South32 Limited (S32.L) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, everyone. Today's presentation has been released to the Australian Stock Exchange and is available on our website. This webcast is being recorded and will be available on our website after the event. Our Climate Change Action Plan will be subject to a nonbinding advisory shareholder vote at our AGM in October, and we look forward to the opportunity for questions following today's presentation. Before we get underway, I draw your attention to the important notices on Slide 2. I'd now like to hand over to Graham Kerr, Chief Executive Officer.

Thanks, Susie. Hello, everyone. Welcome to today's presentation on our second Climate Change Action Plan, or CCAP. Before we begin, I'd like to acknowledge and pay our respects to the indigenous, traditional and tribal peoples of the lands, waters and territories on which South32 is located and where we conduct our business around the world. Thanks for joining us and for your continued support of South32. I'm joined today by Kelly O'Rourke, Chief Legal, External Affairs and Sustainability Officer; and David Clift, Vice President, Sustainability. Today, we will highlight the progress we have made since we released our first CCAP in 2022, what we've learned since then and how we're incorporating these lessons into our response to our climate risks and opportunities. Climate change is fundamentally reshaping our industry from the commodities we produce to how we produce them. While the energy transition brings opportunities for us through increased demand for critical minerals and metals, it also brings risks given the energy intensity of metal processing and that in many cases, the technologies we need to reduce our hard-to-abate emissions don't yet exist. It also brings risks -- sorry, the geopolitical landscape for climate action is also changing. And with that, the energy transition is becoming more disorderly from a more globally coordinated and urgent call to action on climate change 3 years ago to increasingly fragmented global perspectives, which increases uncertainty. At South32, we're concentrating on what we can control and have matured our approach to climate change to focus on positioning our portfolio for the energy transition, reducing our operational emissions to mitigate transition risk and protect value, supporting emissions reduction across our value chain and strengthening our resilience to climate impacts. Sustainability has been central to the development of our strategy since day 1, which together with our purpose has underpinned the development of our CCAP. We recognize as a global mining and metals company that we have a crucial role to play in responding to climate change by producing minerals and metals critical to the world's energy transition and responding to climate-related risks and opportunities in a way that protects and creates value in the near and long term. We have maintained a strong focus on climate change since our formation. In FY '16, we committed to supporting the goals of the Paris Agreement. In FY '21, we set a target to half our net operational emissions by FY '35. We also set a goal to achieve net zero operational emissions by 2050 and expanded this in FY '23 to include Scope 3 emissions. We evaluated options for establishing a short-term operational emissions reduction target, but because decarbonizing Hillside Aluminum and Worsley Alumina is both technically and commercially complex, we were not confident we would achieve sufficiently material emissions reduction within the time frame of a credible short-term target. Throughout this briefing, Kelly and I will cover what we've done to address climate change since our last CCAP. Turning to our portfolio. Over the past 10 years, we have repositioned our portfolio towards the commodities critical to the world's energy transition. When we were established in 2015, less than 50% of underlying revenue came from our aluminum value chain and base metals compared to approximately 90% today. By adding copper to our portfolio and growing our aluminum production capacity, we have increased our exposure to base metals. More recently, we have commenced development of the Taylor deposit of the Hermosa project, which is expected to deliver attractive returns for decades to come by producing zinc, lead and silver, 2 of which are federally designated critical minerals. We have future growth options at the Sierra Gorda copper mine in Chile and Hermosa's Clark battery-grade manganese deposit, and we are actively exploring for the next generation of base metals mines. We've also focused on reducing complexity by exiting capital-intensive and lower-returning businesses, including the sale of Illawarra Metallurgical Coal, where we've unlocked capital to invest in base metals growth. At the same time, we're thinking about how we can sustainably develop new mines. Our Hermosa project in Arizona has been designed using low-carbon design principles. We are preparing for fleet electrification and we're actively engaging with utilities and independent power producers to evaluate renewable energy and firming solutions. We will look to apply these design principles as we advance our pipeline of base metals development options and exploration projects. We stress test our business model and value chain through scenario analysis to understand our transition-related risks and opportunities. This year, we've tested 2 scenarios, a sector-specific 1.5-degree scenario and a 2.8-degree scenario. Analysis of our portfolio's resilience under both scenarios indicates that GDP growth and the energy transition are likely to drive demand growth for all our commodities under both scenarios, except for lead. Aluminum's ability to conduct electricity and durability makes it useful for renewable energy infrastructure. It is also increasingly being used in EVs to enhance fuel efficiency and reduce weight. Base metals, including copper and zinc, are expected to benefit from the rapid rollout of EVs and the deployment of renewable energy. With zinc, demand is expected to grow due to its role in galvanizing steel, which makes it useful for renewable energy infrastructure and climate resilient construction. With the depletion of last projects and a lack of new discoveries, zinc supply growth is expected to be limited, which we see supporting higher prices and its limited ability to be recycled given the intensity of the process means demand growth is expected to exceed supply in years to come. On the back of our portfolio improvements, today, we're directing 100% of our capital expenditure to transition metals as we invest in our high-quality operations and growth options in base metals, our aluminum value chain and manganese and increase our exposure to high-returning businesses producing critical minerals in structurally attractive markets, which is expected to deliver enduring value for shareholders. Our capital management framework prioritizes safe and reliable operations and an investment-grade credit rating through the cycle. We then distribute a minimum 40% of underlying earnings as ordinary dividends. Following this, our remaining options compete for excess capital. This includes investing in our business, decarbonization projects, acquisitions, exploration and capital management. We have allocated excess capital to portfolio improvements, including the acquisition of our interest in Sierra Gorda and the acquisition and development of Hermosa's Taylor zinc lead silver project. I'll now hand over to Kelly to talk about the work we're doing to reduce our emissions and strengthen our resilience to the impacts of climate change.

Thanks, Graham. Hi, everyone. I'll start by talking to our operational emissions, of which more than 90% come from our aluminum value chain. More than half of this comes from Hillside, where we predominantly source coal-fired power from Eskom, South Africa's national electricity provider. Mozal Aluminum is largely powered by hydro from the Cahora Bassa Dam. However, this year, drought conditions in the Mozambique Basin have impacted hydro availability, requiring additional backup power from Eskom, which has increased our operational emissions. At Worsley Alumina, our operational emissions come from the use of coal and gas to produce steam and electricity, which I'll talk to in more detail shortly. CCAP outlines our preferred pathway to achieving our FY '35 emissions reduction target. You'll see that while we have and continue to study and invest in decarbonization projects, achieving our FY '35 target depends on securing a low-carbon, affordable energy solution at Hillside and continued fuel switching at Worsley with limited use of offsetting. If we take a closer look at Hillside, it accounts for just under 60% of our operational emissions. We've invested in AP3XLE energy efficiency technology with over 50% of pots having been relined, delivering improvements in emissions intensity. However, our focus is on Scope 2. As I noted earlier, almost 90% of Hillside's operational emissions come from the use of coal-fired power supplied by Eskom. To meet our target and protect Hillside's future market competitiveness, we need to find a long-term affordable low-carbon energy solution. This is a complex challenge because of Hillside's large continuous electricity baseload demand, the high cost associated with firming and the substantial upgrades that are required to South Africa's electricity network to support large volumes of renewable connections to the grid. We need a solution that preserves value and maintains access to key markets like Europe, particularly given carbon prices are currently expected on aluminum imports into the EU from FY '26. Hillside is also important for South Africa more broadly as it's an integral part of the Eskom grid, providing stability to the network. As the largest aluminum smelter in the Southern Hemisphere, it makes a significant contribution to the economy, supporting the local automotive industry, which also exports to Europe. Clearly Hillside's future is a shared challenge that requires a multi-stakeholder solution, and we continue to work with the South African government and Eskom. There is goodwill on all sides, and we are aligned in our ambition to find a solution, and we have time. Now if I can turn to Worsley, its higher-quality bauxite places it in the first quartile of emissions intensity for alumina, and it accounts for around 16% of our operational emissions. Conversion of the first 2 boilers from coal to gas has contributed to a 12% reduction in FY '25 Scope 1 emissions relative to an FY '21 baseline. Most of these emissions come from burning coal and gas to produce high-pressure steam that's used in the Bayer process. As part of our decarbonization efforts, we are studying steam electrification and recently secured a AUD 4.4 million grant from the government, an amount we are matching. Our preferred pathway to achieve our target includes further coal-to-gas boiler conversions to continue to lower operational emissions and maintain energy security while we work on a longer-term transition to electrification. Decarbonizing Worsley depends on the development of an affordable pathway to electrify steam production, technology to enable low-carbon calcination and investment in the broader electricity network and renewable generation infrastructure. Progress will also depend on the availability and affordability of domestic gas, carbon pricing, supportive government policies and market conditions and adjust transition planning for Collie. Like Hillside, this is a multi-stakeholder effort, and we continue to work with the state utility provider, industry and other stakeholders to find ways to expand renewable power transmission capacity to the refinery. If I turn now to our Scope 3 emissions. As we have transformed our portfolio, we have reduced transition risk and contributed to lowering our Scope 3 emissions by around 80% since FY '19. In FY '25, our Scope 3 emissions were 58% lower than FY '24 levels. This was largely due to the sale of Illawarra Metallurgical Coal in August 2024 and improvements in the tracking of alumina and manganese sales together with updated emission factors. Our goal to achieve net zero Scope 3 emissions by 2050 recognizes our responsibility to contribute to the reduction of value chain emissions. For us, these emissions are predominantly concentrated in the processing of products we sell in our aluminum value chain. Over the past 3 years, we've learned that pursuing emissions reduction partnerships with suppliers and customers who are in different stages of decarbonization planning is challenging. In light of this, we have evolved our approach by setting 2 measurable objectives to engage with 80% of our key upstream suppliers and downstream customers with a focus on aligning decarbonization goals, improving climate-related data and knowledge sharing and identifying opportunities for collaboration to reduce emissions. Now to our resilience to climate impact. We started looking at the physical impacts of climate change early, publishing our first physical resilience analysis in FY '18. Over the past 3 years, we have built physical climate risks into our business risk management processes and moved from understanding physical climate risks to strengthening our capabilities in adaption and climate resilience. We are implementing a 3-year climate adaption and resilience plan to improve our present day resilience, strengthen capabilities for the future and continuously improve physical climate risk management. On present day, we are working with operational teams to improve the information tools they use in decision-making related to extreme weather and climate and feed what we learn into our insurance program. For future resilience, we will update our processes and upskill our planners, engineers and operational leaders to factor climate risks into daily decisions. We are also taking action to help our communities understand their physical climate change vulnerabilities, which can support more effective planning. And finally, before I hand back to Graham, in our first CCAP, we published our just transition guiding principles to support our decarbonization planning. The application of these is most relevant at Hillside and Worsley. Our focus is to further embed these principles into our sustainability governance documents, deliver on our social investment plans, which include investments in community climate resilience and implement the community-related components of our climate adaption and resilience plan, recognizing that the best outcome is to navigate this transition so that these operations and their surrounding communities can continue to prosper in a low-carbon future.

Thanks, Kelly. In conclusion, addressing the risks and opportunities of climate change has been central to our strategy since day 1. We're focused on repositioning our portfolio to critical transition minerals and metals, which has lowered our transition risk. We're investing to grow our base metals production in structurally attractive markets. We're advancing low-carbon solutions through multi-stakeholder collaboration while continuing to strengthen our resilience to physical climate impacts. As we look ahead, we're committed to transparently reporting on our progress and working with stakeholders to address the challenges and opportunities presented by climate change. Thank you for your time. We're now open for questions.

[Operator Instructions] First written question comes from [ Akaash Sachdeva ] from [indiscernible] Akaash's question is, the 2025 CCAP considers the lessons South32 has learned in the past 3 years. Based on what you have learned, what can we expect in the next period that will be different from what you've done so far? What does South32 need to do more or less of in the next 5 years to hit its targets?

Thanks, Akaash. I'll probably pass that one across to Kelly.

Sure. Thanks, Akaash. I think it's probably important to highlight that our approach from our first CCAP is broadly continuing. That is we continue to focus on the evolution of our portfolio to position it for the commodities needed in the energy transition, which also reduces our transition risk. We're going to continue our decarbonization efforts at Worsley through fuel switching from coal to gas as an interim step. As I mentioned before, we've done 2 boilers and have reduced emissions as a result. And we're looking at the -- we're studying the other 3 with the intent to move towards electrification long term, which, as I mentioned in our opening remarks, we're studying alongside an grant from ARENA. We will continue to pursue low-carbon energy and implement energy efficiency technology at Hillside. I think what's probably different or what we need to do more of is we've become a lot clearer on the importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration, and we're very focused on working with Eskom and the South African government to secure low carbon power for Hillside. And as I said, beyond the boiler conversions, the approach for Worsley is really to study steam electrification, which we're doing with ARENA, and that will guide our next steps. I will now hand over to the operator for any verbal questions.

[Operator Instructions] We're showing no audio questions. I'll hand back to Susie.

The next written question we have is from Michaela Jamison from Jarden Group. Michaela's question is, given that Hillside represents 60% of South32's operational emissions and the CCAP explicitly states South32 may need to reevaluate Hillside Aluminum's ongoing market competitiveness and strategic alignment if affordable low-carbon electricity isn't secured by 2031, what specific milestones and decision gates has South32 established between now and then? How is South32 balancing the significant social impacts of 2,500 direct jobs and 29,000 indirect jobs with decarbonization imperatives?

Yes. Look, I'll take that one. Thanks, Susie and Michaela. Look, I think it's a great question. If you think about the context of Hillside, a couple of points just to sort of pull out there. As pointed out in the question, it is a very large employer of people in that part of the region directly. It probably contributes close to over 2,500 direct jobs and roughly around 30,000 indirect jobs. But also on top of that, we sell about 30% of our product downstream for further manufacturing of parts, predominantly going to the auto industry. So that's a very big part of KZN the province in an area that is largely impoverished and high levels of unemployment. So we're very conscious as we think about that operation and how we run it. Today, we have a power contract out to 2031. And clearly, we've made a commitment to half our operational emissions by 2035, of which Hillside is 60%. So without a doubt, our single largest contributor to our emissions -- operational emissions. Look, in regards to the question of specific milestones and decision gates, it's important to recognize that there are 2 elements at play here with our impact -- which impact our business in different ways. The first is affordable electricity and the second is around low emissions electricity. It's important that we secure affordable electricity to ensure that the operation can continue, and we have been working through a variety of different scenarios on that. And it's a combination of economics and politics and our operation milestones are really driven by the timing of the current contract and our engagement regime that we have with Eskom and the government of South Africa. But also having a low carbon solution is about strategic fit. So while the solutions require a longer lead time, the decision points for us are also more flexible. If we get towards the end of our current agreement, which expires in 2031 and have secured an affordable secure electricity supply that isn't green, that doesn't necessarily trigger closure, but it will trigger a review of the strategic fit within our business, which we have had time to execute. It gives us an opportunity to think about our commitment if we decided to divest it, but it will also trigger a rebaselining if we made that decision. But I think, again, I'll come back to the important point I made at the start. There is a real balance here of considering the social impacts versus the decarb objectives. And for us, it's a lot about obviously our people and the community impacts. And for me, getting that balance right of affordable, reliable electricity that is low carbon is important for Hillside to continue to prosper and grow because that smelter could run for another 50-plus years. So just to sort of summarize in my decision -- in our decision-making, it isn't really about tension between decarbon community.

A second question -- written question is, while the CCAP provides detailed operational physical climate risk mapping, there's limited discussion of financial implications. Given the significant increases in extreme events projected for several operations, what is the estimated financial exposure from physical climate risks? And how is this being incorporated into asset valuations and closure cost estimates?

David, do you want to take that one?

Yes. Thanks, Graham, and thanks, Michaela, for the question. So whilst we don't yet need to disclose the financial implications of climate change with AASB S2 requirements only commencing for our next reporting period, we will be uplifting our disclosures on this going forward, and this is a focus for FY '26. Importantly, we're not starting from scratch. So we have data available, which we're already using to assess the physical risk of climate change and our insurers also provide an independent view of their assessment of this risk as well as assessing the effectiveness of our controls. So we already account for physical risks in our climate closure estimates, and these assessments will continue to mature as we progress these studies. In terms of how we assess the financial implication, we focus on those risks which are most material, which we analyze through the lens of the hazard and our vulnerability to it. Further details on how we assess physical risks are outlined in our climate-related risk methodology, which we published as part of our annual reporting suite.

Next written question we have is from [ Patrick Vertu ] from The New South Wales Treasury Corporation. What internal or external signals would prompt South32 to adjust its climate strategy? For example, accelerating decarbonization, revisiting capital allocation or escalating engagement with governments or suppliers?

Yes. Look, thanks for that question. And look, from our perspective, obviously, the world continues to change and evolve. As we mentioned, since the demerger, we've had a big focus of actually rebalancing our portfolio to the minerals and metals that we think are critical to that low-carbon future. And that adds 2 elements as we think the zinc, silver, copper, aluminum are all very attractive as the world continues that energy and decarbonization transformation. Particularly in those elements, the Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions or operational emissions are much smaller than what we've historically seen in refining and smelting of aluminum. So the first thing for us is to continue to move our portfolio in that direction. I think the second thing is we're going to have to continue to engage heavily both in Worsley and the Southwest of WA and in South Africa with Hillside with the governments as they both work towards the energy transformation, moving away from predominantly coal-fired, maybe gas is an intermediate product, but finally, what does it look like for an energy solution. In the Southwest of WA, while it's not Hillside, there are large community issues and there's a codependency on the coal generation at the moment that is used to power the West Australian grid. And obviously, as I mentioned earlier with Hillside, there's a function of managing the community employment expectations and working closely with Eskom about how they continue to push towards renewables on their network and the allocation of those renewables. So I think we have plenty of opportunities to manage these, but it's about close engagement with our communities, but also the various government stakeholders.

We have a follow-up question from Patrick Vertu from New South Wales Treasury Corporation. South32's first major decarbonization milestone is FY '35, but there is no quantified breakdown of how specific levers will contribute to the target. Given the uncertainty of the decarbonization of Hillside, Mozal and Worsley, how should investors measure the credibility of the decarbonization road map?

Look, it's an interesting one to sort of point out. I think the advantages we have is we don't have to spend a lot of capital in the short term, which comes with its own set of risks of execution. We also have time before 2035 to actually hit those targets. The key milestones I'd be looking at is, for example, for Mozal, can we secure another contract that is predominantly hydro driven that takes the smelter beyond 2030. And we'll probably know that in the next 6 to 9 months. The one for Hillside is a longer-term action plan. I would look at 2031 as the next key milestone when we sign the next power agreement to take us forward. But don't underestimate the team has been doing a lot of work with Eskom around things like nuclear options, but more importantly, lots of studies on renewable and how we could use solar and wind, in particular, with the combination of firming from Eskom to sort of give from Eskom to Hillside that renewable power source. And for us at Worsley, we've already made progress. I mean our major progress -- major element of carbon footprint there is around the boilers. We have 5 boilers that basically we use to generate steam. Of those 5, we've already converted 2 from coal to gas. And then we've already got options to convert the other 3 as we work with the government around transitioning out of coal, but more importantly, doing some work about what does the future electrification look like so we can move away from actual gas as well. So I think they are the milestones I think about.

Next written question we have is from Kendall Fraser from AustralianSuper. Could you explain why the CapEx on decarb for FY '25 was significantly lower than that of FY '23 and FY '24? What is the outlook for this in FY '26? And how is this level determined?

Look, maybe I'll get -- David can talk about some of the specifics of the spend at the moment, but I'd start by talking about, again, if you think about where the majority of our challenges are, 60% is basically in Hillside, then the next biggest piece is actually at Worsley. It's more about how do we convert those long-term power sources to more renewable sources. We are doing some work, for example, at Hillside, we spent money on energy efficiency by using what's called AP3XLE technology. We haven't quite finished that, and we're probably about 3/4 of the way through. And obviously, at Worsley, we've already converted 2 of those coal-fired boilers actually across the gas. But maybe, David, you can talk about specifics of dollars.

Yes. So certainly, in FY '25, we invested $11 million in capital expenditure but across the period of the last climate change action plan. So FY '23, '24 and '25, we invested $71 million. I think the key point that you've made, Graham, is in the short to medium term, most of our decarbonization focus is on Scope 2, which we're not pursuing to do that through our balance sheet, but rather through commercial agreements.

The next written question we have is from Mark [indiscernible] from the Public Investment Corporation. What specific infrastructure upgrades or resilience measures in South32 planning -- is South32 planning or implementing across its operations to address increased risks directly or indirectly from extreme weather events such as cyclones, floods, droughts and heatwaves. Could you kindly provide examples by site or region?

Thanks, Mark. I'll pass that one across to David.

Yes. Thanks, Graham. Thanks, Mark. Yes, probably one of the key risks that we do see is with our tailings storage facilities. So in terms of the containment breach or failure. So we've done a significant amount of work on those over the last 3 years to deeply understand the causal pathway to a failure and have done a significant amount of work to make sure that they do remain safe through extreme weather events and as climate change -- changes the hazards associated with those. The next second one is probably damage to infrastructure. And obviously, some of that is within our control and some of it sits within the value chain. So that within our control. We've also assessed the impact of extreme weather and the resilience of those -- so those 1 in 500, 1 in 1,000 year flood events, particularly. In terms of some of the infrastructure that we don't own that we use, we know some of that is vulnerable, and we've seen examples of that with cyclones in Queensland, for example, that typically do take out rail for a period of time. That will continue to be a risk. And obviously, our plans account for that in terms of disruption to infrastructure and the operators of those assets manage that risk and do a reasonably good job of that. Power supply disruption is another key risk that we have across our operations. And again, we have some controls that we are able to manage within the gate and then obviously, with providers of that energy outside the gate, particularly transmission lines and extreme wind events are one concern. And then obviously, exposure to bushfire is another risk that we see with transmission. And the final one that we manage is raw materials inbound is probably another example of the risk that we see. And again, most of our contractual commitments to procure that account for some of the risks that we're exposed to and then how we manage those stocks within our own operations such that we're not exposed to outages for the impacts to raw material supply.

There are no further questions at this time. I'll hand the conference back to Graham Kerr.

Thank you, everyone, for joining us this afternoon and for your questions. If you have any further questions, please get in touch with Susie. And again, thanks for your time today.