Antofagasta plc

So good morning and thank you to everyone. Welcome to our full year results for 2024. I think that we have announced today a strong set of financial results with rising margins and a balance sheet that supports an attractive balance of dividends and investment growth. So before we go into the details of today's announcement, and we will cover those, a few words on copper, which I think it's important. If we look beyond the sort of short-term instability, which is always, I guess, a feature in commodities, there is a general consensus on copper's role as the metal of the future. Copper is key to electrification and energy security, and we see strong drivers of demand ahead with new demand requirements such as AI data centers, supplementing record levels of spending on more well-established areas such as electrical grids and renewables. Despite this, the other side of the equation, global supply, is facing rising challenges. Copper producers face geological and technical constraints, rising capital intensities and permitting delays, as we know, and new deposits are simply not being discovered. However, at Antofagasta, our investment case is different. We are focused on copper. We offer a balance of both growth and shareholder returns. We operate in well-established and reliable copper jurisdictions. We also have a pipeline of projects that includes new discoveries and growing reserves and resources, and we will mention some of those in more details. And sustainability remains embedded throughout our business model. So those are the sort of key features that we have. So joining me here now is our CFO, Mauricio Ortiz, who you know, and our Vice President of Sustainability, Alejandra Vial. So as ever, we begin by looking at our safety record. 2024 was another fatality-free year, which is a record that we are proud to maintain. And we also closed out the year with record performance in other indicators of safety, such as our injury frequency rate. We also saw improvements in key leading indicators of safety with a close to 40 percent reduction in high potential incidents, which includes a high potential incident free year at Saldívar. So Saldívar had no high potential incident at all, which I think is quite an achievement. Through operating with safe working environments, we build value in our day-to-day operations, which is an integral aspect of our purpose of developing mining for a better future. So good, strong safety performance. Turning now to the key highlights for the year, we delivered robust operational and financial performance in 2024, which resulted in strong revenue and EBITDA growth. We're on track to deliver material growth through the projects that we have successfully initiated in 2024. And despite our investments in growth, we're also in a position to maintain our returns to shareholders with today's proposed final dividend for the year, which equates to 50% of net earnings. Looking at the copper market in more detail, we are at a key moment with rising demand and slowing supply, which will increasingly, we think over time, put pressure on the market balance. Growth in demand is being driven by well-established themes, which we've talked about in the past, electrification, energy security, but that is being super blended by new themes of artificial intelligence, data centers, smart grids, and battery technologies. On AI, we have seen news recently that has changed people's assumptions, which is not surprising given that this is an emerging industry. We simply were not talking about AI in the same way five years ago, and therefore our understanding will continue to evolve. The key here is that new technologies such as AI will provide rising corporate demand. With copper central to so many new technologies, it is easy to build a model of rising overall demand that is not just based on one single theme. By contrast, there is no wall of new supply on the horizon. Global copper supply is facing challenges. Output from existing mines is shrinking due to great decline. New projects are not being permitted and discoveries are not being made. A shift in the market balance is underway, one that will support pricing in the medium term. We're well positioned to meet this demand through our high quality assets and growth in our portfolio that we initiated in 2024. A few words now with respect to reliable copper jurisdictions. We have 40 years of experience operating in Chile. which has long held the top position as the world's largest producer of copper. Chile has long held an investment-grade credit rating. Previous discussions relating to the new mining royalty, which you will remember, have now been concluded. And this new system came into effect at the start of 2024. So it's behind us. Locally, growth is high on the public and national agenda, as it is the case in many countries, but very especially in Chile. And we have presidential elections due to be held in November this year. Turning now to our portfolio of copper assets, through a well-funded portfolio, we have consistently maintained our margins towards the top of our industry peer group. This is principally supported by Los Pelambres and Sentinella, which represent nearly 90% of our group EBITDA, as you can see from this chart, and underscore the importance of producing copper concentrate in today's copper market. we're actively pursuing a strategy to increase our focus on copper concentrates through the Sentinella Second Concentrator Project, which will further protect our margins as we grow our production base, and which is currently being built. Sticking now in this next slide to our theme of growth, here we can see how this differentiates us from our peers. As discussed earlier in the presentation, growth is rare in the copper space, with many major producers seeing flat or declining productions in the years ahead, or growth which is much back-ended into the future. We're, in our case, able to offer both copper growth because we've got projects under construction and a resource base which got the embedded resources to deliver increased or incremental production. And also a lower risk exposure, such as the location of our portfolio being in reliable jurisdictions. Our strong balance sheet and commitment to dividends, as well as the pipeline of projects that are already in construction today. This plus puts us in an advantageous position when compared to our peers, as demonstrated here. This graph shows the sort of increasing growth rate against decreasing country risk. And you can see Antofagasta well positioned in that space. So with that, I now want to hand it over to Mauricio, our CFO, who will provide more details about the financial performance of the company last year. Mauricio.

Thank you, Ivan, and good morning to everyone. I will now take us through the financial review for the year. Before we begin, however, here we can see Centinella's second concentrator project with construction work taking place in the grinding circuit. With this project, we will not only take a tangible step towards our medium-tier growth ambition, but we will also increase our margins thanks to the use of modern technologies and doubling Centinella's gold production. These attributes will help us to diversify our production base as well as deliver growth in one of the world's most established mining jurisdictions. Turning pages to our results. In 2024, we had a strong set of results. Revenue and EBITDA grew by 5% and 11% respectively, and our margins increased by 300 basis points to a strong 52%. our balance sheet remained robust, with net debt metrics remaining low, and this morning we announced our proposed final dividend for 2024. Through this strong performance, we are able to move into 2025 with a positive outlook and well-funded portfolio of projects in development. Before we move into a more detailed analysis of our 2024 financials, I would like to quickly review the progress made in financing our projects. The first point to note is that we aim to finance at the project level, as this helps to protect cash flows at the group level, which in turn helps to maintain our flexibility in our capital allocation framework. Each of our financing solutions are long-term, to mirror the life of our assets, competitive pricing, which reflects the quality of our assets, and we aim to utilize a diverse range of sources. This is how, in late 2023, when we announced the second concentrator project, we presented a funding solution that includes a four-year drawdown period whilst we are in contractual. an important consideration for modeling our cash flow in the coming years. In 2024, we issue a third corporate bond along with the water infrastructure outsourcing transaction. And finally, we expect to complete shortly a 20 years financing for Los Pelambres water infrastructure. So what we have on the screen is more than 6 billion in long-term committed financing to develop our growth portfolio. In doing so, we use a combination of financing solutions to move forward with confidence in our commitment to growth our business, alongside with preserving a strong balance sheet and delivering shareholder returns. To recap, through an innovative approach tailored to our needs, our financing strategy is a key enabler for our growth plans. In terms of operational performance, and as I mentioned earlier, production increased 1%, margin increased by 300 basis points, and our costs remain stable. On production, lower rates were compensated by higher throughput, thanks to the completion of Los Pelambres Phase I expansion, as well as operational improvement at both Antuco and Saldívar. We have maintained our costs in a competitive position in 2024, A key pillar of this was in part thanks to our successful results delivered by the competitiveness program. Along with the execution of our growth program, in 2024, we evolved our competitiveness program through an adoption of a new approach focusing on productivity. That means labor productivity, asset productivity, and inputs productivity. In 2024, The 248 million in savings achieved during the year came from a broad range of initiatives through a more productive and efficient processes. Moving to EBITDA, we saw EBITDA increase by 11% during the year and our margins increased to 52%. This growth was driven by a tight supply-demand balance in copper, a strong gold prices partially upset by temporary drop in shipments as bad weather rescheduled sales into 2025. It is also worth noting the impact of our associates and JVs as we see better results in Saldiva and the inclusion of our investment in Buenaventura for first time on a full year results. On our balance sheet, our metric remains strong with net debt EBITDA below 0.5 times And this chart demonstrates our ability to balance investment with a commitment to paying dividends, which is a core aspect of our capital allocation framework. And deep diving and explaining in detail our capital allocation framework. And as I mentioned before, a strong operating cash flow is one of Antofagasta's key attributes. And our 52% EBITDA margin is a clear demonstration of our ability to transfer positive metal prices into a strong EBITDA. The second stage of this process is to meet capital needs of our operations and shareholders with sustaining capital and our committed dividend, to which we have applied a very consistent approach over the years. We will use our strong balance sheet as we develop our growth portfolio, but this will be managed in a way that allows us to maintain our strong balance sheet at the time that we can also offer attractive returns to shareholders. Following this, we consider a range of external and internal factors, such as the outlook for copper, upcoming capital commitments, and our balance sheet to define the appropriate level of capital distribution in any given year. As such, we today announced a final dividends of 23.5 cents per share, totaling 31.4 cents per share or 50% payout ratio on our 2024 net earnings, which reflects our disciplined approach, providing the right balance between investment required for our growth phase and shareholder returns. And now I will hand it over to Alejandra, who will take us through the sustainability section. Thank you.

Thank you, Mauricio, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Sustainability is central to our purpose, which is developing mining for a better future. In this section, I would like to guide you through a few of the recent developments that demonstrate our commitment to sustainability. We understand the need to prioritize sustainability as this helps us to unlock value for all of our stakeholders. Through safe operations, community partnerships, and strong efforts to minimize our environmental footprint, we can realize the full potential of our workforce and operations. Moving to reflect on the sustainability highlight of 2024, we achieved a record year in safety. And I will tell you more on this in the next slide. We have target and ambition to signal our commitment to sustainability and demonstrate how we are progressing. In building a more balanced workforce, you will see that we are approaching 30% for female representation. In respect of decarbonization, we set new targets in 2024, having achieved our previous emission reduction target, subject to technical and financial evaluation of each technological solution for decarbonization. With our suppliers for a better future program, where we work with local suppliers to raise standards, we have also set a range of targets and metrics which we are tracking well against. Finally, water has been a key consideration for us, and we are in the middle of transitioning our portfolio to minimize the use of continental water. The second phase of work for Los Frelambres desalination plant is underway with the first phase in full operation since 2024. Both Centinela and Antucoya are already running on seawater. Saldívar is the final piece and we have submitted the environmental study that proposed to transition this operation across to seawater or third-party sources. Taking a moment to reflect on safety since 2024 was a record year. Ivan has already touched on the high level achievement here, but I would like to highlight a range of factors behind this result, which you can be seen in the left. Our operations remain fatally free, which is the most important result. Los Pelambres reduced its injury frequency rate by more than a third, and the transport division managed to achieve a 50% reduction year-on-year, which is a demonstration of the effective delivery of our approach to safety across our divisions. Focus now on Somos Choapa, which is our main program for communities engagement in the areas connected to our largest mind, Los Belambres. Here, we celebrated 10 years of this program in 2024. What is special about this program is our long-term partnership with local communities. Over the course of 10 years, we have been involved in more than 150 projects where we aim to generate value for local stakeholders by working with them directly to understand what they really need to help their communities develop. Shown here are some of the projects completed as part of this program, which has prioritized water availability given the ongoing drought in the Chihuahua Valley, as well as infrastructure projects and capacity building in healthcare, education, and sport facilities. And with that, I hand back to Iván, who will take us through the final section of today's presentation. Thank you.