Sociedad Quimica y Minera S.A.

Good afternoon and welcome to the SQM second quarter 2024 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. to withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Irina Axanova, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you for joining SQM's earnings conference call for the second quarter of 2024. This conference call will be recorded and is being webcast live. Our earnings press release and a presentation with a summary of the results have been uploaded to our website, where you can also find a link to the webcast. Ricardo Ramos, our Chief Executive Officer, will be speaking on the call today. Gerardo Yanez, our Chief Financial Officer. Carlos Diaz, CEO of SQM Solar. Mark Fons, CEO of SQM International Lithium. Philippe Smith, Commercial Vice President of SQM Solar. Pablo Hernandez, Senior Director of Business Strategy and Development at Esquirem Solar, Pablo Altimires, CEO of Iodine Nitrates, and Juan Pablo Biloglio, Commercial Vice President of Iodine and Industrial Chemicals, are also available to answer any questions. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that some statements made during this conference call regarding our business outlook, future economic performance, anticipated profitability, revenues, expenses, and other financial items are considered forward-looking statements please note that the same cautionary language used in our press release and presentation also applies to this call. And now I will leave you with our Chief Executive Officer, Ricardo Ramos.

Thank you, Irina. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Before diving into the key drivers behind our results, I would like to highlight an important milestone we achieved last quarter. As mentioned in our earnings release, We are very pleased to have entered into a partnership agreement with CODELCO to jointly operate the Salar de la Cama until 2060. Based on the principle of private-public alliance, we believe this agreement is a pivotal moment for both SQM and for the future of the lithium industry in Chile. While there are several conditions precedent for the partnership to become effective, together with CODELCO, we are committed to ensure that these conditions are met by the first half of 2025. We're looking forward to working together with Codelco to operate the most sustainable lithium operation in the world based in the Salar de Atacama. Our second quarter results were positively impacted by a strong volume growth in all our major businesses, supported by a strong demand growth in their respective markets. We reported record sales volumes in lithium and iodine businesses exceeding 52,000 metric tons and 4,000 metric tons respectively. We anticipated solid growth in the lithium market this year, driven by a strong EV performance mainly in China. Demand growth in the iodine market this year exceeds our expectations. We expect this trend to continue for the remainder of the year and believe that our iodine volumes could exceed 14.5 thousand metric tons this year, marking 2024 a record year. While our average realized price in the lithium business improved slightly in the second quarter compared to the previous quarter, we have seen lithium prices decline since the beginning of July. As most of our contracts are linked to price indices and our average prices follow the prevailing market prices, we believe that our average selling prices in the third quarter could be lower than in the previous quarter, given the current price environment. We are convinced that most of the greenfield projects are not profitable. While we continue with our previously announced capacity expansion projects, we're also reassessing the attractiveness of certain market and initiatives in their current price environment. We believe our lithium sales volumes in the second half of the year could be similar to those reported for the first half of the year, with a potential upside should the market conditions improve. We recently formed SQM International Lithium to develop our lithium business outside of Chile. Its primary objective is to leverage the lithium assets and expertise we have in exploration, project development, mining, and chemical operations to expand our lithium portfolios overseas. Thank you, operator. We'll now go open to the line of questions.