Ricardo Ramos: Yes. Ricardo Ramos speaking. First about Azure, we published, if I’m not wrong, yesterday — the day before yesterday, complete press release about that. I think we have nothing else to add is — as we said before, it’s a junior company in Australia. They have, among others, lithium projects in Western Australia, where we have, as you may know, our Mount Holland project. We today control close to 20% of Azure. We are the largest shareholder. And we had these confidential negotiations that are now public. And of course, we publish all the information available to the market about this negotiation. We have nothing else to comment about this one. Remember that the press release was yesterday or the day before, and you can be sure that as soon as we have information that according to the regulation we need to submit to the public, we will do it.
And that’s the most important issue that I want to say about Azure. About the other question regarding the conversation with Codelco, as we originally said, these conversations are confidential. Both sides, we decided to do it on very strong confidential basis. Our intention, as you may know, is to announce to the market as soon as we reach an agreement or the negotiations are terminated. Any announcement will be made at the time and in the manner considering in the current regulation. That’s for sure, considering the nature of the conversations. Anyway, what can I add is that the negotiations are being carried out in good faith. We continue to work very hard and with the support of expert advisers in the matters that are discussed, that’s for sure.
And as SQM, we expect that if we reach an agreement, this agreement should be positive for the country, Antofagasta region, the communities and of course, for the two companies.
Operator: Our next question will come from Joel Jackson with BMO Capital Markets.
Joel Jackson: Hi. I have a few questions. I’ll ask them one by one. Can we talk about volume in lithium? So 180,000, 190,000 tons this year, how much is coming out of carbonate Atacama, how much is coming from conversion of lithium sulfate in China? And then in 2024, when we think about you ramping to 210,000 by the end of the year, then the tons that you’re going to do in conversion in China, that’s incremental to that 210,000, correct? Up to 210,000?
Carlos Díaz: Hello Joel, this is Carlos Díaz. As explained in the release, our current production is between 180,000, 190,000 metric tons between both location amid Chile and China. And as you know, the production in China is from lithium hydroxide coming from lithium sulfate. It’s been produced in Chile, and we expect to produce this year around 50,000 metric ton, which if you convert to lithium hydroxide going to be like 25,000 of those. And an idea is to convert that in our plan in Sichuan and to do some probably with third-party producer. So combination of both production is going to be around 180,000, 190,000 metric tons this year.
Joel Jackson: So when you’re trying to produce 210,000 tons of carbonate by the end of 2024, did you add 25,000 of hydroxide or is there some cannibalization?
Carlos Díaz: Yes. What we’re going to produce in China is going to be incremental compared with what we’re going to produce in Chile, in spite of both are coming from Salar de Atacama.
Joel Jackson: That was clear, but we’ve had some questions on it. Okay. If I talk about lithium, lithium prices right now and — is it fair to say that your Q3 average selling price will have to be higher than Q2? Just looking at what spot prices did across the second quarter into now and the lag. So, is it — makes sense that Q3 average price would be higher than Q2?
