MMG Limited (1208) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the MMG Limited 2024 Sustainability Briefing and Presentation. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to Andrea Atell, General Manager, Corporate Affairs and Sustainability.

Thank you. Hello, and welcome to MMG's 2024 Sustainability Briefing. Today's presentation will provide an overview of how we operate, the progress we're making towards the sustainability goals and how we're managing risks to the safety of our people, communities, heritage and the environment. Joining us today is Cao Liang, our CEO, supported by our functional leaders from a cost subbusiness who are responsible for the management of our key sustainability deliverables. You will hear from each of them soon. To kick us off, I'd like to invite Cao Liang to speak.

Thank you, Andrea. Hello, everyone, and welcome to our meeting. I would like to thank you for joining us for our third sustainability briefing and my first as managing CEO. Yesterday and this morning or earlier this morning, I just had the pleasure of presenting interim results. Now before I begin, I would like to acknowledge the custodians both current and traditional of the lands and the resources that host our international operations. We are guests of these custodians where we operate, and we pay our sincere respects. MMG was founded in 2009 to mine for progress. Today our global portfolio supports copper, zinc and cobalt production. Products that are achieving global decapitalization and electrification targets. But we recognize that the producing commodity is critical for a low carbon future, should be backed by robust sustainability practice in how they are mined. I would like to acknowledge the support of China Minmetals Corporation, our major shareholder, holding approximately 2/3 of our available shares. After 12 years, we remain the only majority Chinese-owned mining company member of the International Council on Mining and Metals, which is ICMM, the world's leading organization promoting sustainable development for our industry. At MMG, our vision is to be a leading international mining company for a low carbon future with sustainability at the core. Our ambition maintains a focus on growth and now includes diversification of assets, commodities and jurisdictions to bridge together the best of MMG with our Chinese and international expertise. We are confident these future focus will position us well to continue to create wealth and the share of success with our people, both the communities and the shareholders. Across the entire MMG portfolio, we have further down progressing key development projects, including the important acquisition of Khoemacau in Botswana, and the ongoing work at Chalcobamba in Las Bambas in Peru. Our DRC Kinsevere Expansion Project also remains on track, and our Australian operations continue to make a strong contribution, including some recent production milestones. Our commitment to safety, prudent capital management, operational efficiency and the sustainability along with the ongoing support of our major shareholders, China Minmetals, means we are well positioned for the future. Now I will hand back to Andrea to continue the presentation. Thank you.

Thank you, Cao Liang. At MMG, we seek to play an active role in our industry representative bodies. MMG is an active member of our industry's leading organizations, including our membership of the ICMM, which we joined in 2009 when the business was founded. As a member of the ICMM, we have aligned our approach to sustainability, organization's mining principles and the 8 additional position statements, which provide the best practice framework for the mining and metals industry. Our portfolio of future focus metals is essential to creating a more sustainable world. We remain confident in the medium- to long-term outlook for our core commodities, copper and zinc, and the role MMG can play, the global shift towards renewable energy sources. Global trends such as urbanization, decarbonization and electrification along with the rapid expansion of clean technologies such as solar, wind, energy storage, electric vehicles and artificial intelligence will help ensure demand for our metals remain strong. China is deeply committed to a strong decarbonization of gender domestically and is actively advanced in clean energy technologies, which are very supportive of the mining sector. The need for minerals that are critical to the energy transition will continue to grow and evolve, and will require many sources of investment. Technology and manufacturing capabilities with China to remain a key partner. MMG plays a key role in bringing these metals to our customers as the building blocks for innovative technology poised to replace fossil fuel dependence. I will now hand over to Kate to provide an overview of our group level safety performance.

Thank you, Andrea. I'm Kate Bannister, Acting Manager, [ of TRIF ] , Assurance and Improvement. Looking at our performance using our lagging indicators shows an improvement with our total recordable injury frequency coming down to 2.32 year-to-date. We have not recorded any high potential injuries for the last 2 months. And as a result, the TRIF for the month of July was 1.70, the lowest for the year. It is important to note that TRIF is not the only measure of safety across MMG. To help us better understand our safety trends and areas for improvement, we also measure and monitor the number of significant events with energy exchange as part of our united objective to eliminate fatalities and permanent disabling injuries across MMG. We know from experience that it is not only an important indicator of safety risk but also a valuable learning opportunity for our business. Over the last month, there was a reduction in those events registering only 2 compared to 6 during the month of June. Our teams at site continue focusing our efforts on improving the overall management of the fatal with controls through the implementation of critical controls. And for sites like Las Bambas and Huancuire, they have increased their focus around vehicle and mobile equipment risk and the improvement of contracts and management. These results show improvement, but we know there is still more work to do, but we recognize the improvement and support of our sites to keep the focus on eliminating risks across the business. As part of MMG's ongoing commitment to improve our safety performance, we are hosting a safety workshop for our executive committee later this month. The focus of the workshop is to improve safety leadership because we know that this is critical for the achievement of sustained and meaningful safety improvement. One of our ExCo leaders do has a profound impact on our people and our results. We are also working to improve our reporting against lead indicators for safety, to guide our performance and ensure the improvements we are making are having an impact in the field. MMG has begun work with the University of Queensland's Sustainable Minerals Institute with the support of ICMM's health and safety working group to undertake a review of existing leading indicators across both the extractive industry and other high-risk settings. Our goal is to develop a suite of leading indicators that support enhanced proactive initiatives internally and increased disclosure about safety externally. We look forward to sharing the outcome of this work in future briefings. I will now hand over to Jorge.

Thank you, Kate. I am Jorge Carvalho, Head of Social Performance. In 2023, our social investment spend was USD 31.8 million. Our goal is to drive long-term social and regional development by supporting our host communities and providing individual economic livelihoods through improved access to infrastructure, health care, education, employment and business opportunities. Our spend in the countries where we are based, focused on social investments, a strong commitment to local business and employment, infrastructure development and tax royalty payments. As one example, at Las Bambas operation, there was a significant increase in amount spent in local business because of our focus in evolving community business owners in the mine value chain. We seek to positively contribute to the regions in which we operate, and this means aligning our efforts with measures that have the most impact on quality of life, as outlined by the UN sustainable development goals. Through our ongoing commitment to progress and ability to anticipate emerging trends, we can make a lasting and sustainable change to our communities. I will now pass to Fiona, and I will join you later when I update you on the human rights framework for MMG.

Thank you, Jorge. I am Fiona Sartain, the Head of Sustainability. Our existing sustainability framework was approved by our ExCo and Board in early 2023 and launched across the business. It was created by drawing together existing work plans, external commitments and ICMM alignment to ensure our sustainability and ESG initiatives across the business under one framework with supporting governance, approvals and reporting for both internal and external requirements. As expectations and reporting requirements continue to evolve, we have updated the framework to ensure its compatibility with the changing landscape. Our focus has been on aligning our reporting requirements and simplifying our key performance indicators and obligations. This means we have moved from 17 material topics to 13, enhanced our in-channel systems and processes, and released more detailed information on our external reporting. Sustainability is not owned by one area or person. It belongs to everyone at MMG and is core to the work we all undertake. As we look toward the second half of the year, our focus will remain on the launch of MMG's new tailings management policy and the MMG responsible mineral production and sourcing policy, which were both endorsed by the MMG Board earlier this month. These policies seek to reinforce and enhance the standards already in place and are part of our ongoing commitment to improvement and simplification. The need to make meaningful action on climate change is a pressing priority for governments, individuals and organizations. In 2023, MMG completed its Scope 3 emission inventory with the support of an external third party. This was conducted using ICMM's Scope 3 emissions accounting and reporting guidance as well as the greenhouse gas protocol. Based on this inventory and a deeper understanding of the areas of our Scope 3 emissions, we will now work to identify opportunities to improve both the collection of upstream and downstream data to enhance the accuracy of this inventory. This process will support our ambition to work towards net zero Scope 3 emissions by 2050. At Rosebery, we will continue to work closely with external experts, our host community and regulators on potential options for a new tailings facility. As we wait for the results of the decision from the Federal Environment Minister as to whether preworks can proceed, we continue to investigate potential options for safe and viable short-term capacity increases at our existing tailings facilities. Given the importance of tailings facility to the future of the operation and to our stakeholders, [ social ] engagement and environmental assessments need to be undertaken before we can externally disclose any further information. Lastly, our 2024 MMG business plan sets up the metrics of success for all of us to promote and encourage diversity and inclusion across MMG. We acknowledge how difficult we have found this journey so far and the challenges we have faced. Pleasingly, last month, MMG welcomed Ms. Chen Ying to the Board, our new female Board member, and we continue to work to achieve our targets for female representation across the business. We know that gender diversity is critical to our business and that there is a positive and meaningful relationship between gender equality and equity, and productivity and safety practices. Our sites and offices will continue to progress diversity-focused action plans over the year ahead. Now let me turn our focus to MMG's ongoing commitment to nature and biodiversity. MMG recognizes our role as temporary stewards of the land we mine and surrounding tenements, and the responsibility we bear to care for its future generation. We operate in areas of high biodiversity importance from the Peruvian Andes to the Zambian Copper Belt in Southwest DRC to temperate Northwest Tasmania and Outback Queensland in Australia and the Kalahari Copper Belt in Northeast Botswana. We know there is an important and precious balance to operating in such diverse locations, and we strive to support the unique biodiversity and nature of each of these regions with tailored approaches and detailed management plans. In early 2024, MMG undertook its annual materiality assessment and stakeholder engagement process to review its sustainability metrics. It became clear that our people and our stakeholders are seeking to better understand how MMG and the mining industry more broadly contributes to supporting the unique biodiversity surrounding each operation where we operate. There is also an increased focus on the shift towards a major positive future and how mining can contribute to a positive legacy moving forward. 2023 saw the release of the new Taskforce for Nature-related Financial Disclosures, TNFD for short. A comprehensive framework, which provided recommendations and guidance for both corporate and financial institutions on assessing and disclosing nature-related impacts, dependencies, risks and opportunities. The global reporting initiative also released their updated biodiversity reporting standard in early 2024, aligned with TNFD. To meet these growing reporting standards and changing community expectations, the Board approved a development of a dedicated work plan for nature in early 2024. This work plan will take into consideration the current work on new standards and guidance from both TNFD as well as ICMM, and will support our team's efforts across the business to develop impact and opportunity assessment at a site and company level. We expect to complete the company-level action plan and public position by the end of the year and then complete the site assessment by the end of the first half of 2025. I will now hand back to Jorge, who will update us on MMG's work around human rights.

Thank you, Fiona. MMG respects internationally-recognized human rights and is committed to implementing the UN guiding principles on business human rights. Our commitment is outlined in our human rights policy and our approach to managing human rights risk is embedded into our broader risk management framework. Our approach is aligned with our membership of and commitment to the ICMM mining principles and [indiscernible] principles on security and human rights. We also align our approach with the United Nations Global Compact principles. We integrate human rights considerations into our code of conduct, our supplier code of conduct, policies framework standards and work quality requirements and also our process risk assessment, training and driven mechanism. Human rights working communities has been established in Peru, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Australia to support this work in collaboration with the MMG Executive Code of Conduct and People Committee. Our Board of Directors has accountability for the company's sustainability performance, which includes human rights. This is complemented by ongoing grievance mechanisms, including our Whistleblower service and our site-specific grievance mechanisms to enable our stakeholders to report instance of improper conduct without fear of intimidation or reprisal. We are committed to providing for or cooperating in remedy where we identified that we have caused or contributed to an adverse human rights impact and considering the role we may play in remediation where we are directly linked. In 2024, Las Bambas committed to undertaking a human rights impact assessment. This will involve extensive rights holder engagement to independently identify and assess human rights impact and assess measures Las Bambas has in place to address it. Through prevention, mitigation and remediation and recommend other measures if needed to address those impacts. The process undertaken to determine who will assist in the development of this important work has been undertaken transparently with both Peruvian and international consultants invited to participate and submit proposals based on the scope that we identified. We expect the contract to be awarded in the next couple of weeks immediately after which work will begin. To support this work, we have established an independent advisory group to provide oversight on the impact assessment, ensure alignment with international business and human rights standards, overseas disclosure of information and acts on implementation. This group has 5 independent experts, including representatives from national and international NGLs, industry associations, business and human rights groups. Las Bambas will publish and disclose the final human rights impact assessment at the end of this process, which is expected to take 12 months to ensure comprehensive right holders engagement is undertaken. I will now hand over to Claudio, who will provide an overview of our work to build strong partnerships in our communities near Las Bambas.

Thank you, Jorge. My name is Claudio Caceres. I'm the Legal Affairs and Land Access Manager at Las Bambas. Our team works hard to engage with and support over 80 communities neighboring Las Bambas and along the transport corridor through format dialogue tables, community-led meetings and informal engagements. We acknowledge that our Las Bambas operation has historically faced challenges with social conflicts and uncertainty impacting our people, our operations and our business more broadly. Our team on the ground continues to work hard to manage these challenges and it is best equipped to do this important work. Over the last 2 years, Las Bambas has undertaken a transformational review of its social engagement, investment and stakeholder processes at both a site and regional level, seeking to develop a new social model with sustainability at its core. As briefed last year, to create this model, functional teams comprising more than 60 people analyzed site practices, processes and procedures. The team also considered corporate performance standards, industry best practice, external stakeholders and above all, the team's capacity to manage the scale of social challenges. As a result, a new social model was designed with 4 key pillars that guide core processes associated with multi-stakeholder engagement, social development, growth and business expansion and management of social risks and impacts. These are supported by ongoing communication and an organizational culture that makes all areas of the company co-responsible for social management. Underpinned by a long-term vision towards sustainability, growth and progress, both for our business and our stakeholders within an environment of mutual respect and trust. While we have recently transitioned from the design to the implementation stage, the program has already produced significant changes and improvements, including: first, the development of the Chalcobamba mine is alongside 6 community companies from Huancuire community; second, a number of agreements with the Huancuire community covering education, local business and most recently, local employment; third, an agreement with the Fuerabamba community for the concentrate transportation service; and fourth, agreements with local governments along the Southern Corridor and operations area for social development of the district. Additional program highlights include the establishment of a multi-community company of 7 communities from the Southern Road Corridor to provide road maintenance. Launch of the Red Emprende network as an online platform for integrating local businesses within the Las Bambas value chain, and a significant reduction in road blockade during the 12 months to June compared to the prior periods. Importantly, our new approach is based on listening closely to communities and responding to their aspiration for development by building meaningful relationships. I will now pass back to Andrea. Thank you.

Thank you, Claudio and to all our presenters today for their contributions. Before we turn to questions, I would like to highlight some of the key focus areas for the rest of the year. First, I will start with safety, our first value and highest operational priority. We will continue to work to create safer workplaces by maintaining a focus on our critical controls to eliminate the potential of harm to our people. We will also continue to take measurable steps at all levels of the organization to make MMG more diverse and inclusive organization. Growing our assets while maintaining our unwavering commitment to sustainable development is what drives our business. Our focus is to build better partnerships with our communities that are based on respect and mutual success. And finally, we want to take meaningful action to reduce emissions in our operations and value chain as well as ensuring and contributing to climate resilience in our operations and communities. Thank you for your time today, and we will now hand -- move to the questions. So we'll hand over to the moderator.

[Operator Instructions] There are no questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Andrea Atell for closing remarks. Apologies. We do have a question from Joy Zhang from Goldman Sachs.

I have a quick question on Las Bambas. The effort we are doing on improving the community relationship, which I think is also part of the human rights and the ESG issue. And also, how this will impact our cost trend for this Las Bambas operation going forward? And also, how -- what activities or efforts we have done differently versus before? What we are doing the Fuerabamba development?

Claudio, would you like to start with the response?

Yes. Thank you, Andrea. Well, our -- according to our new engagement model, we are looking for sustainable agreements with the community in order to close social gaps that we identified with the community. So we are changing our way how we engage with the community with a more long-term vision and sustainable projects in favor of the communities. We are also working very close with the government in order to have territorial development of our communities and districts in order to also bring some public projects in favor of these local communities and districts. I don't know, Andrea, if you want to add something else.

I think Cao Liang would like to comment as well.

Probably I could add that -- and you mentioned about what are we doing differently as well since the Fuerabamba. We are listening to our communities and probably through our presentation, you saw that we really focus on the engagements with local business through our value chain. So this is really supporting -- listening first to the communities that they expressed their interest and to be part of the mining value chain. And by doing so, we are preparing them as a business. We engage them through our operations and development, but at the same time, we prepare them to engage with other mining companies or with other business within Peru. So we -- as part of the Corazon program and with the examples that Claudio provided, we started that work, and we've seen already outcomes -- very good outcomes through the participation of local community business within our development of Chalcobamba and the transport, for example, of the concentrate.

There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Andrea Atell for closing remarks.

Thank you. This concludes our presentation today. Thank you for joining us. For more information on energy sustainability performance, please visit our website and social media channels. For any further questions, please contact our Corporate Affairs and Investor Relations team. Thank you.

That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.