Rana Gruber ASA

OSE:RANA

Earnings Call Analysis

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q4

[Gunnar Moe, executive]

Welcome to this presentation of Rana Gruber's result for the fourth quarter and full year of 2023. My name is Gunnar Moe, and I'm the CEO at Rana Gruber. With me today is our CFO, Erlend Hoyen. We will now take you through our operational and financial performance, and you are welcome to use, at the end of the session, use the questions -- to send us questions during our presentation by using the Q&A feature. Questions will be answered at the end of the session.Last year was a good year for Rana Gruber. Many of our previous records fell as we performed well and took significant steps towards our strategic goals. In 2023, we reached all-time high production volumes with 1.8 million metric tons produced, and at the same time increased quality. The production in fourth quarter was strong, but marginally lower than the same quarter in 2022. The reduction was mainly because of a longer and well-planned maintenance stop in November with aim to increase our production capacity of magnetite. Combined with favorable realized prices, this led to the highest revenue ever for Rana Gruber both in 2023 and in the fourth quarter. In sum, high production and strong market generated an all-time-high adjusted net profit in 2023.Based on the strong performance in the fourth quarter, the Board of Directors decided to pay out dividends of NOK 4.27 per share. This involves dividends for 12 consecutive quarters and confirms our ability to create value for our shareholders. Finally, after the end of the quarter, we completed the analysis of the summer exploration drilling we performed in the Ortfjell area. The results were highly successful and based on the new data and extension in the -- of the open pit activities in the Ortfjell area by approximately 12 months is expected. This is good news as the operations there will continue in the same efficient way as we know from today.Now some words about HSE. I'm happy to announce that we had no injuries leading to work absence during the fourth quarter. Safety remains our top priority always, and we strive for continuous improvement in all part of our operations. As communicated last quarter, we are now finished with the risk assessment for small vehicles in the underground, and the first electric loader was delivered to Rana Gruber late December. Training of personnel is ongoing and production with trained personnel started in January. As mentioned, we continued the strong production trend from the previous quarters with 452,000 metric tons concentrate down from 460,000 metric tons in the fourth quarter of '22. The reduction was due to well-planned maintenance stop that was some days longer than the same in 2022, and the extension was related to the strategic decision to expand the production capacity of Magnetite.For the full year period of 2023, production volumes grew by 5.2% compared with the year before. We are satisfied with being able to slowly increase the iron content in our concentrate. In November, a full scale test of producing Fe64 was successful. I now would leave the word to our CFO, Erlend Hoyen, who will take us through the financials.

[Erlend Høyen, executive]

Thank you very much, Gunnar. We'll start off by looking at the revenue side. Our revenue reached all-time high, both in the fourth quarter and in 2023 as a whole. And the revenue for the fourth quarter amounted to NOK 620 million, representing a solid increase both from the third quarter and from the corresponding quarter in 2022. The increase is due to several factors such as high volumes sold, increased prices, the lagged price effects from previous quarters, as well as a weaker Norwegian currency and higher quality in our hematite product. The realized prices per metric tons was approximately 55% higher this quarter than in the fourth quarter of 2022.Regarding pricing, you can clearly see from the graph in the middle that the price for magnetite has historically been higher and more stable than the price for hematite. This is due to different pricing agreements for these 2 products, and they are also sold in 2 different markets. Some of the shipments from previous quarters has also been settled at higher prices than expected due to lower shipping costs. This is related to the shipments that were made to Asia.Cost, although we are monitoring costs closely, our cash cost increased to a total of NOK 243 million, which corresponds to NOK 537 per metric tons produced or approximately USD 52. Besides the general hit from inflation, the increase is mainly linked to upgrades of the production circuit as well as higher activity in all of our strategic projects. As you can see from the illustration in the middle, mining and processing, as well as R&D and administration costs are the main cost components in our cost base. We are continuously focusing on keeping cost down and constantly evaluating areas that we can improve on or manage in a more cost efficient way. To ensure stable production for our mine site volumes going forward, we have in cooperation with our contractor decided to continue operating in both our open pits throughout the winter. And this decision is based on the expectation of a stable cost per ton basis on the open pit volumes.Previous quarters we have been focusing our communication around adjusted net profit as this is the basis for our dividend policy. Another number which is also key is the EBITDA, which you can see was very strong with an increase of 113% to NOK 358.5 million in the fourth quarter. In the fourth quarter, the pre-tax profit was adjusted with positive NOK 66 million related to unrealized changes in the company's hedging portfolio, resulting in a adjusted net profit of NOK 226 million, up from NOK 158 million last year. This gives us an adjusted EPS of NOK 6.1 compared to NOK 4.26 last year. And by following our dividend policy, the Board decided to pay out the NOK 4.27 in dividends per share for the quarter. For more information about the adjustments that we are doing, please see the APMs in the appendix of the interim reports that we publish.Now let's have a look at cash flow. The total net cash flow from operation in the fourth quarter was strong and amounted to positive NOK 293 million. The deviation from EBITDA is mainly due to change in working capital. CapEx for the period was NOK 140 million. NOK 126 million of this was development CapEx, mainly related to the new mining level, assets to be used in the Fe65 project and the increased magnetite production circuit. The CapEx for preparing level 91 and the Fe65 project was a bit higher than expected for the quarter. This is a result of the completion of work in the subsequent final settlement with the contractor, LNS, as well as some extra needed modification to the processing plant. The remaining NOK 14 million in CapEx was related to scheduled investments in machines, building improvements, et cetera. Typical maintenance CapEx.Of financial activities, NOK 120 million was payout of dividends for the third quarter, and NOK 9.5 million was payment of principal portions of our lease liabilities. All in all, this gives us a positive change in cash for the fourth quarter of NOK 24 million. Then the financial review by looking shortly at our financial position. We still consider our financial position to be strong after dividend distribution for the third quarter. Our equity ratio is still at 50%. The change in equity ratio from last quarter is mainly related to the increased leasing debts that we are taking on related to our strategic projects, as well as changes in our hedging portfolio. And by the end of the year and quarter, our cash holdings was NOK 295 million.I think that concludes the financial section, and I will leave you over to Gunnar for his final remarks. Thank you.

[Gunnar Moe, executive]

Thank you, Erlend. We have now given you an overview of our performance in the fourth quarter. To sum up, the quarter was characterized by record-high product quality and high production sold to favorable prices. Our strategic projects is moving forward and are confident to reach our goals going forward. The strong net profit in the quarter leads to a payment of NOK 4.27 per share as mentioned earlier. At the entry of 2024, the European steel market remains weak, but activity in the European market is slowly picking up moving forward as several of Rana Gruber's largest customers complete extensive maintenance programs. Port inventory levels in China reportedly remain at the lowest in several years, which supports the positive trend from the end of fourth quarter. We have entered 2024 with optimistic expectations. Our long-term prospects look good, and our top priority is to advance our strategic projects while maintaining high production according to our safety standards.In addition, the development of our resources holds significant importance. Some weeks ago we received the confirmation that the Ortfjell deposit was extended by approximately 1 year. This provides us to develop a more cost effective production strategy and operation planning for the future open pit operations in Steinsundtjern. We are optimistic and excited to continue creating value to our shareholders, employees and the local community going forward.This concludes our presentation. Now let's look into the questions that is sent to us.

[Vegard Nerdal, executive]

Thank you, Erlend and Gunnar. We'll now answer questions sent in from the web. At the moment we have 3 questions, but please send questions if you have some or else we are available at the IR e-mail. I will start with the first question for you, Gunnar, "And can you elaborate on the significant findings from the Ortfjell area exploration and how impacts the Rana Gruber operation going forward?"

[Gunnar Moe, executive]

Yes, I can. As a serious mining producer -- mining company, we are always doing infill drilling in our deposits. And in the small deposit in Nordmalmen in the Ortfjell area, we did some more infill drilling, which led to an increase of the ore body from previous announcements. And this has given us 1 year extension of the operation in the Ortfjell area. And the result of this is that we can use a lot more time and more significant trials and investigations of the Steinsundtjern area, which will, sorry, which will probably reduce the future cost of the operations in the Steinsundtjern. So this is totally positive for the operations of Rana Gruber.

[Vegard Nerdal, executive]

Thank you. The next one goes to you, Erlend. "What factors have contributed to the limited production of magnetite?"

[Erlend Høyen, executive]

I would say that just on a general note, it's worth mentioning that we are mining a natural resource, so variations from quarter to quarter will occur. And our COO, Stein-Tore Liljenstrom, touched upon this in the Capital Markets Update that we have in November. So go check that one out. Besides the variations in the ore body and that we are moving into more magnetite-rich ore bodies, I would say that also in the fourth quarter we had this maintenance stop of the magnetite circuit, which one thing is to stop, the actual stop where none of the equipment is performing, but after sort of like a rebuilding in our processing plant, we -- the processing plant and the operators need time to adjust to new equipment to get at everything working smoothly. So those two factors combined.

[Vegard Nerdal, executive]

Thank you. I think this is the last one for now. "Why is the cash cost per ton currently high? And what measure is Rana Gruber taking to reduce it?"

[Erlend Høyen, executive]

One of the things that are impacting the cash cost is obviously the -- how much we produce. So we produced less in the fourth quarter than in the third quarter. That's one effect, if you compare to the last quarter, which was extremely good on a cash cost basis per ton. Another factor is the general inflation, as I mentioned in the presentation, but also we are having a lot of momentum in all of the strategic projects. The rebuilding has been mentioned, the electrification program and the risk assessments and all of the training that is in that area, training of maintenance personnel to cope with the new type of equipment. And obviously what we are doing is we are obviously monitoring the costs closely. And we are constantly looking at new KPIs and new ways to look at the business together with the operation to ensure and to work together with them, finding the best solutions. But it is a challenging trade-off with the steady base cost compared to the momentum and the speed that we need to have on our strategic project. It's a balanced line that we are trying to walk on, but continuously working on keeping unnecessary costs down and prioritizing what is mostly important in order to achieve our goals is always a top priority for us.

[Vegard Nerdal, executive]

Thank you. That was all the questions for today. But please don't hesitate to contact us on our e-mail, and we will answer the questions from there. The annual report and our sustainability report will be published at 21st of March, and our next quarterly presentation will be 14th of May. With that, I will leave the final remarks to you, Gunnar.

[Gunnar Moe, executive]

Thank you, Vegard. I would finally like to thank everyone listening into us on this webcast, and we welcome you back in the future. Thank you, everyone.

[Erlend Høyen, executive]

Bye, everyone.