Compañía de Minas Buenaventura S.A.A. (NYSE:BVN) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Q – Tanya Jakusconek: Royalty. Okay. That’s helpful. Thank you. And then if I could ask one more question. I am very interested in San Gabriel and what is happening there. And I see from the slides that you are — you’ve done quite a bit. You’ve got the bag that you’ve got to assemble, you’ve got the underground tunneling — the development of the underground ramp. And I guess it’s ramp on additional declines in levels. Can someone just walk me through, the second half of this year into 2025 again what needs to be done? And then Daniel for you, the last capital I remember on this mine was $450 million to $470 million. Can you let me know how much we have spent to date and when we’re getting this new CapEx number? Thank you.

Leandro Raggio: Of course, Tanya. Here with us is Renzo Macher, he can explain to you all your questions in San Gabriel.

Tanya Jakusconek: Thank you.

Renzo Macher: Hi, Tanya. So what’s coming in — hi– as you can see in the pictures and there’s great progress and it’s moving out of the way of the critical path. And we have started with all the complete placement. And we have the mechanical, steel and piping contractor on site. So we’re going to see a lot of advancement in that area. The underground contractor for development in the mine it’s already on site. So we’re going to see the first — in the next quarter we’re going to see the first mine development advancing. And the electrical and signal controller, we shall be closing that contract towards end of May, beginning of June. So you’re going to see all those three main contracts, which is pretty much all of them, the remaining big contracts, fully onboard, producing first area. Again we have this 98% of engineering and procurement. So it’s about managing this advantage in favor of deposits.

Tanya Jakusconek: Okay. So these three contracts are going to be placed, it looks like in Q2. So the concrete still the underground development and the electrical, right? These three are going to be placed in, or awarded in Q2 then you’re going to have all of that work, obviously, done Q2 onwards. And then when do we actually expect the mill to start to turn wet commissioning, dry commissioning? When are we expecting that?

Renzo Macher: We already have from those three contracts you mentioned, the concrete, mechanical piping, and steel it’s already signed and it’s running now. Underground is fine and we’ll be producing now, and electrical and signal is the one that we need to — we’re at the final stage of the bidding process. So it should be finished in May and awarded on May. Now in the pictures you can see that we are constructing the mill already. Foundations, the first foundation has been put. We’re going to be finishing construction towards the early second quarter of next year and that’s when the commissioning is going to start.

Tanya Jakusconek: Okay. And how long do you think commissioning will take? Is it like 60% of capacity for 30 days in terms of getting to commercial production?

Renzo Macher: Towards early fourth quarter we shall be.

Tanya Jakusconek: Okay. So Q4, it’s going to take you two quarters to go commercial.

Renzo Macher: Yes. I mean, we are very advancing. We’re going to be very advanced in construction, so we can start commissioning earlier for sure.

Tanya Jakusconek: Okay. Yeah, I should start thinking commercial in Q4. That’s when we start taking this through the income through revenue. Okay. And Daniel just for you, can I just get an update on the CapEx number like $450 million to $470 million was the last number I have. Maybe you can give me a little bit of an idea when a new one is coming and where are you seeing changes in this CapEx number positive and negative?

Daniel Dominguez: Yes, Tanya. We are still evaluating the total CapEx. We will have a better figure for the next quarter conference call. But we expect from the initial CapEx of $470 million, we expect around 10% to 15% increase. And currently we have been — we have already disbursed since 2022 until the end of last quarter, $220 million for San Gabriel.

Tanya Jakusconek: Okay. That’s great. And then I guess in Q2 someone can give me an idea about when you’re doing your development, how the development is coming in terms of costing for the underground as well? Thank you so much for helping me.

Leandro Raggio: Tanya, if I may pass the call to Aldo, he want to make a little more — give you a little more color about the sale of the Coimolache.

Aldo Massa: Hi Tanya. I want to clarify a little bit the time for the sale of royalty of Coimolache. We have time until July 15. If we don’t reach the price — the target price, we can go to the second phase and ask for a lower price first to new one and then to the interest in that volume. But the idea is to try to finish that sale during this year. But in the first stage, we have time until July 15.

Tanya Jakusconek: Okay. So, if I understand correctly, you have until July 15 in this first phase. If you do not get the price you want, then you go to a second phase. And how do you go back to new ones because new ones I think has the right to use that longer.

Aldo Massa: It’s a right of person fleet. It’s a little bit different, but we have to ask for a price of new one. If they don’t accept to buy at that price, we also can go to the market again. This is already done.

Tanya Jakusconek: Okay. Got it. Okay. All right. So, if we don’t get anything by July 15, then we’re going to Phase 2.

Aldo Massa: Yes. Exactly.

Tanya Jakusconek: Okay. Great. Thank you for the clarification. I really appreciate it.

Aldo Massa: Thank you.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, with that, we will be concluding today’s audio question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the floor back over to Gabriel Salas, Investor Relations Officer for any webcast questions. Please go ahead.