Grupo Mexico SAB de CV

BMV:GMEXICOB

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q2

[Operator]

Good afternoon, and thank you for holding, and welcome to Grupo Mexico's Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. With us this afternoon are all of Grupo Mexico's top executives, who will discuss the second quarter 2023 financial performance of the company, giving you a summary of the latest news and address any questions you might have at the end of the call.

Before we begin, I would like to remind you that information discussed on today's call may include forward-looking statements regarding the company's results and prospects, which are subject to risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially, and the company cautions not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Grupo Mexico undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. All results are expressed in full U.S. GAAP. The presentation may be followed through our webcast. [Operator Instructions] A copy of the slide that the company will be reviewing today is available on the website at grupomexico.com. [Operator Instructions] Now we'll begin with Ms. Marlene Finny.

[Marlene de la Torre, executive]

Hi, good morning, and thank you for joining us today for Grupo Mexico's Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Joining me today are all the top executives from our 3 divisions: mining, transportation and infrastructure division. As usual, during our call, we will be following the presentation found on our website or on the webcast.

So going to Slide #3. You'll find the content for today's call. I will start with Grupo main highlights, and I'll be going through our main ESG achievements, scorecard and financial highlights, then Mr. Oscar Gonzalez Rocha and Mr. Leonardo Contreras will be discussing and provide detailed information regarding our mining division and commenting on the industry's economic environment, the division to manage highlights and our projects. He will be followed by Mr. Isaac Franklin, who will go through the transportation division, financial and operational highlights. And finally, Mr. Francisco Zinser, will comment on the financial highlights and relevant events for the Infrastructure division. As usual, at the end, the line will be open for your questions, and we'll try to best forward.

Now going to the other main highlights in Slide 5. As you all know, One of the main points we have worked on is risk management. So we are very happy and very proud to announce that all the operating units of our mining division have successfully obtained [indiscernible] certification in environmental management and [indiscernible] in occupational health and safety is a huge milestone that we have reached and have planned to reach in 2018. Along this line, committed to safety and health have all been our top priority.

Therefore, we have invested over MXN 16 million in infrastructure as dedicated to the reinstatement of several level level profit in Mexico and over MXN 280 million in 2018 as part of our efforts to achieve [indiscernible] objectives and continue to protect the communities we operate in. Building on this, we are taking an important step towards the resolution of our responsible copper production to be in the framework of the copper mark certification.

Also in line our biodiversity effort is the 464 hectares [indiscernible] in the quarter that 10x reserves area impacted by mining operations during the same period. On behalf of this growth, we are committed to grated our historical environment footprint. Lastly, we are happy to mention that our rural drinking water and sanitation projects in Yacango Village in Peru were recognized successful by the state agency Pro Inversión. This project was done under the scheme of Works for Taxes.

And now going to Slide #6. Here, you can find the scorecard, which portrays our progress during the year. As you can see higher copper production in totaled 512,000 tons record metrics in the Transportation division and the great financial performance in our Infrastructure division, enable reached over $7.3 billion of sales during the first half of the year. This is a 5% decrease when compared to the same period of last year and roughly 8% above the same quarter of last year. Despite copper prices, be 10.6% lower than the first half of the last year and 11.3% lower than the second quarter of last year.

Our operating income totaled just $3 billion a 0.5% increase versus the first half of last year, while our EBITDA increased 3%, setting up $3.7 billion despite the 10.2% increase in our net cash flow by division, which ended the first half of 2023 at $1.6 per pound of copper. Even with this increase in our cash flow, we continue to be the copper producer with the lowest cash cost in the industry. During the board meeting, our [indiscernible] MXN 0.80 per share, which translates into roughly a 4% annualized dividend yield.

Moving to Slide #7. We combine the summary of our financial highlights in case you need to at any point during the presentation, go back to that slide [indiscernible].

And going to Slide #8, you can see Grupo México continued to have a solid balance sheet with low leverage and a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 0.4x. Our debt is mainly issued in U.S. dollars representing 76% of our total debt while the rest is denominated in the template, mainly in the transportation and infrastructure division. On this slide, you can also see the trend page from 2021 to 2022 and the respective annual quarried yield, which is an average of 4.1% so far.

As far as debt maturity profile on Slide #9, we continue to have a comfortable maturity schedule with no payments of over $1 billion until 2025. Our cash position ended the quarter at $6.5 billion. That was all from my side for now. If you have any questions, you can receive them in the Q&A session.

And now I will let Mr. Oscar Gonzalez Rocha and Leonardo Contreras comment on our Mining Division performance.

[Leonardo Contreras Lerdo De Tejada, executive]

Thank you, Marlene. Good morning, everyone, and thank you again for joining. As per usual, I will start with our view on the current copper market shown on Slide 11. During the second quarter of the year, the LME copper price decreased 10.9% from an average of $4.32 in the second quarter of 2022 to $3.85. And Comex fell 10.6% as well. We believe this primarily reflects the concerns about the impact of slowdown of China's economy, a possible recession in Europe and the soft landing or maybe even a light recession in the U.S. Current copper prices are at around $3.90 per pound, reflecting a less optimistic market than the last few quarters.

At this point, we see the following factors affecting the copper market, a reduction in global inflation, which may show the end of the interest rate hike cycle led by the Fed and the ECB. A strong recovery of mining production in Peru, which grew 9% from January to May of this year, reducing the uncertainty of current production, while Chile is still lagging with a 5% reduction in copper production for the same period. Expectations of economic changes in Chile and the social circumstances in Peru are still affecting investments for future growth.

These 2 countries represent about 40% of the global supply. The most relevant market intelligence houses for the copper market are now expecting a market surplus of about 100,000 tons for 2023, assuming a growth in demand of about 1% for this year. In regards to copper inventories, they stood at 235,000 tons, a 42% reduction from the 411,000 tons seen at the end of the last quarter. This is the lowest inventory level since 2005. It is important to emphasize that copper plays a leading role in the global shift to clean energy, which correlates positively with our assertion that the underlying demand for copper will be strong in the long term. In this scenario, we believe the current cycle of low prices will be short lease.

Now let's move forward to the Mining division's operating and financial highlights on Slide 12. The division's total sales for the first 6 months of the year totaled $5.6 billion, roughly a 1% increase when compared to the same period of 2022, despite the copper price reduction. Higher production costs and lower zinc and sulfuric acid byproduct revenue credits affected our net cash cost which ended the first half of the year in $1.16 per pound. Besides these pressures, we continue to be the cost leaders in the industry worldwide.

And going forward, our focus will continue to be in cost control as it has always been a key point in our business model. Our EBITDA closed the first 6 months of the year in $2.8 billion, a 2.8% decrease versus the first half of 2022, with a margin of EBITDA of 50.6%, reflecting the increases in costs. However, EBITDA was 9.8% higher compared to the second quarter of last year. We are happy to announce that our year-to-date production totaled 511,783 tons of copper, a 6.3% increase versus the same period of last year, led by our Peruvian operations which saw an 18.3% increase due to the normalization of the Cuajone operations and higher recoveries. Along these lines, production during the second quarter rose 9.2%, mainly due to a 20.5% increase in production in Peru as a result of higher ore grades at Toquepala as well as higher productions in Mexico and Asarco. CapEx totaled $550 million for the first half of the year.

As we move forward to Slides 13 and 14, we would like to share our project updates and highlights. Let's talk about, first, on our short- and medium-term projects in Pilares, which is currently operating and delivering copper mineral to La Caridad facilities, we have already deployed 74% of the investment. $131 million out of the total $176 million in the budget. This project will improve the ore grade when mixed with the La Caridad ore grades. As per our Buenavista project, which will allow us to double our zinc capacity as a 98% completion rate with the majority of $460 million already deployed.

We have initiated vacuum testing at the plant, and we expect to initiate operations during the month of August of 2023. As for El Pilar, the basic engineering has been completed and we continue developing environmental activities on site. The engineering project is being developed by top-ranked engineering and technology firms, and we expect it to be operational soon. Continuing with our long-term projects, we would like to talk about Los Chancas, Michiquillay and El Arco.

In Los Chancas, as of June 30, '23, Part of the project land continue to be occupied by illegal miners, 75 of whom have irregularly registered their stakes in the integral registry of mining formalization, [indiscernible] . The company has requested and the authority as order, the exclusion of these informal miners from the [indiscernible]. So they are now all illegal miners. The company has also filed criminal complaints and other legal remedies to physically expel the illegal miners from the project and -- and confiscated illegal land ore.

As per Al Arco, our project located in Baja California, Mexico, we have completed the environmental baseline study and we will proceed to submit the environmental impact statement to the corresponding authorities. The company is currently preparing studies for the port, power pipelines, downsides and auxiliary facilities. Lastly, in our Michiquillay project, as agreed with the Michiquillay and La Encanada communities, the company has begun contracting on skilled labor as well as pay for the use of surface land. We continue with the exploration activities Currently, we have 10 drilling platforms installed.

On Slide 15, you can see our robust pipeline of upcoming projects. I think having such a pipeline of organic growth really sets us apart to other copper companies. That will be our Mining division's highlights. If you have any follow-ups, we'll be happy to address them during the Q&A session.

Now I'll let Isaac comment on the Transportation division.

[Isaac Franklin Unkind, executive]

Thank you, Leonardo, and good morning, everyone. Let me start with the Transportation division and our highlights for the first half of the year, shown in Slide 17. As you can see, GMXT continues to achieve excellent results with most segments showing positive variations in both revenue and transported volume for the first half of the year. Our financials showed increases from top to bottom line, where sales, which ended at $1.6 billion, increased only 19.6% during the first half of 2023.

Along these lines, our accumulated EBITDA saw an improvement of 26.1%, hitting a new record, reaching $747 million with a 47.5% EBITDA margin, a 250 basis point EBITDA margin expansion. Net income totaled $232 million year-to-date. Transported volumes show an increase of 7.2% in tons kilometers and 0.5% in carloads when compared to the first half of 2022, with our automotive segment living with a bounce back of 36% in the quarter and a 26% accumulated increase. committed to continue generating value for our shareholders, our Board approved a $0.50 per share dividend.

Now let's continue with the main variation for the quarter on Slide 18. As I mentioned before, almost all of our segments saw positive revenue growth during the quarter. In relative terms, this order stock performance was the automotive segment, which saw an increase of 50% due to production increase market share gains and new import of Asian auto brands. The other segments, which saw double-digit revenue growth were cement with an increase of 18% where the revenue increase was due to volume growth from all major cement companies as demand in Mexico and the U.S. increased.

Industrial with a 14% increase as new rail car production continues to grow substantially, and we were able to materialize market share gains in domestic distribution for retail due to new box car fleet. Chemicals grew by 12% due to more competitive prices in freight of plastic resin versus Asia market share gains and higher volume of fertilizers in Topolobampo, thanks to the terminal expansion and the harvest season in Mexico. With medium growth and showing single-digit increases, we have the Metals segment increasing 7% due to increased import of flat for steel production.

The agricultural segment, where the import increase of corn and soybean help achieved a 7% growth and the Energy segment with a 5% increase as the import of refined products continue to grow. Lastly, the Intermodal and Minerals segments were the only laggard in revenue generation. The Intermodal segment was mainly affected by a slowdown in the retail in the U.S. translating into a 5% decrease which was partially offset by an increase in domestic distribution due to new capacity. The Minerals segment saw a 10.2% decrease, mainly affected by the shutdown of one of the batches producers of steel in Mexico and the maintenance shutdown of another of the major producers. Before I touch our operating metrics, I'd like to mention that the operating practices implemented by GMXT, which are aligned with the industry standards in North America have strengthened the competitiveness of our service.

Moving on to Slide 19. We show our operating metrics for the first half of the year. Our average strength be showed an increase of roughly 4%, reaching 332.6 kilometers per hour allowing us to provide an efficient and timely service for our customers. Similarly, 12x improved by 17%, decreasing to 21.4 hours. As a result, car velocity increased by 6%. Fragment and gross tons per train decreased 6% partially because of the change in traffic mix while crew starts increased 14% on a cumulative basis. Nevertheless, the efficiency of our train operation allowed utilization of horsepower per ton to improve 3.4% compared to the previous year.

In general, the performance of these indicators resulted in sound operating rates especially while showing 7.2% increase in volume during the first half of 2023. In the second half of the year, we will be focused on keeping our productivity levels and preserving the efficiency we have reached.

Moving forward, for our CapEx for 2023 shown on Slide 20. We expect to invest around $448 million, where $246 million will be invested in maintenance projects, such as rails and this and locomotive overhauls. $133 million will be invested in growth projects at the Pesqueria project intermodal terminal and the Jacksonville Sunbeam Double Track as well as the equipment to be able to capture increasing quality. $50 million will be invested in special projects such as the realization of El Mexicano Tunnel and the Celaya Monterey Bypasses. Lastly, 18 million will be invested in our efficiency programs, which include -- including truck equipment, construction and reconfiguration and yard reconfiguration infrastructure. This concludes the general overview of the Transportation Division.

I will now let Francisco comment on the infrastructure division. Thank you.

[Operator]

Okay. Go ahead, Triad, take yourself off mute.

[Francisco Gonzalez, executive]

Yes. Can you hear me this is Francisco speaking.

[Operator]

We can hear you now.

[Francisco Gonzalez, executive]

Okay. Thank you. Sorry for the technical difficulties. Again, thank you very much, Isaac, and good morning to everyone. I will continue today's call by going through the financial highlights of the Infrastructure division, which are shown in Slide 22. The division's solid performance has allowed us to generate outstanding results. Surpassing our expansions across all our different business units during the first half of the year, both compared to the same period of last year and better than expected results compared to our budget. .

Thanks to our continued commitment to operational excellence, improved cost efficiency in the Energy business unit, higher traffic volumes and tariff adjustments in our toll roads, daily [indiscernible] increases of our 6 drilling rigs, and the successful integration of our new real estate operations, our year-to-date revenues totaled $335 million, a 6.5% increase when compared to the first half of last year. Along these lines, our EBITDA reached $162 million, a 28.2% higher when compared with the same period of 2022. To finish this slide on an even better note, our net income totaled $37 million for the first 6 months of 2023, an outstanding 48% increase compared to last year. .

Let's move on to Slide #23 to talk about some of the most relevant tenant in the division. I want to start by highlighting for Perforadora Mexico's remarkable operational efficiency of 99.2%. Cost reductions and continuous improvements in profitability, which allowed the business unit to reach net sales of $102 million and EBITDA of $54 million, an increase of 34% and 57%, respectively. Our tolls roads business unit continued to show extraordinary results. where sustained growth in the daily traffic along with a tariff increase due to inflation, led to a substantial upswing in revenue, reinforcing the overall profitability of these units.

To conclude, I would like to proudly announce the successful integration of Planigrupo to our new real estate business unit, which was completed on April 19, and has led so far to the consolidation of $14 million in revenues and $9 million in EBITDA by the end of the second quarter of 2023. Year-to-date, the business has improved substantially recording a 20% increase in revenues due to higher rental income and an improved occupancy rate of 94.6%, very similar to pre-pandemic levels. Business Infrastructure division highlights.

Now I will let Marlene proceed with her closing remarks.

[Marlene de la Torre, executive]

Thank you. Thank you so much. Leonardo, Isaac and Francisco for your comments and everybody for joining us today. I hope today's presentation will please go on the timing of the most important events and general dynamic of our division.

Now we will open the line for a Q&A session.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question from line of Thiago Lofiego from Bradesco BBI.

[Thiago Lofiego, analyst]

Two questions. If you could please comment on the environment in Peru Mexico from a political regulatory standpoint? And also, bit about the relationship with communities. I think that the goal here of this question is trying to understand your growth pipeline, which is, I understand it's very robust, but it's more like longer-term oriented at this point. So how are those factors taken or playing out in your decision to actually decelerate or accelerate your growth execution. And then the second question is back to supply and demand. Other more specifically on the supply side. there are some projects ramping up in the next 18 months, right? So what would your view on the supply story for the medium term for copper. What are other factors that you have been looking at? And -- yes. So that -- those are my two questions.

[Raul Jacob, executive]

Okay. Thank you very much for your question. Regarding the social environment in Peru, what we're seeing it's a significant improvement since the end of Mr. Castillo's government in December of last year. We have had several intents by [indiscernible] to create an environment of unrest, and there has been not good. I mean they were not -- they were unsuccessful to be more proper.

Regarding our projects, we are seeing a renewed interest of communities in working with the company. In some cases, as in the Los Chancas project, what we're seeing is that, generally speaking, the police is currently helping the company to remove the 75 illegal miners that are inside the premises of the concession. That is something very positive, and we see a clear change in view coming from the police regarding this matter.

So I believe that the country is it's moving forward to promote private investments. As we are meeting now to the international in Peru and the President is giving her speech to Congress. Congress two days ago, appointed a new president, and it's the new presidency as the last one.

It's coming from the center to the right parties that have majority in Congress. So I believe that the country will move on towards a more peaceful environment and that is something that is very positive for us and particularly for our projects. In the case of the copper market, Well, I mentioned that we're expecting demand to grow by about 1% this year. That number has been reduced if we what we thought about at the beginning of the year, we were expecting a 2% growth in demand. Now it's 1%.

On the supply side, we are seeing a recovery of production, particularly in Peru and a social environment becomes more favorable obviously, the projects will have a much more better possibility. In terms -- in year-term, we're seeing now it's a significant drop in inventories. I mentioned a 42% drop at the Southern Copper conference and the same was mentioned by Leonardo Contreras a while ago.

We believe that current levels of inventories are extremely low. If you divide that by the numbers of days consumption, it's a very small and very limited amount of days that 2 to 3 days that you have in inventories. And I think that, that will give support to prices as long as the rest of the -- I mean, the major -- the 3 major economies of the world, the U.S., Europe and China are somehow leaving in recession territory are moving into growth.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Rafael Barcellos from Santander.

[Rafael Barcellos, analyst]

First question is about dividends and capital allocation. I just would like to understand the reason why you reduced the quarterly dividend this quarter. I mean copper prices remain at solid levels. The company does not have any other big M&A in the pipeline. So I just would like to understand the rationale behind it. And the second question is about costs. I understand that labor inflation remains high and the recent FX appreciation does not help your mining costs, right? But -- but could you please give us more detail on your expectations on cost into the second half of this year?

[Marlene de la Torre, executive]

Thank you so much for your questions. I will be answering the first one. And as you know, and we have always mentioned this, the dividend is revised during the work on a quarterly basis. So it depends on core generation, it's what we can spend in terms of CapEx and et cetera. And based on that, the Board decides on a quarterly basis to the dividend for the quarter. If you sit in dollar terms, [indiscernible] achieved the same amount as last quarter, but that's mainly a board decision. There's nothing else now.

[Leonardo Contreras Lerdo De Tejada, executive]

And this is Leonardo, Rafael.

[Raul Jacob, executive]

If I may I interject on cost?

[Marlene de la Torre, executive]

Yes, Raul.

[Raul Jacob, executive]

Okay. Regarding our mining division, what we're seeing is some -- well, in the case of the Mexican operations, the exchange rate is as appreciated significantly, and that is creating some cost increases, particularly in, as you well mentioned, labor. We are seeing, as I said in the Southern Copper's presentation, we're seeing better cost for explosives, running media and diesel as long as we are at the Peruvian operations because in Mexico, there were some subsidies that were taken away last year, and that has created a slightly increase in diesel prices. or Mexico as well tower. It's at a lower level now. And there are some significant savings in there because last year, we had -- since we import natural gas from the U.S., we had a significant increase in the price of gas.

Now our energy cost in Mexico has decreased by 18%. In the case of the Peruvian operations, we're seeing lower diesel costs by 6% and lower cost for Grinding Media as well as explosives as well. For the second half of the year, we are expecting to produce much more copper than the first half. And that plus the significant contribution of our byproducts in terms of volume, which will increase for silver, zinc in the second quarter -- in the second half, that will give us some support for lowering our cash cost in the second part of the year.

[Operator]

Our next question will come from the line of Carlos De Alba from Morgan Stanley.

[Carlos de Alba, analyst]

So I have three questions. The first one, maybe for Isaac. Isaac, could you please comment broadly on the impact of the agreement that the company reached with the government regarding the piece of rail track in Mexico, Southeast? Basically, what is NPV situation with exchanging a piece of track and extend versus extending the long-term concession? And also the short term, how much, if anything, material the EBITDA loss would be from losing that extension of your railway.

[Isaac Franklin Unkind, executive]

Jeff, thank you for your questions. Regarding the agreement we -- regarding the agreement with the federal government, but what's the most important thing is to continue to provide service to all our customers in that stretch of track. So what with the negotiated besides the concession and keeping the same conditions till the end of this concession and then giving 8 more years of concessions in the selling terms. What we have bid is tracked right and to attend each and every customer. And in terms of service, everything remains exactly the same as it is right now.

The only big difference is that all the maintenance of the truck will be in charge of the [indiscernible] and we will be paying traffic rights for passing and servicing. So in terms of service, everything will remain the same. We will continue to provide the service and generating revenue and EBITDA for this track. So we really are not expecting any changes regarding our service over there. And what we have 8 more years in all the Ferrosur's concession.

[Carlos de Alba, analyst]

Understood. And Leonardo, if you are back on the line, I would like to ask about the outlook for Asarco in the second half of the year and in 2024 regarding production and cash costs before by-products?

[Leonardo Contreras Lerdo De Tejada, executive]

Yes. Carlos. In terms of the next half, we're expecting for Asarco surround 60,000 tons of copper. And the cash cost should be around the level that we're in right now, we're at [ 273 ], we owned [ 275 ] at the most -- the next semester for Asarco.

[Carlos de Alba, analyst]

And any comments, Leonardo, thank you, on 2024?

[Leonardo Contreras Lerdo De Tejada, executive]

I think let me do the homework and by the next quarter, I can give you more details on that.

[Carlos de Alba, analyst]

All right. Fair enough. And then my last question, and thank you for accommodating the three of those -- of them for Marlene. But I understand what you heard what you said on the dividend, but presumably a transaction, the group was analyzing is not going to happen soon. And the company has accumulated a significant amount of cash in the balance sheet. So what would prevent the company to distribute this to shareholders, and I guess, avoid concerns that it might be used in a way that might not be aligned with all of the shareholders goals for the company or for that cash.

[Marlene de la Torre, executive]

I understand it is a very good question, but I really have nothing much more to add because it's a board's decision. We are -- it's a board's decision, and we into account all your comments [indiscernible].

[Operator]

Our next question will come from the line of Alfonso Salazar from Scotiabank.

[Alfonso Salazar, analyst]

So the question I think is for Isaac. And is regarding how we do envision the business of transportation, 10 years from now because of the implications of initial. So let's leave aside all the challenges that companies try to initial to Mexico as [indiscernible] , including water scarcity or potential shortages of clean energy in security let's say that everything moves ahead according to what we have seen so far.

Changes from now, how is going to change or evolve because of neon. And the question has to do because the fact that -- and if not the reasons why this is so take in press to be coupled with China, probably we're going to see less imports and less volumes coming to the ports in the Pacific, and there's going to be more gross board and traffic in -- with the United States. But just want to hear your thoughts on how you think this is going to materialize.

[Isaac Franklin Unkind, executive]

Thank you, Alfonso. As we were mentioning along this year's we have truck capacity and the ability to keep moving higher volumes. Our investments were focused on the origin and destination in which we which we know that we have opportunities to keep growing capacity in both in the origin and the destination because of all the efficiency measures that we have been taking along these years, we have the capacity in our lines to keep moving and to grow. What we're seeing is at least for next year, and regarding the new showing, they were announced around $35 million in foreign investments for new shoring for growing.

And as of them are located in our influenced regions in the states in which we provide the service. So what we are looking is to keep growing, we know that dollar traffic will be growing in the different segments, and we have the capacity. So it will be in terms of mix, also our average length of haul will increase since will be cross-border. So what we're expecting is to keep growing and investing according to the needs of the market and our customers.

[Alfonso Salazar, analyst]

Okay. But do you think it's going to move not your volumes and transportation, meaning closer to the border and most of the order instead of coming from the Pacific? Or how do you think that it's going to change?

[Isaac Franklin Unkind, executive]

No. What we're seeing is most of the investments are located some on the northern part but some in the center, maybe in the Southeast, you know the government has on development and social development for the Southeast. So it will depend where the facilities will be located where they may find all the utilities, electricity and gas and skilled labor. So what we are really seeing is that all over Mexico will be seeing some of these investments and -- and since we cover 80% of the country, we are sure that most of these investments will be located in the states that we cover.

[Operator]

Our next question will come from the line of Alex Hacking from Citi.

[Alexander Hacking, analyst]

I guess just one question for Raul. Raul, we've heard a lot of -- we've heard a lot -- sorry, can you hear me?

[Raul Jacob, executive]

Yes, we do.

[Alexander Hacking, analyst]

Okay. So I've heard a lot of large companies talk about how they're exploring new leaching technologies. I know that the potentially increased production. Do you have any initiatives on that front? I'm not sure how suitable your or stockpiles are for that kind of technology.

[Raul Jacob, executive]

At this point, nothing relevant to mention on this, Alex. We have been doing some tests with concentrators test plan. That's a very small one. This is more for to say a scientific kind of review, but that's -- it's not something that we're taking into our CapEx as a possibility at this point.

[Operator]

Thank you. I'm not showing any further questions in the queue. I'd like to turn back the call to our speakers for any closing remarks.

[Marlene de la Torre, executive]

Thank you so much today with us, and thank you for all your questions. can me anything else afterwards, please let us know, we will keep in touch, and I hope to see you in the next quarter. Thank you very much.

[Leonardo Contreras Lerdo De Tejada, executive]

Thank you.

[Operator]

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.