Rana Gruber ASA (RANA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to this presentation about Rana Gruber's results in the third quarter. Welcome to both our audience here in Oslo and also on the web. My name is Gunnar Moe, and I'm the CEO of Rana Gruber. And with me today, I also have our CFO, Erlend Høyen. We will first present the results for the third quarter. Questions will be addressed at the end of the session. And after this, we will have a short break before we move on to the Capital Markets Update. The third quarter was a historical good quarter for Rana Gruber. We had a record high production of 503,000 metric tons of concentrate. And this is almost 8% better than the same quarter last year. Cash costs per metric ton produced iron ore concentrate ended at USD 43 equivalent. This is promising and represents a decrease from previous quarters. We had a positive development in discussions with authorities regarding the proposed Bane NOR fee hikes, affecting ore transport for Rana Gruber. The proposed fee increase for 2024 is now confirmed to be maximum NOK 6 million, which is substantially lower than the previously estimated and communicated in the stock exchange announcement in September. This is a crucial step to ensure competitive operations and cost minimization for the future. The financial results in the quarter were also good. And the Board of Directors decided to pay out dividends of NOK 3.23 per share. This involves dividends for 11 consecutive quarters totaling over NOK 1 billion since listing in February '21. Now, some words about HSE. I'm also happy to announce that we had no injuries leading to work absence during the third quarter. We have a continuous focus on safety related to the decarbonization project. The previously mentioned risk assessment for battery-electric equipment is now completed. Safety remains always our top priority. As mentioned, we had a continued strong production of iron ore concentrate with 503,000 metric tons, up from 469,000 metric tons in the third quarter of '22. The good production from the last quarters continues, and the third quarter had the highest volumes produced in Rana Gruber's history. I'm also happy to announce that the quality remains strong despite the strong volumes. More details about our quality development will be given during the Capital Markets Update after this session. Due to strong production and the weak market developments in Europe, we had an inventory buildup in the third quarter. The market dynamics in the European steel industry are currently uncertain. And we are closely monitoring the market in collaboration with Cargill to work towards achieving a more normalized inventory situation going forward. I will now leave the word to our CFO, Erlend Høyen, to take us through the financial results in the quarter.

Thank you, Gunnar. As you can see on the graph on the left-hand side, our cash costs came in at NOK 453 per metric ton. This is equivalent to USD 42, which is a level we are quite comfortable with. This was enabled mainly by high production in the quarter as well as our continued focus on cost. On the right-hand side, you can see that the main cost driver is still the mining activity as it has been for the past quarters as well. And in the third quarter, we also had extra activity in the Nordmalmen open pit that we run during the summer months, which led to increased cash costs in the open -- no, the mining activity for the quarter. On the graph on the right-hand side, our revenue came in at NOK 470 million compared to NOK 230 million last year. It's an increase of 104%. There are several factors for the revenue increase. The main effect is the lagged effect that we had from shipments from previous quarters. Another effect is the realized prices for the current quarter that we were in, increased volumes on sales as well. And then lastly, the currency effect that had a positive effect in the quarter. Lots of figures here. I will mention some of them. The operating profit ended at NOK 251.2 million, up from NOK 52.4 million last year. This is mainly explained by the increase in the revenue. The adjusted net profit ended at NOK 172.2 million (sic) [ NOK 171.2 million ], up from NOK 55.4 million last year, and this gives us an EPS of NOK 4.62. And then by continuing the 70% dividend payout that we have done for 11 consecutive quarters, this gives us a DPS of NOK 3.23 per share. Now, let's have a look at the cash flow and our financial position. Cash flow from operations ended at NOK 276 million and after the change in working capital of NOK 171 million, the total cash from operations ended at NOK 106 million. The change in the working capital is mainly due to inventory buildup as well as increased accounts receivable due to late shipments in the quarter. CapEx for the period was NOK 95 million, NOK 73 million of the NOK 95 million is development CapEx, and again, mainly related to the development of the new mining level, Level 91. The rest of the development CapEx is related to our Fe65 project as well as a new heating facility in the underground mine that will contribute to our zero-carbon emission project. NOK 74 million was payout of dividends for the second quarter and then NOK 14 million was payout of lease liabilities, which gave us a total negative change in cash of NOK 78 million for the third quarter. Our equity ratio was, at the end of the third quarter, 54.5%, and the total cash holding was NOK 271 million. This is a level we are quite comfortable with now considering the CapEx that we are going to need to spend for the last couple of years related to mine development and our strategic projects, and we will come back to that in the Capital Markets Update. I think I'll leave the word back to Gunnar.

Yes. Thank you, Erlend. We have now given you an overview of the third quarter. To sum up, the quarter was characterized by record high production, still sustained quality level, and no injuries. Dividends at NOK 3.23 per share demonstrates once again Rana Gruber's ability to create value for our shareholders. Allow me now to make some comments about the future. The long-term market outlook for iron ore remains, in our point of view, strong. Expectations for stimulus in China, especially in the property market, are surging iron ore prices, but weak consumer confidence may delay a full recovery. For a solid foundation of steady production progress on strategic projects and a partnership with Cargill, we are confident in our ability to navigate the ever-changing landscape of the industry.

Thank you, Erlend and Gunnar. My name is Vegard Nerdal. I'm Controller and Investor Relations in Rana Gruber. We will now take some questions from the audience, and there will also be possibility to ask questions at the web. But I will start with the questions from the audience. So please state your name and wait for a microphone before you...

Hi, [ Benny ] from Clarksons Securities. Should we consider the higher production we've seen now for, I guess, 3 quarters -- 4 quarters in a row, is that a new normal for Rana?

Well, that's always our aim. We have constantly increased the production, but the unsecured thing is always to maintain the quality of the product at the same time that we increase the production. So our aim is a level that is higher than it has been. But we can't guarantee 500,000 tons. We have some quarters where the maintenance stops and so forth. But we have a goal of increasing production and maintain quality. And afterwards, we will go through the quality change later. But I won't promise anything, but that's our goal.

Any other questions? Then, I will take some from the...

I am [indiscernible] from Clarksons as well. I did see you had a substantial increase in working capital. You said that, that was inventory, which is fine as long as you have space enough on the port. But you also mentioned that you had late shipments. I thought that Cargill paid you FOB, which means that there shouldn't be any late payments.

Yes. Yes, I guess I should answer that one. That is correct. And Cargill are good payers, and they pay quite swiftly. So this was 2 very late shipments in the quarter that led to the outstanding working capital. It's not a trend, and it's not a thing that will continue. So it's more the actual details of when the shipment left the harbor in Mo i Rana for the 2 large shipments in the quarter.

There are some numbers that we have to be quite sure before you do the payment of the -- and it takes some days after the ship has gone.

Any other questions?

On the shipments, last, top of my head, was 6 to Europe and 1 to China. And how do you see that going forward?

Because of the steel industry in Europe is not at full speed at the moment because of the car industry and building industry, of course. So we expect Europe to be not on top, but quite stable. So our goal is always to sell everything in Europe, but we are prepared to sell 1 or 2 vessels to Asia, not necessarily to China, but to Asia, could also be India.

Any other?

Martin, considering you being one of the iron ore producers with the low-CO2 emissions, do you see any price premiums ahead according to this?

Yes, we do, not at the moment, but we think and we expect a price premium for low-CO2 products in the future. But it's very difficult to setting any numbers. But there are some expectations of high-quality ore and also low-CO2 ore. So that's one of the reasons why we do this. But it's very difficult to put numbers on it. But always -- we see already now some premiums on so-called green steel. So there are some willingness to pay more for green steel. So of course, we will anticipate that, that will give us some more money as well at one time.

Okay. We had one question at the web from -- related to in-sourcing. And I think you, Erlend, touched upon it. When do you expect the in-sourcing to reduce OpEx?

I would say by full speed like early next year. We are currently in the process of building up our own organization related to the tunneling in the development side of the business. And we will touch up on that at the Capital Markets Day as well. But I guess, in the transition from using a contractor to building up an organization in-house, obviously, we will have some increased cash cost. So -- but we expect that. I guess, we can look at [indiscernible]. We expect that [indiscernible] has this one up and running full speed starting of next year when we'll do all of the tunneling ourselves.

I think that was all for the Q&A related to the third quarter. And I'll leave the word to you, Gunnar.

Yes. Thank you all for attending the third quarter presentation. We will now have a short break, but stay tuned because we will start the Capital Markets Update after a few minutes, 5 minutes at -- in max. So thank you so far. [Break]

[Presentation] Thank you. Let's find our seats. For new listeners, my name is Vegard Nerdal, I'm Investor Relations and Controller in Rana Gruber. I will host this Capital Markets update today. And as we mentioned in the third quarter, you could send in Q&A in the session and we will answer them afterwards. As you can see, we have an extending program today. We will start with Gunnar, who will give an introduction to Rana Gruber, then our COO, Stein-Tore Liljenstrom, will tell us some more about mine plan and our project, Nancy Stien Schreiner, our Sustainability Manager, will tell us about decarbonization. And then we take a short break before we have Lee Kirk and Leon Davies from Cargill Metals. And then at the end, Erlend will tell us something about our financial position and cash flow, and then Gunnar will sum it up. And then I will leave the word to you.

Thank you. Welcome, everyone, to this Capital Markets update, and welcome also to you following us on the web. I'm pleased to see you all here today. I'm also very happy for the visitors from England and Geneva, Lee Kirk and Leon Davies, who will give us an update on the market and the future. Your contribution is very much appreciated. Rana Gruber is the only iron ore producer in Norway. And we have one of the industry's lowest carbon emissions and aim to be the world's first carbon-free iron ore producer. Our favorable locations of our deposits enables an energy-efficient logistics. As you can see on the map, the deposits are located just 34 kilometers from the processing plant and the port. The deposits are also higher above the sea level. This enables short downhill transport of the ore to the processing plant and port and this requires minimal amounts of energy. We have vast resources and reserves. This enables mining operations for decades to come. We have also provided -- proved a stable production level year after year, and we have a solid financial position. This enables both investments in the business and attractive and predictable dividend distributions. We have distributed 7% of the adjusted net profit in 11 consecutive quarters. Rana Gruber operates in the beginning of the value chain, and it is 3 separate activities. The first is mining of ore from local open pit and underground mines. The second is railway transport of ore from the mines to the processing plant. And the third is production of iron ore concentrate by extraction of hematite and magnetite in the processing plant, and also a small production from the Colorana products. As mentioned, we operated in the beginning of the value chain. After we have produced iron ore concentrate and Colorana, the products are shipped to a range of different industries. These industries are largely independent of each other and use our products to make a range of different end products. Let me elaborate a little bit on this. We supply 3 projects -- products; hematite, magnetite, and Colorana. The Rana Gruber hematite is sold to the commodity trader, Cargill and distributed mainly to 3 European steel mills, which utilize the product to make steel. As you know, steel is used for a variety of end products, such as cars, buildings and infrastructure. Our magnetite is sold to 6 chemical producers. They use magnetite to make water treatment chemicals. And these chemicals are used in public water purification systems. Our magnetite is our most attractive product and the price is noncyclical, and it's also the cleanest magnetite in the world. Colorana is used for both colorants, and other highly advanced products. Customers for Colorana are within a diverse group of industries or market segments, such as concrete paint, plastics, automotive industry, heat management and toner production. We have an offtake agreement with Cargill until 2035. They are committed to buy and market all our hematite. Today, this amounts to more than 90% with Rana Gruber's total production. It takes time to have one's iron ore product recognized by a steel producer and to become a supplier. The agreement with Cargill currently provides access to 3 European steel mills, but we have also flexibility to navigate market changes. Since Cargill has a leading market position in commodity trading, they are able to identify the right buyers and the best prices given the market situation. This year, we made use of this flexibility as one of the 3 European steel mills reduced its offtake of iron ore concentrate due to a planned maintenance stop. To be more precise, relining of a blast furnace. Combined with the high production on our side, we therefore decided to direct 5 shipments this year to Asia instead of Europe. The maintenance stop for the steel mill in question was a significant extense. We do not anticipate a similar maintenance stop to be continued for many years, if at all. So Europe remains the default destination of shipments to hematite concentrates. Through generations, Rana Gruber has been a cornerstone for the historical development of the city of Mo i Rana, the local industry and the local community. The creation of local jobs has attracted settlement, suppliers and business in the region. We are proud to still have this role in the local community. But above all, Rana Gruber is an attractive workplace. Rana Gruber offers an attractive professional environment with exciting work tasks and career options. Because of this, we managed to strengthen our workforce with several recent recruitments. These recruitments mean that the project to in-source work streams is close to completion. We consider this a milestone and are proud of the competence we now possess internally in the organization. Now let's turn to Rana Gruber's strategy going forward. We have defined 3 strategic development projects. The aim of the first is to increase the minimum iron content in the hematite product to 64 -- to 65% and maybe even higher, which Stein-Tore will come back to later. The aim of the second is to increase the magnetite production. The aim of the third is to eliminate carbon emissions from our production. Stein-Tore and Nancy will give you updates on our progress with these projects. So I will leave the word to you, Stein-Tore.

Thank you, Gunnar. My name is Stein-Tore Liljenstrom, Chief Operating Officer at Rana Gruber. First, I would like to tell a little bit more about our mining operations and our mine plans. Let's see. Okay. As you might know, we operate both open pit and underground mines as depicted in the picture here. Here, you can see a presentation on open pit, and this is basically -- how the underground mines functions. The underground mining operation, the current production levels are level 123 and level -- some residual ore on Level 155. Levels means level above sea level, the reference point is 0, is at sea level. The current production levels are fully invested and will be in production until mid-2025. Production at the new mining level, Level 91 will commence mid-'24, with an ore reserve of 9 million tons. Note that the crusher station and the conveyor belt, which is illustrated here, are located at Level 123, which means it's 32 meters above the new Level 91. This means that the ore needs to be transported up ramp to the crusher, which might impact the operational cash cost. However, the new Level 91 is the first level where we fully utilize electric load and haul machines. This equipment has a documented lower production cycle times compared to diesel-operated equivalents. And there is no exhaust gases, meaning less exhaust gases to ventilate out of the mine. So the higher efficiency of the electric equipment might offset the potential increase in operational cost. Note also that apart from day-to-day ore production, it is important to note that we continuously develop new underground mines, which means develop new tunnels for new underground mines, beyond Level 91. This is why we have in-sourced the tunneling activities in order to secure a continuous mine development and a steady cash flow. So let's then turn to the open pit mining operation. The current open pit mines in Ørtfjell. And this is the Ørtfjell orebody. The current open pit mining operations is in Ørtfjell. It will be depleted in early '25. Whilst the new Stensundtjern mine will be an operational late '24. So this is the Stensundtjern deposit. We are currently in process of optimizing the operational concept of the new mine. One key change in the mining operation, switching from Ørtfjell to Stensundtjern is the increase in ore transportation distance. You can see it on the map is a distant between Stensundtjern and Ørtfjell deposit. It's located 13 kilometers from the crusher station and the ore silo, so the crusher station and ore silo is at Ørtfjell. Note as well that the inherent nature of open pit mining demands a higher rate of waste rock removal in the beginning of the mining operation. So taken together, these factors will impact the operational cash costs in mining. However, the Stensundtjern deposit has a much higher amount of magnetite compared to the current open pits we operate in Stensundtjern -- in Ørtfjell. So we, therefore, expect a steady increase in the magnetite, the M40 product in the coming years. As I will come back to -- this product demands a high price and it's detached from the steel market dynamics. So then let's look at the M40 project then. As Gunnar mentioned, the strategic project of increasing the M40 production. As Gunnar mentioned earlier, our magnetite product, M40 is sold entirely to the chemical industry. The M40 product is an ultra high-grade magnetite product, with an iron content of 71.2%. In addition, we are able to produce this quality without the use of chemicals in the production process. And this is quite unique in the industry. And this is also why we are able to place a traditional iron ore product in the chemical market. The M40 is used for production of water treatment agents used in public water purification plants, and as mentioned, we expect an increase of M40 when we start to process ore from the Stensundtjern deposit. As you can see from the graph here, the realized sales price of our magnetite, it's much more stable and usually -- also usually higher than the Platts Fe62 index, which is the basis of the pricing of the hematite concentrate. And this is the main reason we want to increase our magnetite production. Revenues from magnetite provides security in times with fluctuating prices on hematite. So the ramp-up of magnetite production has already started. The rate of production so far this year exceeds the production rates in both '21 and '22. So this is the result of ongoing upgrade and process optimization of the magnetite plant. We still use the Ørtfjell ore, which is quite low in magnetite. The main physical installation in the new magnetite circuit will be done in 2 phases. In fact, the first part was actually installed last week, and the last part will be installed during the annual maintenance stop in next summer, in '24. So after these installations, we will have an efficient high-capacity magnetite plants, and we expect further increase in the magnetite production. So then let's turn to the Fe65 project and the increase of iron ore content in the hematite products. To reduce carbon emissions in the steel industry, the steel mills needs to use more high-grade iron ore, I think Cargill will come back to that in their presentation, both in the traditional blast furnaces as well as in the new direct-reduction methods emerging in the industry. So this is why Cargill has encouraged us to increase the minimum iron ore content in our hematite products to at least 65%. This will eventually link our hematite product to the Platts Fe65 index instead of the Fe62 index. Switching from 2x Fe65 seen from the steel mills perspective, the emissions from the steel mills could be reduced with 20 to 25 kilograms CO2 per ton steel. Our Fe65 project, which is ongoing, has already involved several measures in the processing plant. During maintenance stops, we have installed new equipment and process control units to improve the overall circuit design and control. As you can see from the graph on the left, the measures we have done so far has boosted iron content of the hematite product. So this is the trend from January '22 until late -- this is October, Q4 actually. So there's a steady increase in grade. But still the largest installations of the project will be during the maintenance stops in '24. We are also implementing measures in the mining operations, especially the underground mining, to better sort the blasted ore from the underground mine. And this has resulted in an uplift of iron content in the run of mine. So taken together, we have been able to improve the iron content of the hematite as well as increasing the production of hematite which is quite counterintuitive in a normal processing plant. So both increase in grade and volume. But note as well that, the pricing based on the Platts Fe65 index depends on the approval of ore product quality by the steel -- ore steel mill customers. So Cargill is already in dialogue with the steel mills, preparing the transition from -- the transition of our hematite product to the new Fe65 index. So once the steel mill have approved the product quality, we can negotiate the contractual terms and base the pricing ore hematite on the Platts Fe65 index instead of the Fe62 index, which we do today. We expect this to happen gradually during 2025. And then even further, so our ambitions do not stop there. In collaboration with our partner, Cargill, we have been analyzing the future of European steel industry. In the coming years, we expect that many European steel producers will transition away from traditional coal-based blast furnace, hot metal steelmaking towards more sustainable electric arc furnaces with higher grade iron ore as a feedstock. This requires an iron content in the concentrate to be about 66.5%, also, which means above 65%. We also expect the demand for this high-grade iron ore to exceed the supply, and Cargill will, for sure, tell you more about this. And this could give a significant price premium above the Fe65 index. As we noted earlier this year, we have carried out studies that give us a strong belief in our ability to develop a profitable production of hematite concentrate with an iron content of around 67%. And this is suitable for sustainable steel production. Since then, we have conducted more studies and collected more data, which support this belief. I will also note that this ultra high-grade iron ore will be attractive, not just for the new sustainable steel production, but also for the traditional blast furnace production as well. In the case of traditional blast furnace production, Fe67 will reduce the CO2 emissions from the steel mills by 50 to 60 kilograms per ton steel. That's a substantial amount of reduction just by introducing the Fe67 in their production. To be a little bit more technical, the Fe67 product is also low in what's called gangue minerals, the other minerals than the Fe minerals. And this will make the product as an attractive, corrective ore for control of the slag chemistry in the blast furnace. So it will be an attractive product for traditional steel mill -- steel producers as well. The pre-product studies will -- and test will continue until the spring of '24. And we hope that this will give us sufficient information to make a decision about further actions in '24. If we transition, decide to transition the production to this ultra high-grade iron ore, this will not happen suddenly. It would be a gradual process to keep pace with the changes in the steel industry. And I think that is all from my end. So I leave the word to Nancy for an update on the ESG projects.

Thank you, Stein-Tore. My name is Nancy Stien Schreiner, and I'm the Environment and Sustainability Manager at Rana Gruber. A little bit earlier. Okay. Today, Rana Gruber is responsible for 8.47 kilo of CO2 equivalents per ton produced iron ore. Our goal is to eliminate all carbon emissions. Eliminating emissions means that our mining equipment: vehicles, railway and underground mine heating facility, must be electrified or else be replaced with a non-fossil fuel alternative. This is a difficult challenge, as the machinery needs to handle large and heavy masses of ore. We may divide our execution plan into 3 parts: that which concerns the underground mine, that which concerns the open pit mine, and that which concerns the railway transport. For the underground mine, we have started the gradual process of replacing equipment. We already have 5 electric mining equipment machines in operation. I look forward to introduce the remainder of the machines. The time line for completion depends on when we will receive the remaining machines from our suppliers. We are also in the final phase of developing the on-site infrastructure needed for electrified operations. The new infrastructure involves both an efficient charging structure and safety measures. Even though accidents are rare, the batteries in electric vehicles are combustible items. And the utmost priority for Rana Gruber is to secure the safety of our employees. So we want to be sure that we have the best possible rescue chambers in case of any accidents. Finally, together with the suppliers, we conduct training our employees with the new machines. We also update procedures, so everything will run smoothly in the new electrified operations. For the open pit mine, the production in Ørtfjell will continue with today's operation facility until we have exhausted their reserves of the deposits in 2024 and 2025. Future open pit production in the Stensundtjern deposit will be carbon-free. The operation here will most likely be conducted by external providers, but we are not yet sure about that technology. The electric open pit technology currently available is not as mature as the technology available for the underground machinery. We will have a test this winter with a technology supplier. For the railway transport, there is a governmental decision to electrify part of the Nordlandsbanen, to which Rana Gruber's rail transport is connected. It would be unwise to us to initiate any further action on the rail transport before we know what investments the state will do. So the time line for decarbonation of the rail transport will depend on updates from the authorities. Electrification of the operation is the major means to become carbon-free. We expect electrification to have several benefits. One is increased operational efficiency, electric vehicles can achieve higher speeds and have 60% faster acceleration than diesel vehicles. They also have 25% faster load time. The second benefit we expect is price premium for our products. We expect this because sustainable-produced iron ore will help the steel mills to reach their emission goals. The third benefit of electrification is improved working environment for employees in the underground mine. With the 0 CO2 emissions and 0 diesel particles, the air quality in the underground mine will be significantly improved. As Gunnar mentioned earlier, Rana Gruber is well positioned to realize carbon-free production. One of our benefits to the -- is the location of our deposits. The deposits are located close to the processing plant and port, which are located next to each other. The deposits are also higher above the sea level, as Stein-Tore said. This enables a short downhill railway transport of ore, which requires minimal amounts of energy. In addition to this, Rana Gruber is located in an area with good access to renewable power. As you can see on this picture, it's the local hydropower plant. Earlier this year, we signed a frame agreement with the supplier Sandvik for the delivery of 19 battery-electric vehicles. Sandvik is among the leading manufacturers of this vehicle globally. There is a currently high demand of the mining industry. So Sandvik is now ramping up the production. The battery-electric vehicles are produced at Sandvik production units in U.S., Canada and Finland. Sandvik has its own battery technology, which has a strong focus on the underground mining safety. We are already employing production drilling rigs for long-haul production drilling and tunneling drilling rigs for the development of new mine tunnel infrastructure. In the fourth quarter, we will receive a loader for load and haul of iron ore. We look forward to introducing more load and haul machines when they arrive from our suppliers. Finally, with regard to employee transport, we are in the middle of an ongoing replacement of passenger cars and other relevant vehicles. Rana Gruber will be the -- will lead the mining transition. We will therefore commit to responsible and sustainable production. To demonstrate our commitment, we have initiated the process to gain certification from Towards Sustainable Mining or TSM. This involves site level assessment with external verification. We have also contributed to adapt TSM into the Norwegian mining industry. That certification is expected in 2024. In addition to TSM, we have initiated a process to become members of Responsible Steel. Responsible Steel deal is a non-for-profit multi-stakeholder standard and certification initiative. The membership is expected in 2024. It will demonstrate our commitment to sustainability and provide access to a forum with leading industry players. Thank you. Now I'll leave back to Vegard.

Thank you, Nancy. As I stated earlier, before we go to Lee and Leon, we will take a short coffee break. So please help yourself with a coffee in the lobby. And we will be back in 10 minutes. [Break]

Okay, everyone. Welcome back. We will now continue with Lee Kirk and Leon Davies. Lee Kirk is Managing Director of Cargill Metals. They will tell us more about how Rana Gruber navigates the shift in the iron ore quality for the steel industry's new era.

Okay. Thank you very much. So perhaps a brief introduction to myself and Cargill, for those of you who don't know much about Cargill. So, Lee Kirk, I work for Cargill, who is a company that's much better known for food and agriculture. Cargill is a big global company with operations all over the world in everything from protein, food packaging, grains and chocolate. So we've got 150-year history. And one of the things that underpins our success as a company has been working with new technology and insights across multiple value chains with our customers. So I've spent 27 years now in commodities. The last 9 of those I've been the Managing Director of Cargill Metals. 11 of those I spent in Asia. Recently, I've moved back from Asia, and I'm now based in Geneva. So Cargill's customers are generally surprised that we actually have a metals division. So we're part of the Financials Services and Metals Group, the FSM Enterprise within Metals. So Metals sounds quite glamorous. We moved 50 million tons of iron ore per year, 6 million tons of steel, but you won't find any precious metals. You won't find any base metals. We're 100% focused on the steel industry, which I guess is good. That's what we're here to talk about today. So I'll start with an overview of ferrous and freight markets, what they've been up to in 2023 and what we can expect going into 2024. And then I'll go on to talk a little bit about why we believe Rana Gruber has a very bright future ahead of it. Okay. So in this section, I will take a brief run through what's been going on in freight and iron ore markets. So let's start with ferrous markets. So at the end of 2022, everybody was very excited about China coming out of its COVID lockdowns. So there was a lot of optimism. Unfortunately, that optimism going into the end of Q1 2023 fell flat. People were pretty disappointed. The stimulus that historically, China had put into markets when it went through periods of slowdown just didn't appear. So that increase in industrial demand, which would have balanced a weak global steel demand picture just didn't happen. So the impact was to send global steel margins on a slow growing down into the middle of 2023. At one point, we touched, I think, a low of $85 on iron ore. And at that point, blast furnaces started to get cut across the steel industry, most notably in Europe, but we also saw China start to reduce steel production, both through a mix of reducing scrap usage, but also switching out of high-grade iron ores into lower-grade iron ores. Now as we get in -- as we got into Q3, demand was poor, but not poor enough to drive us down historically as we might have seen to iron ore cost support and with blast furnaces starting to be switched off, weak margins what we're also seeing was a destocking across ferrous supply chains globally. And we started to see iron ore draw import in China. And at that point, we saw a floor on iron ore prices and things started to improve. So as we came out of Q3, we actually ended up in an environment where iron ore was actually very tight because steel production had managed to stay pretty stable across the year. And also, at that point, coking coal and coke started to tighten. So we ended up with a story of cost support, which started to provide a bit more support on steel and iron ore prices. So one of the interesting things about this year is we have had a slowdown in global industrial activity, we've also had a slowdown in the supply of scrap to the industry. And this had an interesting impact over this year. So year-to-date, the rest of the world outside of China has consumed something like 200 million tons of scrap. But over the same period last year, the industry consumed over 300 million tons of scrap. So year-on-year, we've had over 100 million tons less scrap consumed, but we didn't end up with pressure on scrap prices. Now the impact of that is it actually prevents electric arc furnaces that use scrap from increasing their margins and ramping up steel production. So one of the sources of pressure on the steel market that you would normally have seen actually didn't come into play and steel supply was relatively constrained. So we also saw a situation that we had international reduction in steel production and China was able to expand its exports. So I think we -- year-to-date, we've seen something like 23 million tons -- sorry, 19 million tons of extra steel exports. And by the end of the year, we expect 23 million to 25 million tons more steel exports. So we've had lower EAF production ramp down of CU globally, more China steel exports, and we've ended up in a situation actually across the year now where we're starting to get quite balanced. And as we've moved into Q4, the China is preparing for 2024 and starting to add stimulus to the market. Now that's changing expectations. So I can already feel from picking up the phone to my colleagues in Shanghai, them starting to get excited about 2024. So sentiment is starting to shift. Optimism is starting to move. What we haven't yet seen is a real increase in demand yet. So we're in a situation where iron ore prices are starting to improve and increase to the kind of highs that we've seen over the last 24 months, but largely as a result of expectations. So as we go into 2024 with a much more positive tone, if we get a continuation of the stimulus rhetoric, which turns into real demand increase, and we come out of Chinese New Year with stronger demand, then I think we have a very positive outlook for next year. I think the real challenge for the industry is probably two things. One, actually, that the words around stimulus don't really turn into real demand; and two, that we end up with some form of U.S. recession. And if we end up in that scenario, obviously, we end up with lower steel demand and that's likely to put more pressure on the market. But right now, if we see a continuation of what we see today, and that sentiment turns into reality, we are very constructive for the ferrous markets over the coming year. So switching on to freight. Actually, this can be quite simple. This is where you get a real sense of how closely linked ferrous markets are with shipping markets because the story is very similar. We ended 2022 on a positive note, with everybody expecting that the shipping markets moving into next year would be quite positive. And exactly as we saw in ferrous markets, as the demand -- industrial demand didn't follow through in China, interest rates went up, overall demand levels started to reduce and freight markets ended up under pressure. So the overall demand story actually followed a very similar pattern to that which we saw in ferrous. Now there's a slightly different story when you switch to supply. So firstly, newbuilding prices were relatively expensive compared to forward prices. We saw increases in interest rates and shipyards were very occupied as a result of a boom in container shipping post-COVID. So actually, we've started to see constrained supply in shipping as we move forward. And if that supply constraint continues, then obviously, that can provide a bit of a support to market. You're also seeing challenges for shipowners. With environmental constraints and people thinking about climate change, they've got to choose what types of fuels they're going to use for their ships in the future. Is it going to be methanol? Is it going to be LNG? Do they stick with traditional fuels? And that uncertainty is also making it harder for people to make decisions on what types of ships they want to build in the future and constraining supply. So actually, a very similar situation as we go into 2024 for freight. We're expecting more bauxite, more iron ore. We're expecting constraints on supply of ships. And if we have that follow-through in industrial demand in 2024, then overall in both freight and iron ore, we're expecting a more positive outlook. So now I'm going to switch a little bit to talk about some of the trends that we see leading to Rana Gruber's future and going to impact their environment. So historically, Rana Gruber has been a small-scale producer of a chemically average quality of iron ore, which is relatively low compared to other concentrate suppliers in the Atlantic region. But Rana has some unique properties in its iron ore, which give it enormous potential. And I'm going to spend some time talking about how in an evolving steel market, we can unlock some value. Now the Rana and Cargill metals partnership has been a powerful combination over the last couple of years, where our combined capabilities and efforts have really led to greater success. So 1 plus 1, I'd say, has truly equaled 5. We're always looking for situations where we believe the capabilities that we have as a business and the customers that we're working with create some leverage across both organizations. So our partnership has enabled Rana to focus on delivering operational excellence, which has resulted in both an increase in Fe grade and an increase in output, which I think you share my sentiment. So that's been an impressive performance. Now Cargill's role in all of this in our partnership is to provide global marketing, risk management, technical capability that it doesn't make sense for Rana to try to build for themselves given their scale. And our mission is really to help Rana understand both customer needs today but also customer needs in the future. And Rana has been very early to see that there are trends in the industry, and you will have heard from Stein-Tore and Gunnar earlier about the transition journey they're on, what the needs of their customers are likely to be in the future and start the evolution to a high-grade product. So my job today is to try and give you a sense of some of the trends that are suggesting that, that strategy makes sense. So before we get too deep into these trends, I guess you're wondering what the caviar and chips have got to do with steel making. So I think what is important to understand is that -- yes, what's important to understand as we get too far into these trends is understand what impacts a healthy blast furnace operation. Now iron ore isn't just that goes into steelmaking. It comes in many forms like ingredients and a recipe. And just like us humans consuming food, a blast furnace needs a very healthy diet. So historically, the steel industry has had the luxury of being able to consume caviar at fast food prices. So that's high-grade, porous iron ores, which are very good for steelmaking. But along came China in the early 2000s, whose voracious appetite forced everyone to shift to a diet of fast food, but unfortunately, at higher prices. So this has meant that the industry has got to have got used to using lower-grade iron ores with higher levels of impurities and with higher prices. After a while, if you dine out too long on unhealthy food, just like humans, you start to have problems. So blast furnaces, if you put too much rubbish in the form of alumina and silica into them, they start to clog up. Eventually you hit the limits of what a body can digest, what a blast furnace can digest and you end up, unfortunately, with constipation. Too much alumina and silica in a blast furnace causes slag problems. It makes slag thick. It slows down the flow of hot metal and blast furnaces ultimately become more efficient. And this leads to more wear and tear, higher energy use, increased maintenance costs and an overall drop in performance over time. So obviously, no blast furnace operator in the world wants to be subjected to these. But unfortunately, over the last year, the trends that have been driving the impact on iron ore have started to accelerate and will continue to accelerate. So let's get into some of these trends in a little bit more detail. So the explosive growth of China since the early part of 2000 has had a transformative impact on the steel industry. Now in recent years, China has started to mature. The industry growth has started to slow, and China is now responsible for approximately 60% of the world's 1.8 billion tons of steel production. China's property sector was the largest consumer of steel over 20 years. Hundreds of millions of tons annually was pushed into property as China's population urbanized and doubled over a period of time. So in 2000, China accounted for 13 of the world's 100 largest cities. Today, that number has increased to 40. So this is one of the most remarkable migrations in human history. So China's property sector used long products for construction. The benefit of long products is they're relatively simple to make and they don't require high qualities of raw material products, unlike flat products that you all put in your cars or in your fridges. In recent years, China's steel industry has shifted its focus from building houses and bridges to flat products and producing the consumer goods that their new urban population is demanding. So today, more than 50% of China's steel production has moved to flat products. And we've seen a significant drop in long product production to down to around 40%. Now while this evolution is very natural, it represents a challenge for the steel industry because as you shift to flat products, you need higher quality raw materials. Now continuing the story of China. As the steel industry shifted from flat to long products, as with many other countries as they've evolved and matured, there's also been a greater focus on efficiency and becoming more environmentally friendly. And this also has significant implications for raw materials. So the size of blast furnaces has increased since 2001 from around 400 cubic meters to around 1,200 cubic meters, so 3x larger than they were back over 20 years ago, but we've also seen a significant migration away from cities to the coast. Now this has been fantastic for China's environment, it's been fantastic for the global environment. But again, it brings the challenge of requiring higher quality raw materials. So coming back to blast furnace operations. A blast furnace iron process uses coke in the form of energy to extract valuable liquid iron and also produces waste in the form of slag. So the cost and environmental impact of coal is rising for a few reasons. Firstly, despite the fact that 2/3 of the world's steel production is still made using coal, there is very limited investment into new coking coal mines as the world faces up to the challenges of global climate change. Second, many countries in Asia, and you'll see large expansions in places like India are still expanding using coal as the base technology. So we're getting an increase in the demand for coking coal. At the same time, we're likely to see a decrease in supply. So as we get towards the end of the decade, that is going to become a real constraint. If you add on top of this, we're seeing pressure on the industry to reduce its carbon footprint and we're seeing increasing costs for carbon and new legislation trying to drive cleaning up of the environment. So it's becoming abundantly clear that reducing iron ore oxide with coke as an energy source is going to become increasingly expensive. This, again, is going to force steelmakers to seek more efficient ways to produce steel over time. Again, leads to more high-grade raw material demand. So we've talked a lot about the factors which are driving the demand for high-grade iron ore. So let's talk a little bit about the supply side. So iron ore, the iron ore situation on the supply side, things are changing a lot, but they're not getting better. The iron ore we get now is not as good as it used to be, and it contains roughly twice as much waste as it did 20 years ago. More waste equals more slag, which causes problems when we're making steel. So one of the things that miners are facing is challenges in producing high-quality ore because the ore grades are starting to run out. At the same time, mining is getting harder, more expensive and more challenging. So one of the biggest challenges steel mill face now is the need to address higher alumina, higher phosphorus, while actually the iron ore industry is feeding the more low-quality product. So there's a competition now between many miners who are looking to improve the quality of their product. At the same time, steel mills looking to improve and produce high-quality steel. So you now got this race between steel mills and miners around the world trying to find new deposits of higher quality or contract long term for high-quality iron ore. So by now, hopefully, you've seen that there's a very consistent theme across the industry in this growing demand for high-grade iron ore. So back to our food and allergy. Faced with these challenges, you've got a few choices. You can either go back to buying caviar, high-grade iron ores or you adjust your diet to buy something healthier to try and balance out some of the healthier -- unhealthy stuff you're being fed. Unfortunately, caviar is now in short supply because everybody has been eating it for a very long time and there aren't very many sturgeons left. So it's very expensive. The alternative of including some healthier items such as corrective iron ore, so high-grade iron ores like the ones that we get out of Canada, which are very pure. So they have some challenges. So these corrective ores are finer. They reduce sinter productivity, sinter is one of the main inputs into the blast furnace burden, so they potentially come with some challenges to use them. But historically, steel mills have got very comfortable that if they can't get access to these high-grade sinter piece then they can leverage these corrective concentrates to try and blend out some of the challenges that they would find in their blast furnace burden. So in reality, I think what this helps us draw the conclusion is Rana is making a very smart move to help their customers. By recognizing the long-term trends in the global steel market, they have discovered that the unique qualities of Rana Gruber's assets have significant untapped potential, very few assets around the world have. Rana Gruber shifted firstly from 63 to 65 Fe positions their product as one of these high-grade iron ores, one of these caviars, essential for blast furnaces worldwide. This upgrade helps their customers digest low-grade materials and maintain the health of their operations. As it becomes clear, the need for premium high-quality ores is growing, and they're becoming increasingly scarce, the choice to focus on Fe65 is becoming increasingly compelling. And lastly, the cherry on the cake of all of this. We've talked a lot about the challenges steelmakers are facing. Well, there is increasing demand as we go through energy transition for low carbon steels and a push for decarbonization. So not only is there a need for high-grade ore, there is a need for ultra-high-grade ore. Now if Rana can evolve further from producing 65 grade to 67 grade Fe, then they is going to shift from what is caviar to potentially, what is gold dust. That transition is going to be a very attractive and a very unique product within the market. So in conclusion, I think Rana is positioning for a very bright future. There is a continuous increase in demand for high-grade iron ores. Firstly, China is on a continuous shift to high-grade, higher-quality steels, more high-grade iron ore demand. There is a global trend to drops in Fe quality and increase in gangue content, which represents problems for blast furnace usage. And lastly, the cost of energy and the cost of producing carbon is going to increase. So you combine all of those trends together with the transition into greater sustainability and more green steel, I think you have to agree that Rana is positioned for a very bright future. Okay. With that, I will pass it back I think to Gunnar.

Okay. Thank you, Lee, and thank you for your valuable insights in the steel industry. We are also very happy to our partnership with Cargill and we're looking forward to the future together. Lee and Leon will be available for questions after this session. But now we will continue with Erlend, who will tell us more about our financial topics.

Hello, everyone. If there are any new listeners on the web or in the audience, my name is Erlend Høyen, and I'm the CFO of Rana Gruber. Today, Rana Gruber is a mature mining company. We have a strong balance sheet, low financial leverage and the pathway to this stems several decades back. A lot of the heavy infrastructure investments in the company was made in the 1960s up until the 1990s. That obviously required heavy bank loans and capital. However, that's old history now, and we are now debt-free and the low leverage on the financial side and the strong balance sheet that we have today is one of the parts that enables us to do the development that we are doing on the product side, source our CapEx through operations and as well as delivering on our dividend policy. Regarding dividends, we have since we became public on the Euronext Growth in '21, we have -- and this includes the third quarter dividend of NOK 3.23, we have paid out NOK 27.56 per share. And with the third quarter dividends, we are just hitting the NOK 1 billion mark in total dividends payout since we became public. And I guess, for many of you who know us, our policy is to pay out between 50% to 70% of the adjusted net profit each quarter. And we always try to target the 70%, which we have done 11 consecutive quarters. The Board also has the option to pay out or to use 30% of the estimated dividends to allocate them to repurchase of own shares. A little bit about CapEx. Our CapEx plan stays firm, and our plan is still to finance CapEx through operational earnings. For the Fe65 and M40 projects, these are highly linked to each other and upgrades that are being done in the processing plant. So we can look at these as one. For these two projects, we have so far in this year, invested NOK 25 million, and we expect to invest another NOK 20 million in the fourth quarter this year. To complete these projects next year, we expect to invest another NOK 50 million in 2024. For the decarbonization project we only have figures for the underground mine. As Nancy said, there are still some uncertainties related to the open pit and the mine transport. So these figures only include the investments that we are doing ourselves on the infrastructure side. We have invested NOK 15 million so far this year, and we anticipate in investing another NOK 10 million in the fourth quarter. Then we expect to have to invest NOK 17 million in 2024 and then NOK 30 million in 2025. And this will be investments related to charging base, safety areas and maintenance areas in particular. The machines, both rolling vehicles and heavy mining equipment is not included here. Those will be financed through lease obligations. I will come back to that on the next slide. We have also invested NOK 15 million this year in other development projects that is highly linked to our lean mining system. And at the end, finally, we have the development of new mining levels. And by the end of the year, we expect to have invested NOK 235 million in the new mining level, Level 91, as Stein-Tore talked about. And then from '24 and going forward, we do expect to stabilize this CapEx spend by doing this in-house ourselves. And we expect the level of development CapEx related to mine level to be somewhere around NOK 80 million to NOK 100 million in the upcoming years. And then finally, I skipped the maintenance I see. But this year, we expect to use NOK 60 million in maintenance CapEx and then NOK 50 million going forward at a steady -- fairly steady basis. Now a couple of words about our lease obligations. We have lease obligations covering all of our rolling equipment and heavy machineries. And given the decarbonization project and the in-sourcing of the mining activities, we do expect this to increase and potentially up to double in the years to come. This will depend on the rate of the delivery of the electric vehicles, the trading value that we will receive from the old diesel-powered equipment as well as the funding that we have received from Enova of NOK 40 million. That's all for CapEx and leasing. This is a slide that I would say, represents how we think in the long term and what's important for us as a company to keep track of in order to have a stable cash flow. We always focus on continuity and stability in the production. And in order to do that, all of these activities has to go in sync and at the same rate, basically. So we have exploration drilling that needs to be done quite a lot of years before we can start the planning. Then we have start planning the new mine that has to be ready for the development, development of new mining levels we typically do 3 to 5 years ahead of production. Then we have to use 1 to 2 years of drilling the levels to be preparing them for blasting and then we come to the last stage, which is fairly quickly the last thing in the production and the processing that we do down in the processing plant and shipping out and getting the cash back in. But keeping control of all of these activities and keeping them in sync with each other and keeping both focused on the long term, the things that we have to do now in order to plan mines for the next 10 years. At the same time, keep focus on obviously, being as productive and efficient that we can in the operation is highly important for us to try to stabilize the cash flow as much as we can. And at the same time, we also try to look ahead and see where the market is going and try to evolve and increase the production as we -- both Cargill and [ Stein-Tore ] has talked a lot about already. Lastly, a couple of words about our hedging. We do hedge both iron ore, foreign exchange, freight rates and electric power. And the goal for our hedging is not to try to optimize on market speculation. It's linked to the slide -- the previous slide, we hedge to create stability for the operation. The Board allows us to hedge up to 50% of 1 year's volume for a period of 24 months ahead of time. So basically, we are allowed to hedge approximately 850,000 tons. We typically start by doing the iron ore hedge, then we fix the foreign exchange and the freight afterwards in order to secure the Norwegian cash flow that translates to our operating cash flow, which is mainly done in Norwegian kroners. When we look at whether or not we should hedge we look at several factors. Obviously, we look at big and sudden changes in the market. And this is basically based on things that we observe ourselves and see in the media. It is based on close dialogue with our strategic partners and analysts and sudden changes that we observe in the world. The next thing is that we look upon the price level that we can hedge and link this to our operating cash flow to see when is the market in a position where we can take a small portion of our sales volume, hedge that at the price that gives us a good coverage on the operating cash flow on the cost side. And I would say that that's basically the principle that has triggered our hedging for the last year. It's not that major like market fluctuations. It's more of the securing the operational cash flow that's triggered our hedges in the last couple of years. And the last thing that we look upon is whether or not we have any big cash draws related to investments of dividends that we want to cover. And I would say that the last principle is not something that we have followed or hedged based upon too much in the last couple of years either. So I think that's it for me, and I'll leave the floor back to Vegard.

Thank you, Erlend. We now have time for questions and I think we will start with the questions from the audience, and then we will follow up with the questions from the web after you all have said your questions.

So who wants to start?

Just a few follow-up on the high grading. So now we are moving into 65% iron ore content and you're looking into the 67. Just can you elaborate a little bit on the costs related to this and time -- potential timing here?

I can start. Well, the time line is that we will do investigations on the possibility of producing 67 on the first half of '24. So we are in a process. So we have been working on this for 6 month, 6 to 9 months now. Then we will -- hopefully, we will produce a position for the Board to a decision to invest in 67, but that's up to the Board. The price premium, I will be very careful about saying anything about that, but the time line for hopefully doing a transition to Fe67, will be in the midst of '24 or early autumn '24, we hope. Is there anything -- could you -- did that answer your question? Or do you want us to...

Yes, you answered and I can move on to Cargill. On this CO2 emission here, would it be reflected in a premium as Gunnar alluded a bit to or at higher cost for producers? As eventually will push the cost curve up.

Both is the answer. I think what we foresee is two things that as the CO2 cost escalates for blast furnace steel makers, so if you have EUR 100 per ton CO2 cost. And as the -- as you retire the free allowances of carbon within Europe for instance, then blast furnace produces approximately 2 tons of CO2 per ton of steel making. If you go to a direct reduction module, that can maybe reduce by 50% by using natural gas. If you go to a hydrogen-based DR module, you could potentially reduce your emissions by in excess of 80%, there's still testing to be done. So you can immediately translate that to a relative cost. And then you can start to think about some of the things Lee mentioned around how coal prices can escalate over the time. So you have still some degree of uncertainty of the reduction in cost of producing hydrogen, where you have an increasing cost of the reduction or the energy source of coal. On the other side, we see a trend of green premiums being established for the delta in steel. We see a clear number of commitments made to decarbonize supply chains by the end of this decade and a number of announced projects to provide supply of green steel for that, some of the high-profile ones in the region here. And so you've seen -- in the short term, we've seen anecdotally green steel traded, which is not, let's say, green steel of the future, but mass-balance green steel, where steelmakers can lower their overall carbon footprint by, say, 5% and then sell 5% of the steel as those mass-balance green steel and you've seen this trading in the market around EUR 150 a ton, but we've limited liquidity and transparency. But you're also seeing clear established green premiums in some of the new green steel projects for the future as well So you gain both a cost impact from traditional steelmaking and a green premium for low carbon steelmaking in the future.

There are also some few questions about the general iron ore market. And so we just kind of see what you guys see and the latest there. So most people are constantly only talking about China. And I'm quite tired of talking about China. So what's your latest color on India? It is a 7.5%, 7.6% GDP right now. We have been waiting for India's demand for the last, I think, 15 years, I know it's really happening and also the development in partly in Africa and also in the Middle East, that could be the surprise on the steel demand.

I think one of the things we've seen this year, historically, Cargill has been very active throughout the entire supply chain, so both on iron ore and steel. So we've been a reasonable exporter of steels out of India. What you've seen this year, actually, India has become pretty interesting because it's a swing producer that either exports into Asia, into Vietnam and places if that market is better or exports into Europe, if that market is better. This year, actually, India stopped exporting, effectively, in the second half of the year as the economy started to pick up momentum. And with them looking to double the size of their steel production over the next decade, India is going to be in a pivotal position of actually being a swing importer of iron ore, exporter of low-grade iron ore and an importer and exporter of steel. So it's not going to reach the scale of China in absolute terms. But in terms of the impact that it has on the overall ferrous market, particularly given its position being very central in that ability to swing to West and East is actually going to have a growing impact on the market. I mean from a -- when we talk about Africa, I think Africa is more important from an iron ore supply perspective. If you look at projects like Simandou and some of the expansion in other assets. Actually, it's one of the few places around the world where you've still got decent-sized deposits of very -- high grade iron ore that could come to the market in the next decade. So there are differently big stories within the ferrous world, which are outside of green steel, which we're talking about a lot at the moment and outside of China, and you're exactly right, India is one of those.

A little bit on Brazil and the export and from -- going from the wet to dry production, do you see that, that will be less seasonal export? Or will it maintain the Q1 is weak and you get higher volume in Q2, Q3 and Q4?

I don't really see the seasonality going backwards in Brazil or anything the weather patterns are becoming more pronounced over time, especially as Vale have shifted more of their production to Northern Brazil, which is more exposed to heavy rainfall. I think this transition from wet to dry production is much more around a means of dealing with the difficulty in getting licensing for tailings. But the -- ultimately, the issue becomes logistics. So heavy rainfall in some of the deeper pits means that the mining and operating in those conditions can become more and more challenging. It's usually the logistics supply chains that break down when you get whether you get products at the port, which are too wet to load from a transportable moisture limit perspective. And so -- we certainly see more extreme weather patterns in Brazil in the recent years, heavier rainfall for periods, droughts in the South impacting some of the barge movements coming down through the Paraguay River as well. So I don't really think the transition from wet to dry processing will have a beneficial impact on that. I think the -- anyone's guess exactly how weather patterns play out, but it's clear that it gets more and more challenging and the deeper the pits get, the greater the operational challenges, too.

This one also goes to Cargill. Given that we've now had, I think, it's 5 shipments going from Rana to Asia instead of normal route in Europe. And the additional cost, I think you move from Cape, Brazil to China to Panamax from Brazil to China as a sort of base quote. What are your incentives as the trading house to keep those tons in Europe?

I mean -- to be clear, our drive is always to maximize the FOB return for Rana. That's the starting point. To balance longer gain short term, we focus very much on expanding the customer base in Europe, diversifying the customer base in Europe, making sure that the customer base we have in Europe is the right customer base who are sustainable, have a long-term position in the market. That's been our incentive. I mean a little comment on this year. You can't plan to fail. So unfortunately, Stein-Tore and his team have done such an excellent job on operations that the volume has exceeded expectations. So we had this double impact of more volume to sell in a pretty weak European market. Had the volumes been consistent with 2022, then the exports to Asia would have been less. But having surplus volume in the short term, you have to also realize that Europe doesn't -- isn't a huge spot buyer. So it takes time to build those customers and so find -- so somebody placing extra spot tons in Europe is very market-driven. And if you have a weak steel market in Europe like we've had this year where you've had major maintenance in some of our key customers, then it does lead to a situation where, okay, let's maximize the FOB return we can realize in other markets, and that's not been then just going to China, but exploring every region. But as our only incentive is to enhance the returns for Rana and ensure that there's a healthy, viable long-term business here.

And given that we've now had a year or so of higher production, how are you working with customers to increase their ability to take off Rana's product?

There's a lot of work going on, a lot of technical work going on with customers. Lee mentioned that historically, Rana was, chemically speaking, was a different proposition to today. So it's -- the work we're doing today is very much -- this is the product, these are the changes, explaining how Rana is changing, what the evolution is for the future. Giving steel mills in Europe a reason to use the product, which is not just incentivized by price, but by wanting to have access to the quality of today and the quality of the future, wanting to have access to one of the most decarbonized and clean supply chains anywhere in the industry. That's not something that's about what happens in the next 1 or 2 months, but building that customer base. We're pretty pleased with the profile of the customers we have for Rana Gruber today, much more diversified, and we're having very -- we continue to have dialogue with the European steel makers looking to get trials into some of those mills and build that over time as well. I think a lot of the geopolitical factors in the last years have meant that there's an increasing focus on how all industrial players can have security of their regional supply chain. So playing together that, the quality trend, the decarbonization of the operation, the opportunity to tap into green supply chains is actually making Rana a very attractive value proposition. So it's how we explain that and then evolve that customer base over time.

I can elaborate a little bit on that because we're working together with Cargill. We have met the existing customers in Europe, and we also met potential new customers in Europe to be the right customers for Rana Gruber in the future. They will -- that will stick to the story of producing green material for the future. So we do this together and if you see some years going back, we actually only had 1 big customer. And at some time, maybe one that took some volume not on a steady basis. So an important part in our partnership is building a new customer base that is sticking to our story. So that's it's been and will be the driver for both of us.

Any other questions from the audience? Or should we take the one from the web. I'll start with the first one. I think since you have the mic, you will get the question. But not secured as well as answered it. Regarding the electrification of the underground mine will all traffic be electrified or just the mining equipment? There's a lot of suppliers in various segments.

I guess the short answer is yes. But the timing, I would say that our ambition to become carbon-free. First is to be carbon-free on Scope 1 and 2 and then Scope 3 will obviously include subcontractors. So in the long term, yes, in the short term, our main focus is on our own operations, Scope 1 and 2. And yes, all of the machines and all of the electric vehicles will be electrified, both pickups and trucks and loading and hauling and drilling equipment.

Then we have another question on Norwegian and technical on Norwegian. So I will let Stein-Tore...

Translate into English. Basically they ask how do we utilize magnetic systems to separate the ore, the hematite and the magnetite in the ore. And it's quite easy. Actually, it's the basis of the separation technique is that the gangue minerals we want to get rid of is completely unmagnetic. No magnetic field at all. The hematite and the magnetite have magnetic properties. The magnetite you can guess is magnetic with a normal magnet. The hematite is -- doesn't react to a normal magnet, but if you apply a high-strength, high-field like a very strong magnet, you are able to attract the hematite. And the gangue minerals is unmagnetic and will go to the tailings. So in principle, it's easy, in practice it is more complicated, but yes.

If that was all the questions, then I will leave the floor to Gunnar who will sum up the session.

Thank you. I hope you found today's session and update useful. We are very proud of how far we have come already, and we are excited for the time ahead. Let me recap some main takeaways. Rana Gruber is well positioned to lead the mining transition. We will increase the iron content in our hematite, increase our magnetite production and become carbon-free. As mentioned many times, we have a solid financial position, and this enables us to continue with dividend distributions while we continue to invest in our business at the same time. We think the future is bright, both for iron ore and for Rana Gruber especially, with a solid foundation of steady production, progress on all our strategic projects and the partnership with Cargill, we are quite confident in our ability to navigate the changing landscape of our industry. I would like to thank -- thank you all for your attention on the web and all of you attending here physically and you are welcome to stay for a light lunch after this session. So thank you, everyone.