Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to welcome you to Boliden's Q4 2025 results presentation. My name is Olof Grenmark, and I'm Head of Investor Relations.

Today, we will have a results presentation led by our President and CEO, Mikael Staffas, and our CFO, Håkan Gabrielsson. We will also have a Q&A session, which we will start here in Stockholm.

Mikael, the stage is yours. Welcome.

Thank you, Olof, and good morning to everybody from me as well. We in Stockholm here, a very crispy morning.

When I woke up this morning, it said -15 degrees in and outside of my bedroom window. Today, we will give the presentation of the Q-report, but we will also touch on the R&R statement update that we've also issued this morning.

Generally speaking, for Q4, there's been a very strong metal price development. Everybody knows about this, and of course precious metals has been really rallying during the quarter.

At the same time, we've had a negative development on prices and terms, but that has in relationship with, of course, a much smaller movement. Excuse me.

We have a continued strong mine production. In Aitik, we have been stripping very very hard for quite some time, and we're now happy to say that we're in some way catching up on the stripping debt that we had before.

We're also happy to say that the grades are going up in Aitik and have now started on their journey on going upwards. Apart from Aitik, we've had generally lower grades in mines.

To some extent, this is maybe slightly more than we had expected, but part of this was already in our guidance that we've had before. We had a stable production in smelters, very pleased with that in general.

We had a one-off positive of 410 million linked to summing up of taking care of the metals in Rönnskär in the fire. As we had the fire, metals in the tank house was going down into the ground.

Now we have during this quarter done a summary of that and where we're actually standing, and we have been able to recognize this 400 million positive effect. The dividend has also been recommended by the board.

This is fully in line with our dividend policy of 1/3 of net profit, and it amounts to 11 kr per share. We also have a very positive R&R development.

I'll get back to that in a little while. The financial performance in general, a little bit more than 4 billion Swedish kr in profit.

It's the third-best profit in the history of Boliden for a quarter, which is good. We do have the positive 410 one-off, but which is much lower than what we had last year in that comparison.

The free cash flow, also quite healthy at 2.7 billion Swedish kr, despite record-level investments. We've had a favorable development of working capital in the quarter.

The CapEx, as I said, according to budget, but on a high level. On the key projects, on the Odda project, there's not really much more to say compared to what we said when we issued the guidance for 2026.

We are right now in the middle of commissioning, and it's going so far well. We have started to deliver some of the Odda leach product, actually as the first deliveries.

These are very small scale delivery so far. The Rönnskär tank house is on track and ramping up during the second half of this year.

The Boliden Area tailings management is also on track. The early part of the Garpenberg expansion, which is the paste project, is also moving on according to plan.

We have been also getting, which we were hoping for, to get the environmental permit for Garpenberg. It has been appealed, the appeal process will be launched here going forward.

On the ESG side, we're also quite positive with the development. The greenhouse gas emissions are going in the right direction.

You always have to point out that when you look on the graph here to the right, and also on the comparison number, that we have not restated any previous numbers with the acquisition of Zinkgruvan and Somincor. If you were to take that into account, this is looking much better.

The lost-time injury frequency at 3.6 is a very good number, even though it was even better last year. This also means that we're ending up the full year of 3.6, which is I think the best year in the history of Boliden.

Sick leave continues to move in the right direction. We're not quite back to pre-COVID levels, but we're approaching coming back to pre-COVID levels.

On the market side, and I think this slide that shows it all, and everybody wants to discuss that, yes, we've had negative currency development, and you see that on the little graph below, the bluish graph. We've had relatively weak TCs for zinc and for copper on the spot side.

We had copper or metal prices that have more than enough outweighed that, especially the precious metal, gold and silver, but also relatively strong copper and also slightly at least lately improving also zinc prices. If you look at this on the cash cost, and I think that this, if there are any time maybe you should not look too much onto this graph is right now, because it will be lots of discussion with the people who make this one and the source of this information exactly how they will account for the precious metals in this.

Because with the big increase of precious metals, as is most of the zinc or copper mines in the world have that as a byproduct as a credit means that cost will go down. You see here in the assessment for '25 that costs are down, but I will not be really responsible for exactly how this has been counted.

It's not that the zinc mines in the world are getting so much better at managing cost. It has to do with the silver price going up, and the same thing with the copper mines in the world not getting better in managing the cost.

It's the gold price that is going up. If we look at our own production, once again in Aitik, we've had a milled volume around what we guided for.

The grades have improved versus Q3, and we had a strong total mined production with very good stripping in the quarter, which is going to help us going forward, especially to work with how to get around the diorite issue, where we will get more potential positions to work from. In Garpenberg, I think this is the second-best quarter ever in terms of throughput.

Grades are lower, but that's also according to plan. Kevitsa, stable production and capacity, lower grades, also according to plan.

Somincor, quite a strong, improved operational efficiency we've seen during the quarter. Tara continues with the ramp-up.

In Zinkgruvan, we had good production, slightly lower zinc grades this quarter, also nothing to really look into long-term. It's more or less according to plan.

On the smelter side, it's been generally good production, especially on the copper side, good production in Rönnskär with high free metals, good production, actually record production in Harjavalta in terms of copper cathodes, high silver production. Kokkola slightly lower.

We've had some process disturbances during the quarter, maybe not much. Odda is continuing to doing well in one way, but of course also struggling operating a zinc smelter right to major construction activities.

Bergsöe had some planned maintenance in the quarter. Otherwise, everything went well.

With that, I will give over to you, Håkan, to talk about the numbers.

Thank you. Good morning.

As Mikael said, we are reporting an operating profit excluding process inventory of 4.1 billion, which is clearly above the comparison periods. I think it's also worthwhile to look at the operating profit then including process inventories, which is at 5.8 billion, a substantial increase to the comparison.

That's of course due to the stronger metal prices and the big part precious that we have in the process inventories. This leads to an earnings per share of 15.31, which is a 40% increase compared to last year.

On this slide, you also see a high investment number. We do have high CapEx, which is completely in line with the guidance, and all in all a strong cash flow at 2.7 billions.

Looking at the profit by business area, you can see that Mines has had a really good quarter, of course helped by the rally in gold and silver, and also strong copper. Smelters is also clearly up compared to Q3, and there are a few reasons.

One is the the one of recovery adjustments that we talked about already in December, but also also smelters are are much helped by stronger precious metal prices. We also have slightly less maintenance in Q4 compared to Q3.

If we then dive into the analysis of of profit quarter-on-quarter here, and start with the one comparing Q4 of this year, or sorry Q4 of 2025 to Q4 of '24, looking one year back, much is about adding the acquired units. It will come back in many of the lines here.

We can start with prices and terms, where we've seen a strong improvement. Metal prices, if we only look at the metal prices isolated, contributed by about 2.5 billion compared to the same quarter one year back.

Then it was then offset by a lower dollar and lower TCs, landing at the plus of almost 1 billion. All in all, a good development.

Volumes, up 1.5. That's mainly the new mines and also Tara that has been ramping up.

It's a little bit offset by weaker grades, above all in the Boliden Area and Garpenberg. Cost, same things.

It's an effect of the acquired mines and the restart of of Tara. If you back out those parts, we're roughly flat with the same quarter last year, we we do not see much of an inflation at at this point in time.

I I think, yeah, we can also comment the items affecting comparability. We had fairly We have insurance incomes, and we have recoveries in Rönnskär, and that is further specified in the report.

If we then move on and look at a sequential comparison, Q4 to Q3, you can again see the the the big impact of stronger prices. That's primarily silver and copper in this comparison, but also gold.

Volumes though is a bit down, and we talked much about Q3 being a very strong quarter with some records in it. We have slightly lower production in mines, both throughput and and and grades, with the exception of Aitik, where grades is starting to move in the right direction.

Costs, they are seasonally higher. We see a pretty strong seasonality.

As I mentioned, compared to last year it's it's roughly flat, but we do have higher costs in Q4 than Q3. It's seasonality.

We spend a bit more on on external services. Also due to the strong development of prices, we had to increase our provisions for profit sharing and similar in Q4.

Moving on then to to cash flow, well, we've talked about the strong earnings, EBITDA. We talked about investment being in in line with guidance.

We also had a good quarter in working capital. Typically, what happens when prices go up is that we tie more capital.

Each ton of inventory has a higher value and so on. Regardless of that, we've been able to release working capital also in this quarter, which is the third consecutive quarter with a positive number in here.

All in all, we're happy with the cash flow. That's, with that cash flow and with that with that price development, it sums up in a in a strong balance sheet.

We have a net debt to equity now down to 20% as a result of this good development. A strong balance sheet and and a robust financing to support that.

This is also a time when we look a bit at the full year numbers. This year we reached an operating profit excluding process inventory of 10.7 billion.

It is down compared to last year, but then last year was very much boosted by big insurance income. Adjusting for that, it's it's it's a step in the right direction.

Prices and terms has a positive impact. Volumes are up.

Of course the acquisitions and the restart of Tara is an important part of this. All in all, it has been a good year.

Looking at Mines, you can see the the profit, the EBIT for each one of the mines. A couple of ones that I'd like to highlight is the the Garpenberg mine, really strong performance with an EBIT of 4.4 billion, of course helped by good silver prices, but also by a good operational year.

Also, the Boliden Area, which is, showing an impressive result of just over 2 billions. That is, another good year, and again good operational performance, but also good prices on gold in particular helps the Boliden Area.

2.5 billion profit is is great. We don't disclose the return on capital employed, but of course it's a fantastic number for a for a site like Boliden.

I'd also just like to highlight that in the Somincor and Zinkgruvan numbers, the depreciation of the overvalues following the the acquisition are included. Looking at an EBITDA level and extrapolating to a full year, it's within the range of what we guided for for these two mines.

Smelters, a year that has been to some extent characterized by by low treatment charges. Still, we arrived at 3.7 billion, down compared to last year due to the one-off insurance income we had last year.

Has been some some pressure on prices, but the gold and silver has compensated that, especially in in in the copper smelters. Harjavalta delivering a result in excess of 1.5 billion, and Rönnskär with a 1 billion profit, which is, really good number considering that we still don't have a tank house on that site.

The zinc smelters are suffering a bit more with Kokkola coming down, and Odda having a a negative result due to the prices, but also due to the expansion project having a slight negative effect on on on the daily production. I think this is also an effect of not being able to recover silver, which we cannot today in Odda, and it it underlines the importance of the project that is currently ongoing.

With that, I'll hand over to Mikael.

Thank you, Håkan. Now, we've had some technical issues with my microphone.

Hopefully, now it will work, and here. As I said in the beginning, we also released today the R&R statement, and the R&R statements in my mind looked very very strong and very good.

General exploration, we spent a little bit less than 1 billion Swedish kr on this during the year. It is areas that are familiar to you.

It's close to our existing operations, apart from the fact that we're working on early exploration in Canada, which is new geography to us, we are mainly working within existing geographies. If you then look at the actual reserves updates at the end of 2025, well, we have increased reserves in the Boliden Area.

We have in Somincor, in Tara, and in Zinkgruvan. This is mainly due to improved price assumptions.

Here, now you have to be kind of careful, because these are price assumptions that were set in the beginning of 2025 for doing the calculations during 2025. They were slightly better than the ones that we had in the beginning of 2024.

They are nowhere close to where we are today on spot prices. These are still, with today's prices, extremely conservative, but they're slightly more aggressive than we were a year before.

When you do that, you get bigger better volumes, but typically you get lower grades, because you will incentivize mining from lower-grade areas. Now what is great this year is that we have this increased volume and we do not have lower grades.

That's mainly due to successful exploration that fills in this whole gap in a very good way. Then we also of course had lots of work during the year to transfer Zinkgruvan and Somincor into both the PERC standard and into the Boliden way of reporting within PERC.

That's of course a process where lots of people have done lots of work, but it's nothing strange that has come out of that work. If you then look at that, you can see that Aitik, we do not have a new update for reserves, reserves are still ending up in 2048, which is a year shorter than last year.

As I said, we have not had an update of the optimization for the reserves. The Boliden Area, very strong updates, now extending to 2036 from 2033, a three-year addition in the Boliden Area, and it looks good.

It's all three mines that are contributing to this. Garpenberg, on the reserve side, it is continued very good.

We'll come to the resource in a while, it looks really good. Kevitsa, nothing new happening.

We're working with the pushback number four, which means there's a 2034 end of life of mine. Somincor, partially because of the different ways of counting and doing, all the official life of mine is now 2036, which is already a year or two better than what we said when we bought it, and much better than what Lundin reported before.

Tara is adding another two years of reserves up until 2032, and Zinkgruvan also increasing of 2.5 million ton, which is then also makes that we come up to 2035. Then to the right in the exhibit, you can see the 10-year development, and you can see here after 10 years of really hard working in the Boliden Area, we managed to increase the life of mine from about 9 to now over 10 years.

It's the first time I think in ever that we have Boliden over 10 years, and Garpenberg very strong development close to 25 years life of mine. If we then look at the resources, we can see that in the Aitik area, we have both indicated resources and inferred resources going up in Aitik itself.

Additionally here, Nautanen now coming in at if you add these two together, at over 50 million tons of indicated and inferred together, which means that this becomes enough to really warrant a deeper look into actually making a project out of this, given the high grades that we have there. In the Boliden Area, despite the fact that we have had the resource conversions into reserves, you had the three-year extra reserve side, we still have more resources coming in at the Boliden Area from very successful exploration during the year.

In Garpenberg, we have all together about 25 million or 30 million more tons of resources coming in. We are then adding up the amount of tons in the resource together, we're getting close to 150 million tons.

This is getting large enough that, as I said to some journalists this morning, is kind of absolutely wrong not looking into expanding the Garpenberg mine with the, once again, very successful R&R update that we had. Somincor, here you have to be careful about the comparison numbers, because we're truly comparing apples with oranges, you need to be careful with that.

As I said, the Somincor looks relatively good. Tara looks relatively good, and Zinkgruvan looks relatively good.

All in all, what I feel is a very strong R&R update. Outlook for the coming year: no news whatsoever.

This is exactly the same as we said in December, there are no news. The only little news there is is that we are right now, as I'm speaking, experiencing very heavy rains in Portugal, and we've done that all through January.

That has caused issues for us in water management. We're far from alone.

I think everything in Portugal is affected by these rains. It's of course very unclear what will happen in going forward in the rest of the quarter.

We don't know the exact weather. Therefore, it's very difficult to say exactly how much this will impact in Q1.

Our estimate as of today is that it's not going to impact more in Q1 than that we're going to be able to keep the full-year guidance for Somincor. It's mainly the mill that's affected by this, not so much the mine.

As in Somincor, it is the mine that's the bottleneck and not the mill, we should be able to catch up over the year what we lose potentially from having to stop because of water issues. With that, I will invite you all with questions.

Ladies and gentlemen, that opens up our Q&A session for the Q4 2025. I've been informed that we have many questions on the web, I'd kindly ask you to have one question at a time at this occasion.

We'll start here in Stockholm, and we have Caleb Solomon, SEB, please.

Yes. Thank you, Olof.

You mentioned in the mineral resource report that the Finnish mining tax for Kevitsa wasn't factored into last year's reporting. Can you give some color on to what sort of extent you expect that cost increase to impact resource estimates?

In terms of the reserves, it will not impact at all, because that's the pushback number four. In terms of the resources, I cannot tell.

Okay. The recoveries at Aitik were pretty much back to normal levels, close to 90% this quarter.

Is it fair to say that the sort of recovery issues are completely behind you?

Yes.

Thank you.

Johannes Grunselius, SB1 Markets.

Thank you. I have a question on Odda and what you see there for the coming quarters.

I think you have guided for EBITDA uplift of €150 million or something like that. Can you give some color if that's intact and what you see for the coming quarters in terms of sort of tailwind?

I don't have a good number. Maybe you do, Håkan.

The 150 for an annual number, I say as of right now is quite understated, given the high silver prices. The uptake should be bigger than that, but I don't have another number to give you.

I would say that as of right now, the 150 is actually pretty conservative. Then that's for the full-year status, and of course it will not have full-year production in 2026, but maybe 3/4 of full production, something like that, if now we continue with the ramp-up during Q1 as guided.

You feel comfortable about the ramp-up where you are at the moment?

The ramp-up is going more or less according to plan. As of yesterday, we went up to to full year to say 24/7 manning on this one.

Now we're basically running the the the process all together. We haven't started feeding concentrate yet, but it's going forward the way we're anticipating.

Understood.

Christian Kopfer, Handelsbanken.

Thanks, Olof. It was a quite solid result.

If I look at the production, especially in the mines for Q4, correct me if I'm wrong, but seems like you didn't live up to your own expectations in the mines in full. If you look in full for Q4, if I'm wrong, you can just tell me.

If I'm right on that, from your perspective, was it, call it more normal hiccups, or how do you see it?

The mined production, the grades, apart from Aitik, are slightly lower than what we had expected. It's a you can say grades issue, and I would say this is all timing issues.

It's nothing that we have that will matter in the long time. The throughput was around where it should be.

It was something in Kankberg, no? The gold mine.

It seems like you came down quite a lot on gold in Kankberg. What was that, normal hiccups or?

No, I think it's mainly a lower part of Kankberg in the total ore mix, and that goes normally up and down. There was nothing wrong in the actual.

By the way, I didn't say that, but in the R&R statement, the reconciliation is also done this year. The reconciliation looking for all of '25, compared to what the R&R statement had for '25 and what we had in our plans, is clearly within tolerances.

All right. Finally for me then, for Håkan, if everything's flattened out, what would you say is the internal elimination, call it reserve, or what you will get back in internal elimination if everything flattens out?

That's an interesting question, because it depends where it flattens out. It all depends to prices where they stand compared to year-end.

I think that we have, let's say, a couple of hundred to release at constant prices. Then we'll see where the prices take us, because that has a big impact.

All right, thanks.

Igor Tubic, Carnegie, please.

Thank you. I just want to go back to the production for the full year, because looking at your numbers, primarily for Aitik and Tara, you guided for 40 million tons, and you reached slightly above 39.

For Tara, you reached slightly above 1.4, and you guided for 1.6. Looking for 2026, you have guided for increased numbers.

Can you please elaborate a little bit around that so we understand what you are doing in order to improve the ore milled?

In Aitik, why we are not close to the 45 is because of diorite issues that we've had in the ore. Diorite is not going away overnight, but we will have less diorite, and that's why we can go up to the 41 that we have guided.

In Tara, it's a more complex situation. It's a new organization.

It's a new setup after we restarted from having been in shutdown, and we have not been able to achieve the productivity during the year that we had anticipated. We were also late in getting some contractors in.

As we look for 2026, that looks better, and therefore we feel confident about what we have guided about.

Thank you.

The second question, have you seen any pre-buying among your industrial buyer customers?

I actually don't know. I'm looking at my CFO.

No, I'm not aware of that. I don't think we've seen any of that, no.

Thank you. Any more questions here in Stockholm?

Operator, then we hand over to the international questions, please.

Good morning. Good morning, everyone.

A couple of questions from my side. I'll do them one at a time.

Firstly, Mikael, on the Odda project, you sound as if you are quite satisfied and happy with the progress of the project. Do you mind giving us a bit more color how you expect the earnings to be phased over the course of the year, the earnings uplift from the project, and what would be the approximate mark-to-market earnings uplift on spot commodity prices, because clearly things have moved quite a lot since you've given the estimated uplift?

That's my first question.

On the mark-to-market on spot, I may look at my CFO for that number, as I just said before, I actually don't know. The other questions around when I feel it's going to come, well, I think that we should be in full production by the end of this quarter, and therefore you can say that we should get roughly 75% of this during the year as a whole.

That would be a number on kind of how the timing will work out.

Regarding the spot level of the uplift, I think we leave it at the level where the 150 is understated. We did a simulated performance this Friday or last Friday, and just in a couple of calendar days the whole price environment has changed quite a lot.

For that reason, I'd rather not give any exact forecast. We leave it at the fact that it's understated, that the 150.

Understood. My second question, it's a high-level question on both Somincor and Zinkgruvan.

You seem to have extended the remaining life of mine with the latest R&R update, as you've also just articulated. Now, how are you thinking about the medium-term capital allocation to these two mines?

Are there any big-ticket items that may be needed to ensure that the life of mine is actually extended to the mid-2030s, as you're planning to do? Thank you.

Somincor will need a ventilation shaft to put in relatively quickly. I don't know exact number, that is still relatively modest CapEx, but it's there.

For Zinkgruvan, we don't see that we need to do any kind of major changes. It's more continue as is, and with just normal replacing CapEx.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Good morning, Mikael and Håkan. Two hopefully quick questions from me.

The first one, just on the dividend, in terms of the special dividend, it looks like if we look ahead a few quarters, you could be well below the 20% gearing threshold. Could you just remind us of the policy in terms of how you would look at potential top-ups in a year's time?

Second question, just on the CMD in March. You had a CMD a year ago.

We had the update from you in December as well. Are you able to give us a little preview of kind of what to expect?

Is this going to largely be a progress update, or should we expect to hear about new projects and initiatives? Thank you.

Start with the dividend policy just to remind everybody. We have a clear dividend policy: 1/3 payout ratio from net profits, that what you've seen suggested here today.

Then we have the next one is that when we are having a too-strong balance sheet, and strong is defined as having less than 20% gearing, and in this time, we include the net reclamation debt as well into the gearing. We also take care of the fact that it will be after the ordinary dividend.

That number right now, I think, was 30% or 32%, clearly north of 20. I don't want to make any prediction of when this is going to happen, or if it's going to happen.

It will all be down to prices and terms. On the CMD in March, you can expect update on projects.

Of course, this will be, I think, right when Odda is maybe very hot off the press. You will have updates from also what's happening in Rönnskär and how we're doing in the Boliden Area sand recovery project.

Regarding new projects, we will see what we get, but hopefully there could be something around that. It will not be something that comes straight out of the sky, but we have discussed that there are potential further steps into Garpenberg, and we have discussed that there might be some discussions around cement during the early part of '26, and to the extent that we get this in place, you might hear more about that also in March.

Just as a quick follow-up, we can safely assume that any sort of new approvals or additional steps are kind of captured within the 15 billion CapEx number for '26?

We'll see.

Okay. Thank you.

Could I just, to be very clear to you, that those two, for example, will have relatively little CapEx in 2026. It's more '27, '28 that will be affected.

Okay.

Morning, gents. Just a couple of questions on cash flow items.

I just wanted to ask Håkan, on the cash tax side, it looks like you paid very little in the quarter relative to the P&L accrual. Should we expect some catch-up in Q1?

Then the second question is on working capital. Can you guide on sort of what your expectation for the quarterly dynamics through 2026 is?

Obviously, it sort of feels like we're at a relatively low level of working capital at this point.

Thank you, Amos. Two good questions.

I'm happy you asked that about the tax one. I should have perhaps highlighted that already in the presentation.

It's right. The way it works is that you decide a preliminary tax level based on where you stand in the beginning of the year, and then we pay according to that.

Given the development that we've seen in the later part of the year, it is a quite big tax amount that we will have to catch up with the final payments during this year. Now we have some flexibility when during the year to take it, but there is a fair amount of catching up that we'll have to do this year.

Secondly, working capital, we typically tie working capital in Q1. Looking back over the years, it's about 1.5 billion at constant prices.

Then it's relatively stable Q2 and 3, and then Q4 we release roughly the same amount. To give some indication for Q1, I would expect us to tie about 1.5 billion working capital.

What's happening this year as well is that we have a little bit extra in working capital for Odda. That's fairly small amounts, since it's zinc.

Then towards the end of the year, we'll also come back with an amount on how much we're going to tie for the Rönnskär ramp-up. I think what we're talking about, 1 to 1.5 billion, depending on where the prices stand.

Thank you. Then one little follow-up, if possible.

I just wanted to ask on the MAMA effect in this quarter. Could you talk us through what that was and where expectations should be for Q1 at, let's say, flat prices where we are today?

The MAMA effect, just to repeat what that is, that is the open positions we had when we started the Q4, and that got their final pricing. In Q4, that had a positive impact of 300.

Assuming that prices are flat compared to where we were to the end of the quarter, that should be pretty much zero. Then again, we'll have to see where the spot prices end up.

But 300 for Q4.

Great. Thank you.

Good morning, gentlemen. Thanks for the presentation.

Just a question for you on the reserves and resource statement. I wonder if you could just talk high level about the sensitivity of your reserves and resources to the prices that are used to calculate those reserves and resources.

Also, you've given planning prices. Are those actually your reserve calculation prices, or is that what you're using to run the business in the short term?

If I start in the end of that question, the answer is we use the same. Our planning prices are used both for investments in the kind of medium term, a couple of years out, and also for calculating R&R.

It's the same number, and therefore you can now see what we have been using throughout the year as a planning price for investment. Regarding sensitivity to prices, well, the Aitik mine is very sensitive to prices and terms, on gold and on copper.

Even though you're not supposed to talk about it, of course, Aitik at today's spot price and terms would be vastly larger than what you see here. The underground mines are less sensitive.

Even though there's always some sensitivity, but the underground mines are less sensitive to these fluctuations. As of right now, you can say that the whole resources in Kevitsa and their ability to be upgraded to reserves is very much depend on prices and terms, but also tax levels in Finland.

Thanks, Mikael. Could I just do a follow-up on as well?

I think this is one we've talked about before. CapEx, always a bit of discussion as to how much money you guys need to spend to keep the business running, to keep output flat.

I think in the past this figure's been as low as 7 billion, but I think you've drifted that up a little bit now. These days, you have some new mines.

How do you think about sort of a through-the-cycle level of CapEx required to keep the mines running?

You want to take that, Håkan, or should I?

You're you're right. We've added a couple of billion due to the to if you start at the 7 and then you add a couple of billion for the new mines and some inflation, then I think you're ending up roughly right.

In addition to that, I'd like to defer that for a month or so until until we have the capital markets update, because that's a a time where we use usually dive into the the CapEx question a little bit more. I'm not sure if you want to highlight some more there?

No, of course, you can get a number to answer your question, but it's also, and everybody is aware of that, that when we talk sustaining CapEx, that what we need to kind of get on from year to year, if we only do sustaining CapEx, we will eventually deplete the mines, because we're not developing anything new and we're getting to lower grades. Yes, sustaining CapEx is one level where if you go below that, you will very quickly reduce your production.

Then there is something more if you really want it flat for a long time. As said, Håkan will have that as a little bit of a discussion on the capital markets update as well.

Okay. Thanks, gentlemen.

Really appreciate it.

Hi, yeah, thanks for the questions. Just first one on Garpenberg, two parts to it.

One, can you give any approximate indication of the timelines on the appeal process for the environmental permit? Then the second part, assuming the permit is not appealed successfully, when would you expect to achieve the 4.5 million ton throughput run rate?

We have guided for the 4.5. We have guided that we are aiming to increase by about 200,000 per year for 5 years, around 2030 we will achieve the 4.5.

Regarding the appeal timing, it's always very difficult to tell, but, as a rule of thumb, a year from the verdict. Sometimes late this year, we should be able to get the verdict from the appeals court.

Thanks. Two modeling questions.

Maybe I missed it, but did you give any guidance for the distribution of maintenance through the year quarterly in the smelters?

I'm looking at Olof, I don't know. We haven't we haven't done that.

Again, we have to to complete that during the the capital markets update. Typically, it's Q2 Q2 and Q3 are the heavy quarters.

It's it's relatively small numbers in the other quarters.

Thanks. Then getting some feedback.

Then the final one, how much have you got left in terms of cash insurance proceeds that comes through in receivables in 2026 from the insurance claim?

It's about 330 million Swedish, in fact, we have received it already in January. It will be a positive then in the Q1 cash flow.

Where we stand here and now, there is nothing more to receive, but 334, I think, that we received in January this year.

Thanks. Sorry, your net is expected to be about 1.5 bill working capital build after that?

Is that the right kind of ballpark? Q1?

Yes.

Yep, that is correct.

Yeah. Thanks.

Thanks, morning, guys. Two questions.

Just the first one, just on cost inflation. Håkan, you mentioned that you weren't really seeing any cost inflation, but I guess it's only a matter of time if prices remain this high.

Can you just give us your thoughts on the outlook for cost inflation and where and when we might be seeing it? That's the first one, please.

That's a difficult question. I wish I had a crystal ball to answer that.

Looking at what we see right now, we do have the regular salary inflation, which is fairly limited in our part of the world. Then for the external purchases, we haven't seen much inflation at all.

I should say on OpEx. It looks like there's more inflation on the CapEx side, but that's more difficult to compare quarter to quarter.

I guess you're right. If we see the same price levels, there is a risk that we'll see a pressure on the inflation, but it's a bit difficult to say then when and where that will come.

Helpful. I've got, well, two follow-ups.

One, you just talked about the CapEx inflation. Is that just because we're seeing more appetite from more companies wanting more kit, therefore there's a bit more tension there, or is it something else?

Then the follow-up is just on the tax. I see your current tax liability is 1.3 billion kr.

You answered an earlier question with regards to the tax payments, but should we be perhaps unwinding that kind of billion or so kr build year-on-year on the tax liability over the course of 2026? Is that the right way to kind of think about it on a cash basis?

Thanks.

Start with the taxes. Yes, that's roughly the right way of thinking of it.

I think it's not really 1 billion, but it's close to that level. Then CapEx inflation, I think we also have to come back to that in the capital markets update.

There is, just when looking at projects, there is a feeling that things are increasing, looking at what is announced by other parties and so on. Let's come back to that.

Helpful. Thanks for your time.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a few minutes to go. Are there any follow-up questions here from Stockholm?

Yes, we have Johannes Grunselius, SB1 Markets.

Take the opportunity for an extra question here. I was wondering about Nautanen.

You have applied for some kind of permit there to the EU, and I suppose you want to have a fast track. Can you elaborate when you see this project to sort of starting, and when you can maybe go ahead with first commercial production?

How will all this change basically the Aitik feed stock into the mill, basically?

Just on timing, it's unclear right now. We have a mining concession that's been appealed.

We need to make an environmental permit. If we get the strategic status, that should all help us speed that process up, but I think we're still talking about 3 years just to be talking about order of magnitudes.

Then we will be able to move ahead with the investment and get production a couple of years later. This is something that in best case has production 2030, 2031, something like that.

How will it impact Aitik is a very good question, because there has been this constant question about how do you best process the Nautanen feed? Do you mix it in with the general Aitik and just increase the average grade, or do you in some way batch it?

That's still being worked around, and if you batch it, then you can say the rest of Aitik should be totally unaffected by this one, and this will get its own kind of situation. The answer is we are not quite sure.

The best guess, if you were to ask me today, is that we will probably invest in a new mill line, and we will mill Nautanen separately, and then we will mix the feed from the mills and have a joint flotation. That's the best thinking right now.

Is the deposit fully sort of examined, or do you see a potential for increasing the reserves?

Nautanen is open. I would say in every direction is maybe not quite true, but clearly opening towards the depth.

The 50 million tons that we have now should normally not be the end of it. We are continuing on exploration.

Thank you.

Any other follow-up questions here in Stockholm? Then I hear in my ear that we have some questions on the web, please, as follow-ups.

Hi, gentlemen. Just one follow-up.

I just wanted to come back to one of the questions asked earlier about surplus capital returns. In a fantasy scenario of higher commodity prices going forward, would you typically wait until the end of the year to launch any kind of surplus capital returns, or is that something that you could think about doing intra-year if your net debt to equity ratio gets low enough?

In the Swedish context, it's only the AGM that can decide that. That means that if we were to do it during the year, we have to call an extra EGM specifically for that purpose.

Maybe not impossible, but I think is highly highly unlikely.

Okay. Cool.

Thanks.

Next question, please, operator.

Good morning. Thanks for the call.

I just have a couple of follow-up questions. The first one is on your cement project.

I've seen that you have received some grants for financial support from the environmental authorities. Do you consider increasing the scope of that project?

Then the second question, of the one-off impact on recoveries in the Smelting division, can you clarify what part of that has been converted into cash, and if there's anything that still remains to be converted? Thank you.

I'll leave the last one for you. On the cement project, you're absolutely right, and everybody who reads Swedish has read that, that we have received some grants towards the cement project.

The cement project is about size. The one that we're looking into and the one we're working on is fitted pretty well for what is possible in Rönnskär.

It's linked to the size of the fuming operations that we have. There the kind of the scope creep is relatively limited.

The technology as such is one that works well with copper slags, it actually works well also with zinc slags, and it might even work on mine tailings. There might be many feeds into this process, which means that we could theoretically over time, if this thing works, and if it works in the market, and it works in production, also at other sites.

That's way too early to tell. We are right now making sure that we get a first stage, this demonstration plant, as we call it, in Rönnskär up and running.

The size of that one, as I said, is determined by the size of the existing fuming operation.

Second question on the one-off adjustment of recoveries, all of that has been converted to cash as of the end of Q4. Some came already in the earlier quarters, but by the end of Q4, everything is cash.

Ladies and gentlemen, time is flying. We have time for one final question from the web, and after that I leave it over to you, Mikael, to end this session.

Please go ahead.

Hi, apologies. Probably a question for Håkan, just on the provisional pricing.

I think last quarter, you broke it down into the two buckets. There was the MAMA, and then there was the effect of a chunk of sales being priced at the end of the quarter rather than the average price.

I think last quarter it was around 100 million and then another 2 to 300 million. You gave us the MAMA figure for this quarter, which was 300.

Do you have the other number as well?

I don't offhand. I think it's just important to recall that we are not invoicing strictly according to average prices evenly through the quarter.

It will depend on whether we invoice one week or the next week, and so on. We have described the pricing methodology that we use in the capital markets material with MAMA periods, I would rather refer to that than give any exact numbers.

What Håkan is really saying is that all these things are relatively easy if you have small deviations. When you have big deviations, this is more difficult to actually assess.

With that, everybody else, thank you all for listening this morning. It's been very interesting for me to be able to present this, especially the R&R update, which we feel very good about.

We feel very good about the general strategy that we have, and we will now continue our meetings during the day, and we will face the 15 degrees minus temperature in Stockholm. Have a nice day, everybody.