in a row, made record high results. And we are, as Stefan also said, a little bit help with prices and terms. Market is in our favor, and that is, of course, a nice thing. On top of that, we also have a great long-term energy strategy within Boliden thinking about very high electricity prices that -- our competitors are very much suffering. We have not suffered that much. And this is a very good strength for our business. Since last CMD, we have got the result of the Green Zinc Odda, I will get back to that a little bit more later. And we have also started up the leaching plant and the underground repository in Renström its up and running since more or less 1 year, 1.5 years. We have expanded the nickel line in Harjavalta up to 370,000 tonnes. And we are also focusing a lot, of course, on these low carbon metals. You've heard it from Åsa. You've heard it from Mikael. This is what we are talking about in Boliden and this is what we are doing. And it feels good to do it. This is absolutely something that is driving towards our vision to be the most climate-friendly and respective metal provider in the world. Science-based targets, what does that mean really for Boliden smelters? Well, we launched this low-carbon metals already some time ago. And that was based on our internal raw materials coming from our mines that Stefan is providing concentrates from now when going into for a tougher target, this means that all concentrates will have to support this target to both internal and external concentrates will be heading for this. A lot of collaboration is needed for us and our suppliers to really reach the target. We have some years to go though, since this should be by 2030. Boliden statement when calculating the CO2 footprint is really something that we want to be transparent with. We are not excluding anything. We are rather including them, excluding things. So there are no credits. There are no offsets for planting trees in the other countries or anything like that. We are not reducing credits, for instance, sulfur dioxide, sulfuric acid production and so on. So this is really credible to grade. No credits, no offsets and this will be valid for all our products, copper and zinc until 2030. What does it really mean then in reality, decarbonizing road map at smelters? It will be hard work. And I would like to pinpoint at this stage that it is really the recycling of zinc, recycling of zinc that is our single largest emission point for our smelters. And the question is, well, why are we doing it? Could it be an easy point -- easy way of just reducing going away from recycling the sink to reach our target. We don't believe so. I think -- the alternative for this electric arc furnace would be, I think, to landfill it. And that is nothing that fulfills the things that we are focusing on within Boliden and thinking about the circular economy. For the rest, our zinc smelting is really something fantastic. Our capacity in Odda has been for a long time, hydropower based and really having a climate footprint that is close to 0. Our expansion now with this 150,000 tonnes that comes on top of that will be just as clean or even cleaner. And the saving more or less in Kokkola, where we have actually an improved energy grid that improve -- will improve our footprint even going forward. We are also, at the same time, working with steam and heat improvements and going forward with district heat solutions for that site. Copper and nickel then. This will also improve by doing really basic things in the beginning, utilizing waste heat streams and in the end, replacing fuel oil. We have, at this moment, started a project up in Celeste, for instance, called [Ecolink], where we are sharing the system with [Celeste City], where we are utilizing waste heat that we get out from our sulfuric acid plant and that will be benefiting the district heating in the region. And when we are having the shutdowns in the site, we can get heat back and by that, replacing oil in -- for heating. In our lead production up down in Bergsöe site, we have been working for quite some time with plastic separations and other things. And just at this moment, we have ongoing also a desulfurization project, which in the first time will diminish sulfur emissions. But in the end, also, of course, diminish the carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon dioxide emissions, thinking about our science-based targets initiative, also already told about the 40% reduction. This is valid for the scope 1 and 2. In real tonnes really looking at this, the Scope 3 is actually quite a lot bigger. So scope 1 and 2 is about 1/3 of the total emissions that we have on scope 3 is 2/3. so I think also went through it pretty well what this includes. So regarding reduction agents and auxiliaries and raw material handling, et cetera. And scope 2 is really the energy part of the CO2 emissions. Scope 3 then is demanding a lot of collaboration with our suppliers. And just meeting large miners from South America already now is really looking into what we are doing in Boliden how to electrify trucks and other things in the mining equipment. And by that, also, of course, increasing efficiency of their installations and reducing for sell fuel usage. So this is something that is a win-win, and I think that is a base actually what Boliden has been doing from beginning, really increasing efficiency of their installations. And then at the same time, going into a more carbon. Carbon or less carbon dioxide emission emitting operation. I promised to get back regarding the expansion that we are doing in Odda. And this is actually a picture that was taken just some days ago. And we have been working now since last summer by removing rock, and this is what we see in the picture that we have come actually pretty far with groundworks and now we are starting with civil works from the beginning of the year. The whole installation here is really a world-class CO2 or low CO2 performing plants. But not only CO2, it's very, very efficient also thinking about the manning that we are including there. So those 150,000 tonnes that we are adding here, will demand only some 50 full-time employees extra for managing this site. It has been, of course, a challenges and situation to start this project. First of all, we had the COVID situation, and now coming into a situation with high inflation. And that means that we have increased -- have had to increase the budget also with this -- for this project up to EUR 850 million, and that is due to inflation. For the rest of the project is actually working according schedule, and we are fulfilling the time line that we are -- have set up here. Until now, we have spent some 27% of the budget. And we have still some 30% still to be procured. So 70% we have procured so far. And of that means that we have spent 27% of the -- of the money. And the decision about expanding this site. I think we see it in a very positive way. Since this decision was taken, we see the importance of CO2 is getting even higher, even more important all the time. And the energy contracts that we have as a basis for this installation for this expansion is really strong. This means that we have a very solid situation for many, many, many years ahead. And we are working with this and intend to complete it during last quarter of '24, and we'll be up and running more or less full capacity in 2025. A little bit more then about our carbon dioxide and the low carbon metals that we are producing. There was already some questions about premiums for these products. It has been a little bit challenging to come up and come out and work out an appetite for these metals, this low carbon concept that we have. And that has been ongoing now, but I would like to say that we have a breakthrough for this now. It starts to become a lot more interest from different suppliers or companies regarding decarbonizing their processes. And this is a picture from the Dogger Bank C Farm, which is one of the largest wind farms in the -- on -- in the world. Utilizing our carbon footprint, the low-carbon copper in this is actually minimizing the carbon footprint of the plant with some 23,000 tonnes. This includes some between 8,000 and 9,000 tonnes of copper going into that. So the difference with utilizing low carbon copper from Boliden and to the word average carbon footprint of a copper basically makes this difference. And this is really what it's all about. This is not minimizing our carbon footprint for the company but for our customers really. So utilizing our low carbon copper is really something that benefits the ones that are using it. I'm also proud to announce that we are -- since September, now taking part in a joint project together with Polestar. Polestar is having a project ongoing in the Polestar 0 project where we are -- or they are targeting a climate-neutral car by 2030. This is something that we take part in together with some at least 15, 16 other companies. It shows also that we are on the right path, and there is interest for our products in really concrete cases. We heard earlier about the question for nickel. Why aren't we coming up with low carbon nickel? Well, our performance for nickel is really good. This is showing the estimated emissions intensity to produce finished nickel metal. And we see that Boliden is coming out very good here in the lower part. And this means that we have concentrates from our own mines, treating it in Harjavalta plant and then utilizing an external refinery. The ones emitting more, the high emitters here, those are actually a lot based on both Nickel pig iron and material raw materials coming from Indonesia, which is then based on fossil fuel. And the ones to the left are based on sulfides and clean material. I'm not a metallurgist, so I'm not really into all these details, but we are doing a great thing here, and I'd like to show a little bit how this is built up. So we have a low scope 1 in Boliden that is due to having concentrates from fantastic Kevitsa mine, where Stefan is doing a lot of great things with electrification, automation, using fantastic CO2 -- low CO2 explosives, et cetera. This is a great source for us and having it in Finland and direct low or efficient transport to Harjavalta is a good combination. And Harjavalta the nickel line that we have there. This is a low carbon or a very efficient low carbon emitting process that we have. It's called the DON process. It's an old explanation from the Outokumpu time, where we call it direct Outokumpu nickel. This is a process that can avoid the content the utilization of converters. And together then with the low Finnish grid mix for the electricity network is great and processing the nickel matte that is our product in refineries with low CO2 footprint gives us a level of 5.9% or at least 6%. And that is a great level I would like to say. Why aren't you coming out with low carbon nickel? Well, it is a matter of that we don't have the full chain. We are working with it and have to come out with a cooperation with a final refinery. I mentioned about the nickel expansion. We have expanded the part in the process in Harjavalta, and this was done together with regular maintenance. So we got a pretty cost-efficient expansion. And this is also based on new drying technology for the concentrate where we can avoid utilization of fossil fuel for heating and hitting the concentrate dryer. We have a new electric furnace equipped. Automated matte handling, which is then, again, very efficient and something that is safe for operators to use. And -- then regarding the pace of this, it has been a challenging project. We are not really on the level that we should be, but also implementing new technology is sometimes a little bit demanding. But from short terms, we are up on the capacity that we have said to be and now it's to work with OEE and really get it on a stable level for a longer time. We will have a trip for some of you will take part in the Harjavalta trip, and we have some other good things also being done there. This is actually in Port of Pori, where we are implementing and a state-of-the-art concentrate handling. Today, the handling of concentrate in that harbor is a little bit diverse. It's a lot of movements. And there are also some environmental impact with testing and other things when emptying the vessels coming there. Together with building this concentrate handling, we will also increase the draft of the harbor, so we can come in with far larger whistles and that will increase the efficiency of handling this. And we are implementing this automated concentrate value determination directly at port, which will fasten up and makes us actually a more valued customer and someone that can come back with the value determination in a fast way, which is expected by the market today. And streamlining the concentrate handling that is shortening the lead time significantly, which is then valued by our suppliers. Project is ongoing at this moment, and this picture is just also taking some days ago here, which is -- this is really the tower where the value determination is done. Or one taking part of the trip to Harjavalta will see a little bit more or will -- well, at least see maybe not in real life, but some movie about this. And coming to a conclusion about the trip that we are on in smelters, I think we can say that we are doing something great here. Our base for profitability is the complex raw material that has been in that way for a long time. We are utilizing partly clean materials, clean raw materials coming from -- mainly from our internal mines. And that clean raw material is then giving the possibility to add on a little bit more complex raw materials, which in the end increases the profitability of our raw materials. We have an efficient cooperation within our smelters, and that means that we can increase and really raise up the recovery rates between the site or the total recovery to a fantastic level due to the cooperation between our smelters. Our operations are really sustainable. And that, together with underground repository that makes the possibility of treats really ugly concentrates, but the store the ugly elements in Safeway in the repositories giving us a great benefit. I mentioned the low carbon metals, those we are really proud of. And together with all this thing, we are, for sure, benefiting and contributing to the vision of Boliden to have -- to be the most climate-friendly and respected metal supplier in the world.

Ladies and gentlemen, that opens up our Q&A session for Mr. Peltonen, and who has the first question. It's Christian Kopfer, Handelsbanken.

On the green zinc project that you have in Odda, you already mentioned that CapEx is going up because of inflation and I guess also operating costs will come up as well on the inflation. But your return on investment, maybe other factors have improved. So my question is the return on investment for that project, is that still as good as it was from the beginning?

As I said, we are very happy with the decision taken, and we are not really explaining the real levels. It is fulfilling the demands that we have win in Boliden for sure.

But you have commented on it previously, that it is meaningfully ahead of our return on investment target. I think its still relevant.

Sorry?

Is that still relevant?

Absolutely. We have a stronger case now than we had from the beginning, actually.

That's good. And on the -- how will the ramp-up process be from Odda when it's starting up in -- was it Q4 of 2024?

Q4. We will be moving on. It is, of course, a complex project with different parts that will be taking into use gradually. And then in Q4, we should have the full line up and running, and that will be then -- should be a pretty fast ramp-up during 2025. You expect ramping up on during 24 and then more or less full production in '25.

Sylvan Burrunan, from BNP Paribas, please?

Thanks, Olof. On third-party concentrate, could you give us a sense of how much is that in terms of your feed you're treating. And as you were touching on complex concentrate, some sort of order of magnitude of how much you're charging is a premium to treat those materials, please?

Premiums, maybe we don't tell that much about. But our internal feed for our smelters is about 40%.

Okay. Okay. We have a question from the web, and it's from Martin Ingar, Jeske Bank. You talked about a large scope 3 reduction at this Dogger Bank project for one of your clients. How does this benefit Boliden?

I mentioned, I think, during the presentation also, but good to highlight that this is not in the end, benefiting the CO2. And the scope 3 is really not benefiting our calculations, but it is a great example of how this benefits the OEM or original equipment manufacturers. So utilizing low carbon copper and cabling and other installation is really minimizing the carbon footprint of that project with 23,000 tonnes just by our parking.

And then we have 2 questions from Jason Fairclough here at Bank of America. First of all, earlier, you launched this new plant up in Renström the Leach plant. Is it profitable now?

Leach plant is not running on full capacity. We have a very aggressive chemistry there and there is some certain part of that Leach plant is not full up and running, and we are running with the capacity just below 50%. But the raw material that we are using basically for that is all stored the material that is on the site, and this gives free metals for the equipment. So -- we are not on a capacity level, but profitability, I think we are, by that, not on the level that we would like to be.

He also says, you earlier promised to increase the copper feed quite a lot in tense. What's the situation regarding that earlier promise?

We are following the plan that we have. We have had some hiccups during this year. But looking into the budgeted figure and estimations, we are going to fulfill and exceed those targets that we have had in there.

Excellent. Any questions from the audience at this stake? Yes, Viktor Trollsten, Danske Bank, please.

Could you maybe discuss a bit regarding the recycling opportunity within smelting? I think you talked a lot about it several years ago, but could you update us on recycling in -- in particular in terms of profitability versus, let's call it, virgin smelting?

I think the composition on the raw material has changed. When this project was done, some -- well, many years back, there were a lot more metals included in the second raw material coming into the site. Now the metal content is going down, more plastics instead. And in the end, we are, of course, maximizing what we can, but that is based on terms and, of course, the total profitability that we are having.

And on recycling, if I'm not mistaken, that's more energy-intensive than, let's say, conventional process. Am I correct in that? And does that also given your new targets of reducing CO2 in total? Does that mean that you're not looking to expand recycling?

I think the energy, it's -- the secondary raw material contains energy itself, at least electronic waste, because it got the plastic when it comes. And that is being burned in the process, and that gives energy to that. And comparing them to concentrates, which are sulfur-based, and that is then also utilized as fuel for the process. So -- but I can't really say exactly the relation these.

I think we have time for 2 more questions here from the audience. We have Johannes Grunselius from Den norske Bank, please.

Yes. I have a question on the Odda expansion. How -- sort of how much synergies are involved between Odda and your big zinc mine in Ireland, Tara? I'm thinking about that the new project is supposed to enable you to take out more lead in the process? I mean, is it important that you get the feed from Odda? Or could it come from someone else?

Feed from Tara.

Feed from Tara, yes. Sorry.

No, it can come from anywhere. But of course, internal sources are okay. But I think Tara is a very clean concentrate for us. It doesn't contain a lot of other valuables, free metals and other things. So that is on that side a clean and a good base for us, but we don't see that as a go or no-go in a way.

So it doesn't really change the sort of calculations for you on Odda?

No. Yes, I think we have time for 1 final question. Ioannis Masvoulas, Morgan Stanley, please.

Just one point to clarify around the recycling of zinc. You mentioned that the CO2 challenge, can you talk about it in a bit more detail what's driving that higher CO2 intensity? And what sort of avenues are you looking at in terms of improving that profile?

Well, this process is based on a kind of fuming process that we have up in our Rönnskär plant, and that is based on a chemical process -- well reduction process, what -- where we use coal. And that coal is, well, not maybe utilized to 100% for the reduction process. This is the process that has been there for quite some time. And I think we are overcharging coal to the process. So just when looking at it on a superficial level, I think we say that only 20% of the coal is going to the reduction process and then 80% is going for heat. So in that sense, the fuming is important for our heat balance in the site, but really not that much for the reduction. So here, we could, for instance, go into electrifying and making sure that we have the heat balance in the site. But yes, well, that's a superficial answer to it, I think.

Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, we need to move on. Thank you very much, Mr. Peltonen. You will be back at the Q&A panel session as well. Thank you very much.

And then, ladies and gentlemen, it's time for our -- yes, yes, please. And then ladies and gentlemen, it's time for our final presentation, it's the CFO of Boliden, HÃ¥kan Gabrielsson. HÃ¥kan, I promise I will not promise -- tell you anything about your looks.

I'm grateful for that, Olof.

Welcome.

Thanks you and good afternoon. It's great to be back at the live Capital Markets Day after a while. I hope you are finding it useful so far. What I'll do is, I'll do a financial overview of Boliden. And as you're well aware, we have a strong financial position, and that really is the foundation both for the sustainability journey that my colleagues have been talking about and the strong returns. But let me start by looking back at our performance. This is a slide on the left-hand side with our return on capital employed over the last 10 years. We are currently at 27.5% return on capital employed, and that is rolling 12 months up until the end of September, so a really good number. Our average is, over the last 10 years, is 16%. If you then look at the chart to the right-hand side, you can see both our business areas that are both performing well. Smelters is currently at 19%. And most of the period here, you see that they're ranging between 15% and 20% return on capital employed, which I think is good for a capital-intensive business. Mines are currently rolling 12 months up at 37% return on capital employed, which is quite impressive. It is a bit more volatile over time, but strong returns. One point that I like to make about this is that, when you put the 2 together, they stabilize the result. And putting it all together, you can see that Boliden generates stable and strong returns. With that, picture about -- a little bit about the past, I'd like to move on to a couple of areas that have been on the agenda very much for the last quarterly reports that we have released. First one is inflation. And with inflation, I'm basically repeating the message that we have given in the Q3 report quite recently. We are running at about 20% inflation year-on-year, measured in Swedish krona. This excludes costs for personnel and cost for electricity. I'll come back to those 2 separately. And where we're seeing the inflation is mainly in chemicals, in energy, like oil, for example, diesel and explosives and similar areas. The dollar rate is also an important component of this. Again, this is inflation measured in Swedish krona. And in the same period, the dollar to SEK has strengthened by about 22% (sic) [ 20% ]. So that, of course, also is a driver behind inflation. Inflation that we see on CapEx projects is on similar levels as the 20% on OpEx. Looking then in the labor side, which is not included in the 20% above. Labor negotiations are ongoing basically in most of our markets. In Norway, there is an agreement in place at 4.5%. And we expect the agreements in Finland, Ireland and Sweden to be concluded somewhere between Q4, Q1 and Q2 of next year. We see inflation happening across the sector. So when we look at cash cost curves and similar, we have a continued strong competitive position. In the competitive position, one important area is electricity. So it is an important cost item for us, as you know, not least in the zinc smelters and so on. We are spending about SEK 600 million per quarter in electricity. And the chart on the slide, it illustrates the share of our consumption that is covered by long-term fixed price contracts. As you can see from the slide, we have about 80% of our consumption secured for the next 2 years. And in a longer perspective, we put it until 2035 on this slide, we have about 60% covered by long-term contracts. The estimated price points or the estimated prices for the entire portfolio is in the mid-30s, and I'm talking about euro per megawatt hour. I mean these contracts were signed a few years back before the recent price hikes. It is a mixed of pure fixed contracts and some contracts with consumer price index adjustments. But altogether, for the whole period, we expect prices to be around mid EUR 30 per megawatt hour. I also want to highlight that -- this is contracts, this is supply contracts with strong counterparts that all have own electricity production, so we see the counterpart risk as limited. The challenges we have are in Tara and Bergsöe where the current fixed price agreement expires at the end of this year. So they will be in the gray area in this slide. So I think this has helped a lot financially, and it is an important strong point going forward as well with the current market climate. Another topic that has been on the agenda at least for the last quarter is working capital, where we have tied about SEK 5.9 billion year-to-date. We have tied SEK 5.9 billion working capital so far this year up until the end of Q3. Out of that number, SEK 1.8 billion is a function of price increases. And when prices go up, we tie more in working capital. And when prices come down, we release working capital. But we have about SEK 4 billion that is increased volumes in our capital. And the main component of that volume increase is, firstly, we have about SEK 1 billion more in nickel concentrates than we typically have. That is a strategic decision not to sell nickel concentrates given the, I should say, uncertainty on the nickel market. We've decided to keep that volumes for now. But we've also built about SEK 2 billion inventory volumes in our copper smelters. This is mainly gold and copper. And there are a number of reasons to that. One is a high share of gold-rich concentrates. And the second one is some process disturbances that have reduced the processing of these materials more than expected. We have action plans in place to reduce during Q4, and we're doing our utmost to take most of these material out already in Q4. We also have a SEK 1 billion increase in trade receivables. This is much a seasonal effect where we have a lot of spot sales towards the end of the year. So this should come down as well when we approach the year-end. I also want to highlight that the inventory is hedged. So there is no price risk in the inventory that we have tied. So another part for Q4 is what Stefan referred to the exploration rights in the Kylylahti area. Typically, we don't have exploration rights valued in our balance sheet. But this came in through an acquisition of the Kylylahti mine back in 2014. And we have been carrying out extensive exploration in the area, but we have not found mineralization of sufficient economic interest. So as Stefan talked about, we are now reprioritizing our exploration activities going forward, and we have decided to write off the entire asset on our balance sheet. This will have an impact of about EUR 24.4 million in the Q4 EBIT. And since there is a tax implication on this, the net profit impact would be slightly lower, just somewhere slightly below EUR 20 million. So that will be recorded in the Q4 results. So with that, if we then continue to CapEx. I mean that is an area that we typically discuss quite a lot. And in the same way as in the last Capital Markets Day, I'm going to dive into some more detail about the capital expenditure guidance that we've given for next year. So starting now, we group this in 4 categories: mine sustaining, replacement, what we call stay-in-business CapEx and expansions or strategic projects. But starting with mine sustaining, this will be slightly above SEK 3.5 billion in 2023. And this then excludes the big dam projects that we have in Aitik. This mine-sustaining number, it's primarily stripping in the open pit mines. It's underground development in the underground mines. And it's the successive rising of the dams. Looking at just numbers, the bulk of it all is stripping in Aitik and Kevitsa. This is an area that has been impacted a lot by inflation. There is a lot of diesel and explosive going into this number. So it has increased compared to where we stood a year back. If we look beyond 2023, Stefan talked about an increase in stripping in Aitik. The number that we have for 2023 still means stripping slightly below the ore production. And we're looking at -- just to put a number on it, from '23 to about 2026, we expect an increase in the volumes stripped by about 35%. On the other hand, Kevitsa, unless we take a decision to extend the mine with a fifth pushback, those stripping volumes would start to taper off significantly from 2026 and onwards. So that should give you a feeling about where this is going over time. Replacement investments, that's purely replacing our existing asset base. We are planning for SEK 2.5 billion in 2023, that's slightly up compared to previous years, again, with inflation. About half in each business area, but there is some flexibility in timing, and it varies a bit over time between the business areas. We see this as basically stable going forward. And this is one area where a big part of our CO2-related investments will come. We replace a fossil-driven truck with a battery truck and similar. So this is within this frame that we're giving here, we'll cover a big part of the investments that are needed for the new CO2 targets. If we continue to heading that we invented for last Capital Markets Day, stay-in-business CapEx. I'm not sure if anyone else uses that term, but we see that, in addition to replacing assets 1:1 and just stripping in the mines, there is an element of investments that are needed to stay relevant in the business, to get new permits to be able, to extend mines competitively and so on. Last time we talked about this, it was also SEK 1.5 billion, and we're expecting something similar here. And this is driven by financial return and market requirements, and a large part of this is environmentally related projects. We expect this to roughly stable over time. And also, a part of this will address CO2 matters. Then adding the 3 categories that I have been talking about together, we are at SEK 7.5 billion. This is about SEK 1 billion up to the SEK 6.5 billion we've been talking about in previous meetings. And that is basically entirely connected to inflation. If we then finalize the investment section here with the expansion of the strategic projects that we have. And currently, that means for me, the Odda expansion, the Aitik Dam project, the SEK 5 billion dam project, and the Kristineberg extension that we talked about previously. For next year, it's a heavy year for those investments. We are planning for close to SEK 7.5 billion. And that will take most of these projects very close to being completed. The total cost for these projects are unchanged. There is nothing new in what I'm saying now or what we said in the Q3 report about that. And when we leave 2023, that means that all together for these projects, there will be about SEK 4 billion left to spend for 2024. There is -- with the size of these projects, there is, of course, some uncertainty what will fall into each year between '22 and '23 and also '23 and '24. But here, you get the order of magnitude. Then I also often get the question about what projects, what new projects could we potentially announce going forward. And the first 3 were 3 that I mentioned already at last Capital Markets Day. Tara Deep, Stefan indicated a decision time at about 2025. It's a bit -- we talked about '24 in the last meeting. A Pushback 5 in Kevitsa. We would like to take the decision about 2024 to be able to plan for it properly. And then Laver could be a great mine, but the decision time for this is still uncertain, but we're on -- we're still on it, so to speak. And then there are some other areas which could lead to investments, maybe not in the same order of magnitude as the ones that we've been talking about, but we are looking into waste management. We have a couple of our tailings facilities that will be full, let's say, in the late '20s. And sooner or later, we'll have to look-in at them like Tara and Boliden area. We're also looking into some interesting profitable ways of converting waste to product. There is some time out, but there are potentially some interesting business cases in that. And then finally, even if I don't have any good examples near term, we could see something in the CO2 area as well. Although in CO2, most of the CapEx that we see will be kind of a regular ongoing replacement to stay-in-business CapEx. We don't really see a material increase in the CapEx level over time. So with that, moving over, just a few words on the financing side. We're happy about our finance, and we have a robust financing in place to support our sustainability journey. We have, at the end of the third quarter, a low net debt of about SEK 3.7 billion. We have a loan duration of 3.7 -- 3.5 years, an interest duration of 1.9 years and an average interest rate of 2.4%. Obviously, it has come up a bit compared to the numbers we have been talking about historically, but still a competitive number. Since our last quarterly report, we have signed a new loan with SEK AB, Swedish Export Credit. It's a total of SEK 1.8 billion, and there is a process to replace some loans from SEK that becomes short in the first half of next year. It's currently not utilized, so it's an available credit. Then during Q3, we issued green bonds, our first green bonds, and that was to support the Odda investment. So we're happy to be early in the base metal space to issue green bonds. And we're also happy that it was such a great interest from the capital markets in this bond issue. It's, of course, related to our strong track record in ESG over years, but we're happy that so many investors want to take part in financing our continued sustainability journey, in Odda in particular. So with the story about new CO2 targets that you've heard from all presenters today and with our good experiences in the green bond issued, it's perhaps no surprise that our ambition is to further strengthen our green financing component over time. That's a natural step. So with that, I just want to finalize the presentation by repeating our strong commitment to the capital allocation framework. I think you've seen this picture before. It has been with us for more than 10 years. And it is serving us very well to deliver strong returns through business cycles. So we're happy about that. And with that, Olof?

Yes. Thank you, HÃ¥kan. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, let opens up the Q&A session for our CFO, HÃ¥kan Gabrielsson. And who has the first question? Yes, it's a gentleman there, yes.

It's Adrian here at ABG. Just a quick question on the electricity time line that you showed going to 2035. Are you allowed to say anything about which specific assets have their electricity exposure partly or fully hedged until 2035?

Sorry. Can you repeat the question? I got a bit distracted. Which...

Yes. You mentioned that Tara and by -- so we're probably in the worst situation, which assets are on the other side that have their electricity hedged up until 2035?

It's fairly evenly distributed. We got most of our main sites covered through 2035 and beyond. The percentages vary a bit, but it's -- we're in a good position. It's those 2 that are something of an issue with the electricity situation that we have on Ireland and on -- in the southern part of Sweden.

Alexander Vilval, Pareto.

You mentioned regarding potential announcements in the future, waste-to-product projects. Can you elaborate a little bit on what that could be and sort of...

I think most of them are too early to go into a lot of detail. But as an industry, it's always a priority to take whatever waste we have in the end of the project and try to turn it into something useful, that is sellable. And there are several different areas that we're looking into, but I don't want to sort of highlight a specific one because we're not really that close, if you see it that way.

So a few years down the road?

I think so, yes.

Question from the gentleman there, please?

[indiscernible] from BNP. Congratulations on the energy management.

Thank you.

Fantastic job on the energy management. So just 2 questions on that. Can you explain -- or are you able to explain what is the average tenure of the contracts? And then second question is that, due to the recent volatility, did you face any sort of heightened collateral demands?

No. I mean these are supply contracts. So basically, these are fixed-price contracts with stable energy producers where we buy and pay energy over time. Most of them are -- I mean, it could be wind power, hydropower, long-term agreements that cover the entire period. So these are not a combination of short-term contracts, but a number of long-term contracts. Then there is some short-term initiatives in the next, let's say, 12 to 24 months to cover that part. But these are good long-term supply contracts.

Excellent. We have a question from the web, and it says like this, it's from Krishan Agarwal and he works for Citibank. "Thanks for the detailed breakdown of CapEx. Is it fair to assume that recurring CapEx for Boliden in the next 3 to 5 years is SEK 7.5 billion? And should growth CapEx be on top of that?"

That is a correct assumption, and thanks for the question. That is a correct assumption. Then of course, what we learned over the years is that inflation also has an impact on CapEx, both ways.

Then we have a follow-up from Liam Fitzpatrick with Deutsche Bank. "Thanks again for this detailed explanation of CapEx in the near term, but will we get in the future CapEx for many years ahead? How does Boliden look upon that issue?"

Thanks, Liam. That's a good question, and I suspect that you already know the answer. I mean we think a lot about CapEx. And one of the best way to create value is to find good CapEx projects. And also a priority for us is to keep our asset base competitive and in a good position. So I don't think we'll guide with numbers, billions longer than 1 year ago, but with this, we're trying at least to give an image or give a feeling of where we're heading.

Okay. You will get more questions during the panel session. I think we have 1 or 2 more here in the room maybe, Christian Kopfer, Handelsbanken.

On the -- yes, I think you showed, Hakan, on the return on capital employed for smelters and I give your -- it's very strong returns given the capital intensity and so on. And it's -- and you have improved it a lot the last 5 years, yes. So how much -- I mean maybe a little bit difficult question. You don't need to answer it in detail, but -- so approximately how much of the improvement is assignable to your -- what you can control yourself, i.e., how much is driven by external factors like currencies, et cetera, et cetera?

I appreciate that I don't have to answer it because it's actually quite difficult. No, but in Mines, if you take that as a comparison, we have our production and then the metal prices are given. In smelting, it's much more a matter of putting yourself in a position to benefit from good prices in various market segments, for example, working with complex materials et cetera, et cetera. So therefore, it's a bit difficult to split. I mean we've opted for certain choices, and those choices have paid off in terms of good terms and conditions and good production from expansions. So it's actually difficult to -- it's not that I have a number that I'm not willing to disclose, but it's difficult to answer in another way.

Some of it at least.

We ask the last question for Mr. Gabrielsson. Yes, Ioannis Masvoulas, Morgan Stanley, please.

Just going back to the point around mining sustaining CapEx. Because from the one hand, you're saying that SEK 7.5 billion overall is the right number. But within that, we're going to see the mine-sustaining CapEx component rising over the coming years as the Aitik stripping picks up. So can you -- are there any offsetting items? Or...

No. Okay. Maybe that I should clarify. The SEK 7.5 billion, to that you have to add a certain amount of increase in Aitik for '24, '25, '26. And then from that time, you'll see a decrease also in the Kevitsa mine. So that is correct. I mean SEK 7.5 billion is the '23 level. So it will probably creep up a little bit from that level.

Excellent. Thank you very much, Hakan.

Thank you.

Okay. Now we will have a logistical challenge here because we will have the whole of Boliden Group management on scene here. I think we will fix that. Thanks. And the idea is that we will have a panel Q&A session. And once again, it's perfectly fine to ask questions both here in Stockholm and via the web. And are you ready? Excellent. Fantastic. Then I think we go with ladies first. And it's from a gentleman called Patrick Jones. He works for Resco Asset Management. And it's for Ã…sa Jackson. If you were to highlight the most important thing to reach your new CO2 target, the most important initiative, which one will it be?

Thank you. Good question. I think that it is definitely electrification. As we've seen in both Stefan's and Daniel's presentation, mine road map to reach the targets are very much related to electrification. But also, there are some things in smelters, as we saw and what you have described, Daniel, that is related to electrification. So if I would say one thing, it would be electrification

Excellent. We take another one from the web while we're moving on. And it's from Daniel [ Shigemura ] and it's for Mr. Peltonen. And it's regarding your premiums, the premiums you get on your low-carbon, copper and zinc. Can you please quantify them today and where you will be -- they will be in, let's say, 5 years' time? Where will the premiums be?

It's a very good question, difficult to quantify, though, but we are building up a market here. And just looking into the example of the Dogger Bank is really creating kind of appetite for this. And in the end, we believe that we will have higher premiums than we have today. There is a small premium, but this is something that we expect to grow in a good way.

Okay. Well, then we have questions from the audience. Once again, Viktor Trollsten, Danske Bank, please.

Yes, I would like to come back to the previous question regarding the Odda project and potential returns. Mikael, I think that you have previously said that returns are still the same despite higher CapEx. So could you please just clarify if that's still the case and if that means that you will raise or increase your planning prices on zinc-related products.

I would say that, without having done the calculations in detail, our sense is exactly as we said before, that actually the calculation looks better now than it did before. And the basis is, of course, what you've seen there that we have a fixed power price contract, which is the biggest part of the operating cost. And generally speaking, if you just take the update that we did last year that you saw on our planning prices, and if you on top of that add kind of soft factors around the fact that there might be less zinc smelting from other of our competitors in Europe. If you weigh all these things in, without going into any numbers, the whole product feels even better than it did when we took it.

Okay. I guess what I'm a bit after is if you increase planning prices, how would that also going to spill over on the Tara Deep project? I do not remember the cut-off grades in Tara. But you have mentioned that you would like to have 40 million tonnes in resources or something like that. How much would Tara Deep resources come up if you increase in prices, et cetera?

Yes. But you have to remember, there is an inflation as well. And a good thing about Odda is that Odda for the largest part of its cost, not be so much effective by inflation, whereas something like Tara Deep would be affected by inflation.

Okay. Let's take from the web here as well. And it's for Mr. Romedahl and it's from Daniel Major, UBS. Please remind us, when will Liikavaara, the satellite pit to the Aitik mine, be up and running? And how will it affect grades?

It will be up running from the mid-'24, and it will not -- I mean it is included in the graph that you have for Aitik. So if you look at that, it's what you can get from both Aitik and Liikavaara at the same time.

He actually asked which quarter, if I see it correctly here.

Yes, okay, mid-'24, could be end of Q2 or beginning of Q3, I guess.

Okay. Excellent. Let's go for another quick question from the web. And then it's from Amos Fletcher and it's Barclays, and it's intended for our CFO, HÃ¥kan Gabrielsson. What's your current interest level in M&A given how your leverage is? And do you have a competitive advantage in this sense now?

Thanks, Amos. A good question. Well, first of all, I think it's fair to say that in order to do good deals in M&A, you have to work on it constantly. It is true that we've seen prices, especially in copper and the price of the deals that have been announced, to be higher than we can motivate given our views on the market. So I would say that it's -- as always, the main priority is to run our business in a good way and to find interesting brownfield expansions, but M&A is something that we're constantly looking at. And let's see when the opportunity opens up.

Okay. A question there, please. It's Justin [ Bruening ] from JPM.

Could you just describe the sort of dynamics of how you allocate capital between the smelters and the mines in light of the different returns profiles and CO2 emissions and fluctuations in the predictions of the profitability?

Do you want to take it? Well, in practice, it's press -- how should I say, easier than expected. I mean what we want is good projects that can deliver good improvements. And we have limitations in permits. We have limitation in engineering resources, et cetera, et cetera. So it's rarely the capital side that is the limiting factor. We try to run the 2 business areas at normal state and principle as stand-alone businesses and allocate capital to good projects. And if we have a greater cash flow than what we can spend on projects, then it will be dividended out. So far, we have seen quite a few conflicts of capital allocation in that sense.

Another question for Ã…sa Jackson from Daniel Shigemura, Credit Suisse. And that is, when do you expect to get your science-based target initiative approved? And when will you start accounting according to that standard?

What we have understood in our contacts with SBTI, we have sent in our application just now, and with the number of applications they are handling, we are to expect their validation process to be done approximately in Q3 next year. So somewhere there. And then we will start reporting our new targets now in Q1 '23.

Excellent. Question from Jason Fairclough, Bank of America, and it's for Mr. Romedahl. You indicated some optimist regarding the Kylylahti tailings dam, but you didn't see any time frame. Can you elaborate on that one, please?

Yes. We're looking into what we can do with the cobalt as I mentioned, but we don't have any time schedule. We try to figure out some kind of industrial equality and way to do it, if that makes sense. And -- but we don't have a solution for where to go with it, so I can't tell you about any time schedule for it, unfortunately.

Okay. We have some questions from the audience. Now it's [indiscernible] from Lansdowne Partners.

You didn't talk much about Laver today, I guess, because it's very far away. At the same time, there's an old study that you published some time ago, which suggests it's a really attractive mine. And I think it's actually the biggest unmined copper deposit in Europe at the moment. My limited understanding is non-suite of politics suggests that the greens are for the first time in a very long period, not in government. And the [ TD ] agreement actually talks a little bit about reforms around sort of permitting. Do you think that the stakeholder, the very stakeholder now that incentives here are sufficiently in line to see some sort of breakthrough change that pertains to permitting? And if so, what sort of time line could we expect for Laver if we're wanting to be optimistic?

I can maybe take that one. I would just say that already the old government before the election we had did initiate the investigation into changing potentially the law coupled to permitting, which is -- has to do exactly with the Laver case and it's linked to how to interpret European law in connection with Swedish law. That investigation has not been stopped by the new government, it's going on. We expect them to deliver some kind of idea by Q2. That's the time plan that they have. But how long it takes from them delivering their idea until you will have a change in the law, who knows? But we are positive.

Mikael, while you're on air, it's a question from Krishan Agarwal. He works for Citibank. And the question is regarding Boliden's cash situation. It goes like this, am I correct to assume that the next 3 to 5 years are going to be investment-heavy for Boliden, leaving the free kind of cash flow entirely up to commodity prices?

Well, I can answer the first part that, yes, we are in investment-intensive. You've seen the number for '23, and you've gotten some hint about '24 as well here. So this is going to be intensive. Then I would say that our cash flow is always up to the mercy of commodity prices. So that is true. It has always been true, and it's true now as well.

Okay. We have another one from the web, and then it's for our CFO, HÃ¥kan Gabrielsson, and is a follow-up from Amos Fletcher, Barclays. For Hakan, okay, you don't specify CapEx way in the future, but do you have an absolute ceiling for group CapEx.

We have not specified an absolute ceiling for ourselves. I mean the SEK 15 billion we're looking at now is the highest number that we have. What we do every time we take a big investment decision, every time we submit the prepared business plan is that we do plenty of simulations to stress test the balance sheet and to look at other aspects. And that in every situation gives a limit. But it's not a fixed limit that is decided and unchanged over time.

Yes, we had a question from the audience. Johannes Grunselius DNB, Den norske Bank, please.

Yes, so I would like to go back to one of the first slides that you presented, Mikael. You mentioned favorable -- more favorable smelter terms '23 versus 2022, I suppose. Could you give some color on that? What kind of -- is it more on the zinc side than the copper side and which components are we talking about maybe a magnitude? That would be super.

For those of you who don't know, of course, you know that there will be a zinc benchmark TC. It's typically set sometime in February. We're not part of that discussion, so we are only a price taker in that sense as well. We can only kind of both think ourselves and hear rumors what others say, but I'm pretty clear that, that's going to go up. That's a good start. This -- also, copper TCs were likely to go up, maybe not as much, but also likely to go up. We're also once again speculating. The other thing that has already come out, which is ongoing, because right now is the season for setting the premiums for next year. And I'm pretty sure that the premiums for both copper and zinc will go up.

Okay. We have time for one more question from the web and 2 more questions from the audience. And the first one is from the web, and it's for Mr. Peltonen. It is from [ Ian Russo ]. He works for Barclays. You had some production issues in your nickel line in Harjavalta? Or they history now?

No, they are not history. We are working heavily with optimizing this nickel dryer and getting it up, the overall equipment efficiency to those levels that we would like to have it. And this is, as I mentioned, a little bit new technology that we are doing with counter current heat and drying it in a new way that is, in the end, really something beneficial for our CO2 -- carbon footprint and so on, but we are not happy with it at this stage.

Okay. Two brief questions from Stockholm, please. Adrian Gilani, ABG.

Yes. Question on the topic of wage inflation. There was actually an article just a few hours ago in Dagens industri saying that the miners in Aitik are planning to demand a 15% wage increase in 2023. I'm not sure if you even had time to read the article, and I understand you won't talk too specifically about labor negotiations. But do you have any thoughts on that figure that is being reported?

Do you want to answer?

I think that's more a reflection of, what should we call it, some internal union tensions.

Internal union tensions. That was a new word. Okay. We have time for a final question here from the audience.

My question is for Mr. Peltonen. So you showed how low the carbon intensity of nickel is with the graph. So why isn't nickel marketed as low-carbon nickel as you do with copper and zinc? And is there a certain ceiling that you would like to achieve in lowering the carbon intensity before labeling it as low-carbon nickel?

The problem is a little bit that we are not having the full chain, so we don't have a final refined nickel in our own hands. So that's a cooperation with the refinery in the end, and that part is not in there. So we have the raw material. And we have, of course, the grid mix, and we have the smelter, which is producing the same nickel matte.

Thank you all. Please give a big hand for the group management. And then it's time for our President and CEO, Mikael Staffas, to give his concluding remarks. Please do, Mikael.

Thank you, Olof, and thank you for having come here today and listen. And I hope that you feel more enlightened and you have been more educated than you were coming here. What I hope that you've taken away from this discussion, just remembering around that. Ã…sa talked about sustainability. We are a 40-year fatality free. It is absolutely unique in our industry. Our industry, also the best companies, the ones that are part of ICMM, have roughly 50 fatalities every year, split between the 27 companies. We have 40-year fatality-free. Also talked about the CO2 targets. We've had all those discussions, and we talked about that. The question that kind of has come, but hasn't maybe really been answered, but I could give some clarity on, what will this cost to us? Well, it all depends what you think going forward about the cost of CO2. What will the emission rights cost? It also depends on what you think about premiums. But just to give you a sense of order of magnitude around Odda's works, if we assume for a while that the premiums will be 0, but we assume that the cost of CO2 will be EUR 100 per tonne, which I think is in line with what the EU Commission is working with, then most of our activities that we have are NPV-positive, i.e., there is not really any cost to this at all. You've heard from our 2 operating officers who run our 2 business areas. You've heard about Daniel. You heard him proving about how the strong development has been and the strong results. The update on Odda, and you also heard me answering the question about what I think about Odda and how it's positioned now given what has happened in recent times. We also maybe did not talk so much about it, but I would like to have emphasis again, the complex raw material strategy that we have worked for many years in our smelters, it's actually a very big key component to the fact that we're making so much money. All concentrates are not the same. And our ability to both figure out where we make money and then being able to source those concentrate where we make money. And those are, of course, the ones where those suppliers cannot find other smelters that will do it, at least not on the terms that we can do. It has mainly to do with how we treat penalty elements and how we can handle them and, therefore, take them with relatively good rebate. It's also about the other end of things, how we can have very high recoveries of especially precious metals, which means that we get lots of precious metals in, which is very profitable for us. But also, as Hakan has pointed out, does drive up the working capital a little bit as the gold is in the process. Stefan talked about what we've done, where we come with the conclusions around it, how we've implemented the global industry stand on tailings management. That is a big effort just from an administrative point of view, and it's also led us to do improvements in our Aitik dam. These are improvements that would have had to be done at some stage anyway, we knew that, but the new tailing standard forced us to do it quicker than we had thought before, but we talked about that before. He also talked about the technical developments. He spoke about exploration. Just to be very clear, we are not reducing our exploration activities. We're rather increasing them. We are focusing maybe more on nickel than we have done historically, but we are not going to continue in the Outokumpu area as -- and itself not a big decision. We close exploration offices every year somewhere, but this because of the way that it was accounted for that we had to talk about that. HÃ¥kan talked about what is maybe has turned out to at least for a while to be one of our strongest assets, which is the power portfolio that we have and the way that we can have a strong and well-planned cost position regarding power on that. He also worked around the inflation number. The inflation number, of course, makes things very difficult because we see now the costs going up as they will for all of our competitors as well. Exactly how this plays out in higher metal prices, of course, we don't know. But in the end of the day, it should push up also the metal prices and our margins are hopefully safe. With those few words as a summary, it was great seeing you all again. Some of you will continue with us to Harjavalta and we will be able to talk and chat much more. For those of you online and for those of you in the room here who will not continue to Harjavalta, I would thank you a lot for the attention. It's great seeing you all. Thank you.