Good morning to all of you, and thank you for joining us today to review Imerys Q4 and full year 2023 results. With me, as usual, our CFO Sébastien Rouge. Let me start by giving you some highlights of the year we just closed. Once again, I think in 2023 Imerys continued to demonstrate resilience and agility in what we can call a complex market environment. Revenues were close to EUR 3.8 billion, with sales volumes impacted by weak demand in certain, or maybe in several, end markets, notably residential construction, industrial, and paper markets, as well as significant destocking throughout the year. Despite last year's high comparables, prices were up this year, again 2.6% on a full year basis, though slowing in Q4 with a -4%, clearly to reflect the end of certain surcharges. Sébastien will deep dive on this in a few minutes. Thanks to price discipline and really strong actions on costs, Imerys posted a Current EBITDA for the full year at EUR 633 million, in line with guidance. Even for Q4 2023, EBITDA at EUR 152 million, in line or even slightly above Q4 2022. Good news on the cash side: Imerys generated substantial free operating cash flow for the year, EUR 288 million before strategic CapEx, EUR 192 million after strategic CapEx, compared to EUR 20 million last year, which means 10 times. This was possible thanks to really great work of my teams, but also structural actions we put in place on working capital management, leading especially to a significant inventory decrease, of course also helped by lower inflationary pressure in 2023. To conclude, the board of directors will propose to the shareholders' meeting in May a cash dividend of EUR 1.35 per share for the year, in line or above historical payout ratios. If we now look a bit over the last three-year development of the group, Imerys confirms its business model, its resiliency even in challenging times. We had reckoned inflation in the past, lower volumes this year, Current EBITDA margin remains resilient, around 17%, confirming the group's agility and adaptability to the situation. On the right side, that's a good example, we were capable of adjusting our prices to the evolution of variable costs, especially in 2022, but also adjusting to the inflationary pressure on fixed costs and overheads, and we maintained such price even when input costs dropped, like you can clearly see in 2023. This was necessary to maintain our profitability and all the actions we put in place to reduce the cost base, as described in the next slide. What I want to underline here is really the tremendous effort done by the team on costs, net of all the external events like foreign exchange or perimeter and things that are not directly under our control, savings of EUR 126 million in 2023, 3.3% of the overall cost base, more than compensating still persistent inflation. Really the action encompassed all aspects of Imerys, from purchasing, operational efficiency at plants, capacity adjustments, overhead reductions, discretionary spending limitations. These savings, I think it's very important, are structural, therefore they will durably and positively impact our cost base in the future. If we now look a bit at our end market, as a reminder, the construction market remains today our largest end market with around 37%, followed by consumer goods in general and healthcare with around 20%, followed by automotive, energy, and industrial activities, and the others we register here still our paper activities. If we deep dive on these markets, let's start with construction. As you can see here, overall construction is showing a positive impact or a positive trend, mostly thanks to the dynamic infrastructure sector. Unfortunately, Imerys products are not used or very present in infrastructure. Our exposure is largely on the residential market, which is severely impacted by high interest rates and credit tightening both in Europe and in America, which are our main markets. Some figures: U.S. housing starts decreased 3% in Q3 and Q4 and 9% for the year. Similar picture in Europe, drop of 1% in Q4, the rolling 12 months, data are available until September, shows a 9% drop in residential building permits. The good news there are good news. The The good news is that there is a lack of housing, certainly in the U.S. and probably in large parts of Europe, so we are convinced that as soon as the markets will stabilize, there should be a start or a restart or even a jump start of construction supported, I hope, by an inversion in interest rate trends. Private consumption is holding well in the U.S., robust job market that helps consumption, a bit more flattish in Europe following high or higher inflation, good rebound in China post-COVID that continues. If we move on to automotive, quite a good 2023 and a robust Q4 in general. Of course, 2022 comparable basis was very low. There was a backlog. We believe it's coming to an end, and that's why we are prudent on the development of the automotive market for 2024. What is to be noted: Europe remains still way below pre-crisis level, -15% approximately. China more solid, leveraging especially exports. Energy: negative, very much related to industrial production, so especially in Europe and partly North America. Electronics coming back, big spike during COVID, a big drop afterwards. Now I think we are coming back to more normal levels. Electric vehicles and mixed pictures, below expectation in Europe and in the US, what we hear also right now. Buoyant in China thanks especially to a rise in exports. The next slide is industry and equipment weak, weak in Europe, weak in the US. We do expect a bit of recovery this year, 2024, especially if we will enjoy an easing of monetary policy. Not yet the case, but we remain confident for the second part of the year. A bit less affected the US. China did come back, but I would say in a disappointing way in terms of especially expectations. On the bottom, two sectors that are still suffering significantly, I would say, still subdued both in the US and in Europe, of course as a consequence of its main uses, which is construction and partly industrial, automotive. Paper still recovering from very historically very high inventories at the end of 2022 that affected significantly production in 2022, affected 2023. Inventories that are coming to an end, so even for this sector we see 2024 under a better light. Let's look a little bit at our lithium projects. I think a lot has been done, but 2024 will be a milestone year. Let's start with France, with the EMILI project. Just as a reminder, the target is to produce 34,000 tons per year of lithium hydroxide. Some steps were achieved. I think the attractiveness of the deposit is confirmed, the technology works. We are producing today in a laboratory scale hundreds of kilos of battery-grade lithium, which is a great achievement. We have selected the locations, of course for the mine, but also for the loading station and the conversion plant in Montluçon, recently announced. Key in 2024: Commission Nationale du Débat Public, so the public debate that will be launched at the beginning of March, should take around three months and be concluded at the beginning of Q3. This should really give credibility to the quality of this fantastic opportunity. In parallel, we will complete the pre-feasibility study, therefore eliminate all the variables in these projects and create a document that will be the basis for our future estimation of CapEx, OpEx, partners, potential partners, and of course become, I would say, a marketable document. Last, we count on launching the construction of the pilot plants after obtaining the necessary permitting. As far as British Lithium, our joint venture in the UK is concerned, again target 21,000 tons of lithium carbonate. Drilling campaign is continuing. The target is to assess the size and potential of this deposit, improve our pilot lab plant that we have on site to confirm the technology, and then move on to complete the pre-feasibility study. As you can see, the project is behind, the French one started later, but we count on the synergies of the two projects to catch up and use the learning in France to increase speed in the UK. A few words on innovation: again, we launched a number of new products, 50 in 2023, three focus areas: sustainable energy, sustainable construction, and natural solutions for many applications, especially consumer goods. I will not enter into all the details, but I would say two key messages: constant effort to satisfy market needs, market demands, especially towards new trends. And second, each innovation is screened. It has to be sustainable for the long term. It is audited by an external independent body, and 78% of our innovation solutions are sustainable or what we call sustainability solutions in 2023. Moving on, focus on ESG, our roadmap, our objectives, many of them or some of them represented here, and of course I will not go in detail. We set a program, a three-year program, 2023-2025. We are in the middle of the journey. Here is a snapshot where we stand today. What is important is we are well on track. We are well on track to achieve our goals, and I want to focus, if one particular importance is CO2 emissions, and then move straight to the next page. In 2023, we have committed to reduce our CO2 or greenhouse gases emissions in absolute terms, in absolute value by 42%, scope one and two, and 25%, scope three, by 2030 to align with the 1.5 degrees trajectory. These targets have been submitted and validated by SBTi. We have reduced 24% in two years, so we are well ahead of schedule. We are not there yet. We know we will get there. We will leverage a few elements, and you see some here on the left side. We have launched a specific energy efficiency program called I-Nergise, a multi-year program to increase really the efficiency of our processes in terms of energy. We are working to convert our fuel usage away from fossil to other kinds of fuels, typically biomass or electrification of certain processes, and of course when you electrify, you want to buy low-carbon electricity. We have launched a big project across the entire group, what is called power purchasing agreements, to purchase low-carbon electricity rapidly throughout the world with a reliable partner. As said, ambitious targets, confident we will achieve it, and on this I hand over to Sébastien for more details on our financial accounts. Thank you, Alessandro. Good morning, everyone. Let's walk through some of the key aspects of our financial performance, starting with revenue. Sales reached EUR 3.8 billion in 2023 with soft volumes. This represents a 9% organic decrease versus 2022, which was at record levels in terms of revenues. It includes a negative EUR 31 million perimeter effect following the small divestiture that we did in 2022 and a negative currency effect of EUR 83 million, mainly due to the depreciation of US dollar compared to euro. Price remained steady during the year after the exceptional 2022 inflation. You can note that in Q4 the drop in volume reduced as compared to the same period in 2022. I would say only to 6% while it was running at 13% or 14% if we are looking at Q3 only or year-to-date September. Let's now look into more details at our business segments, which have been slightly modified in their perimeter for this publication as required by accounting norms following the updated organization of the group. You can find the quarterly historical data at the end of the press release in full detail. Performance Minerals generate 62% of the group's turnover with sales of EUR 2.3 billion in 2023. All geographies, so headwinds, with foreign revenues down 7.2% versus 2022. If we look at the market, paper producers massively destocked in 2023, and it has driven a decrease of around EUR 80 million of our sales. Construction industry was impacted in Europe and in the US because of higher interest rates. Demand for consumer goods was solid in the US but softer both in Europe and in Asia. Current EBITDA for Performance Minerals landed at EUR 374 million, which is a 16% EBITDA margin. Price and cost actions partly compensating the sales reduction. Now our solutions for refractory, abrasive, and construction business. This segment recorded sales of EUR 1.2 billion, representing 32% of Imerys consolidated revenue. Looking at the end markets, volumes were impacted by low iron and steel production and weak industrial end markets in Europe, Asia, and to a lesser extent in the US. Some of our European facilities of highly energy-intensive products suffered from Asian competition, which enjoyed better energy and logistic costs. Despite adverse market conditions, specialty binders for construction kept a good momentum thanks to market share gains at key customers. Current EBITDA landed at EUR 141 million, hit by revenue decrease versus last year. Saving actions are in place, and footprint adjustment measures have been launched to mitigate the volume impact. Now how does it look like for the group profitability as a whole? Current EBITDA for 2023 met the guidance announced last July at EUR 633 million, down 12% versus last year. This evolution reflects a decrease in volume contribution for EUR 240 million, a continuing positive price contribution, EUR 106 million, associated with a decrease in costs thanks to saving actions and lower inflationary pressure. You even see that looking at Q4, we had, as anticipated, an acceleration of the variable cost decrease, EUR 51 million positive versus EUR 28 million for Q3 only. You remember it was negative in H1, so a real shift in trend. It has enabled Imerys to push price downwards and maintain a positive price-cost balance in every quarter. 2023 EBITDA development was also driven by a good control of fixed costs and overhead, lower than last year in spite of embarked inflation. Also driven by an increased dividend contribution from our joint ventures and associates, The Quartz Corp in particular. You remember that our EBITDA definition takes into account the dividends received but not the full net profit that we recognize in the P&L. As a result, Current EBITDA margin stabilized at 16.7% in line with the profitability of last year. If we look now at the other elements of our income statement, current operating income landed at EUR 365 million, which represents 9.6% of sales. Net financial expenses, negative at EUR 38 million, decreased by EUR 12 million versus prior year, and this is in particular driven by the reduction of our net debt. Income tax expense, EUR 81 million, corresponds to an effective current tax rate decreasing at almost 25%. Also, the bigger contribution of net profit from JVs, not taxed at our level, supported this rate decrease. Current net income from continuing operation, at the end, ended up at EUR 242 million, down 30% versus last year, which is very close to our sales decrease. Another important element, the net operating expenses, are impacted by a large EUR 175 million impairment of the assets serving the paper market, plus some transaction and restructuring expenses. Unchanged since H1 is the contribution of the discontinued operation, and all in all, the net income landed at EUR 51 million last year. If we look now at the cash flow generation, this time a great improvement as compared to last year. We report a large reduction in working capital due to the combined effect of lower sales, lower inflationary pressure, and management actions. We will continue to drive further improvement in 2024. I wanted to highlight this characteristic of our business model. When volumes are soft, we are able to adapt our working capital and secure extra cash generation. As far as capital expenditure is concerned, we have not compromised the strategic CapExes and invested EUR 97 million that will fuel incremental growth. Overall, with CapEx spent at EUR 390 million, we deliver a free operating cash flow of EUR 191 million. How do these different elements translate into Imerys' balance sheet? Thanks to the divestiture of HTS business activity and our substantial cash generation, even after the exceptional dividend payments of last year, we have deleveraged the company and reinforced the balance sheet. Just a small technical note, as far as HTS is concerned, you see flows directly in the net disposal column and also the plus EUR 119 million that corresponds to the net debt that has disappeared with the assets that have been disposed of, so two positive contributions. At the end of 2023, the ratio of net financial debt to current EBITDA decreased as compared to December 2022, reaching 1.8. In absolute terms, the net financial debt decreased to EUR 1.1 billion, down 33% or almost EUR 550 million versus last year. It now represents 35% of shareholders' equity. On this good note about Imerys' financial structure, I now hand over to Alessandro for the outlook. Thank you, Sébastien. So let's wrap up this presentation. A few takeaways. We have experienced in 2023, throughout the year, an unprecedented destocking, which further impacted already some weak demand in certain markets. But we believe markets have stabilised, and probably the worst is behind us. Construction, notably residential construction, maybe to a lesser extent automotive, will remain low for some time, I believe. Other businesses, especially consumers, Life Sciences, energy, electronics, should progress well throughout the year. In this, let's say, still uncertain economic and, let's not forget, geopolitical environment, Imerys will maintain a strict cost discipline. We have showed it in 2023. We will prioritize growth, and we know we have good commercial actions ongoing. We have new industrial capacities coming on stream. We have innovative products, as you have seen, and we are exposed to some very attractive markets, growing markets like mobile or sustainable energy. This will all be done with the back of our mind, ESG, and especially sustainability and greenhouse gases reductions. This will drive all our decisions going forward. Thank you for your attention, and we now open the floor to your questions. Thank you. This is the conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone phone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Sven Edelfelt from Oddo. Please go ahead. Yes. Good morning, Alessandro. Good morning, Sébastien on team. A couple of questions for me, if I may. Firstly would be on the Quartz Corporation. Can you help us understand what's the main driver for the contribution of the EUR 87 million GV contribution in 2023? Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that chips on AI is the main driver, so growth is said to be stellar. I've done a model on the Quartz Corp, and I forecast a net profit of close to EUR 300 million in 2024. Is it a fair assessment? Industry experts are telling me it's too low. I would be interested to have your view. Shall I continue, or you answer the first question? Once. At least we have time to think. I'll continue. So second question. On the carbon black, I would like to know where my money is. We've seen a lot of CapEx going through over the last few years. So could you help us understand where is the current revenue on EBITDA? Can you help us understand as well what would be the trajectory? What would it be in, let's say, two years' time? Also, can you remind us what was the capital invested? And lastly, on bestos, on the Delaware website, the final document is ready to be signed. Only the signature is pending for this joint disclosure hearing. So is it something we haven't seen since the last vote? So shall we start getting excited on a possible resolution of this litigation? Thank you, Sven. I'll start. I'll take one by one, and then I will ask Sébastien to give us some specific information on numbers to put numbers next to words. On The Quartz Corp, TQC, I remind you, is our joint venture with Norsk Mineral, our long-term partner in Norway. As you said, it's a business that has developed well in the last few years. What are the main drivers? I don't think artificial intelligence is the only one. This business serves primarily three markets. It is the solar and photovoltaic market. It is the semiconductor and microchips market, and to a lesser extent, optical fiber. As you can understand, all three markets are fundamentally going well, some exceptionally, like photovoltaic because of the drive to renewable energies. Imerys is a very good example. I mentioned before power purchase agreements, low-carbon electricity. We are looking at all options. The eolic is one of them, but solar and photovoltaic will be definitely the main driver. We have a lot of sites. We consume a lot of electricity. We will buy a lot of photovoltaic panels in the future. So that's why I don't think AI alone is the driver. It's, fortunately, a more broad business, a broad market, with all underlying markets pointing in the right direction. We don't comment specifically on any business on future performance, so we will certainly not do it for this one. And as a group, you know that we tend to wait the beginning of the year to see developments and express our targets rather around mid-year for the group only. In terms of impact of TQC, Sébastien, do you want to say a few words to explain the difference between net income and? Yeah. Two sets of numbers, maybe, to set the frame. First of all, in the P&L, so the net result contribution, if you look at 2021, 2022, and 2023, which represents 50% of the Quartz Corp net result, it was a little bit less than EUR 7 million in 2021, went up to EUR 18 million in 2022, and EUR 880 million in 2023. So obviously, a very good development. That's what you see in the P&L. What we record in EBITDA is only the dividend that we received. And in 2023, for the first time, TQC has distributed dividends. The Imerys share is EUR 48.5 million, and that's what you see in our reports. All the JV combined brought EUR 54 million overall to the EBITDA of Imerys. Obviously, the EBITDA of TQC itself and our 50% of this EBITDA would be higher. It would be, actually, more than EUR 100 million if we were to completely take that into account in our financials. But again, since years, the EBITDA definition of Imerys is to take into account the dividend and not the full contribution that we get from this joint venture. Thank you, Sébastien. We are considering how we could, in the future, maybe better present or expose this business because it is definitely becoming important within the group. If I now move on to your second question, you call it carbon black. I would call it graphite and carbon. This is our activity. Where is the money? The money is in new lines that are not delivering yet at their full potential, but I have no doubt on the mid-long-term trajectory. Main driver is lithium-ion batteries. If you look at the year 2023, we had six months perfectly aligned to our trajectory with solid growth, profit volumes, and revenue. We had a very difficult second half of the year when the entire market slowed down. Fundamentally, it's very high inventories. If you remember 2022, there was not enough raw materials. Lithium went through the roof, nickel went through the roof, cobalt went through the roof. Our products went through the roof. Overpurchasing, overproduction, overstocking, that it was paid in the second half of 2023. So very low 2023, second half 2023. Overall, the year is slightly negative in terms of growth, so not exactly what we were expecting. Does it change in the trajectory? Not for a second. We said this business will become a EUR 500 million and potentially EUR 1 billion business down the road. We remain fully convinced the electric vehicles world will continue to grow. It might slow down. It might accelerate. There are political decisions behind. But if we want to decarbonize the world, we have to remove the 25% that road transportation causes in emissions, and therefore, we will move to electric vehicles. It's the only mature economic technology today available. It will require lithium, and it will require a lot of synthetic graphite and carbon black. So give it a pause. It will continue. Maybe not in January, not in February, as we are coming out of this destocking in this specific market, but we already see orders coming in for March and April at increased levels. So the trajectory that you have seen at the Capital Market Day is, for me, unchanged. It might be delayed six, nine months. Our CapEx are well invested. The third line has been commissioned. The second line for graphite has been commissioned. The fourth line for carbon black is being built or will be completed in 2024, and I'm sure they will all be full very soon. A word on TALC. You call it asbestos. I prefer to call it TALC because there is a big difference between the two things. Your comments are correct, Sven. There has been a significant step, for sure, compared to the last 18 months or two years where only mediation was ongoing. There has been an agreement between plaintiffs and different law firms. This has been translated into a document, a so-called reorganization plan, that has been signed. All ancillary agreements, including the last one around voting, have been filed this week, had been filed or have been filed this week. So all documents are at the court. The North American TALC entities have requested a hearing to confirm the plan. I remind you, once this plan is confirmed by a court, a vote will be launched to approve it or not. There is a preliminary date in March. We are waiting for the judge to confirm it. That's why I don't want to get excited yet because only when the hearing confirms, a vote is launched, and the vote is positive, then it will be the right time to celebrate. But for sure, a step was done, and it's an important one, and it is something that we have not seen in several, several months. Thank you, Sven. Thank you. Very usefu l. The next question is from Laurent Runacher of LRESG Advisory. Please go ahead. Y es. Good morning, gentlemen, and congratulations for all the productivity gains. I'm again going to ask a question on the Quartz Corp. Is it fair to assume that if I look at the equity accounted results, let's say the very impressive improvement from EUR 18 million-EUR 80 million is due among the businesses you've been quoting to the semiconductor part? I know that solar PV has improved quite a lot, but judging by the figures of NVIDIA, which were almost, I would say, 4 times, and their results, which have been, let's say, 20 times, if I do recall well. So the one thing is, is it fair to assume that the major factor of improvement was the semiconductor part of the Quartz Corp? Is the only question, Laurent? This is the first question, and then depending on your question, your answer could have some additional. We take them all. Please put them all on the table. So I understand you refrain from giving some color on the improvement you expect for 2024, but is it looking at your volumes for this subsidiary is a good judge to look partly at what has been giving NVIDIA as far as their revenue improvement expected? Okay. This is more of the same. Listen, the semiconductor market is an important market for this business, for the high-purity quartz, but it's not the only one. So the answer is partly yes. Semiconductor is important. AI will play a role. And you yourself mentioned NVIDIA as somebody benefiting strongly from this. But once again, high-purity quartz is a unique product because of its purity. It has evolved over time. Several years ago, the biggest markets were lighting. Now, with LED, the world moved on. Semiconductors came. Photovoltaic was irrelevant 10 years ago. It has become a significant part today. Optical fiber. We are cabling the entire world. So there are different pillars on which we build this business. All of them are just as important. Semiconductor is definitely an important one, but I would not necessarily tie NVIDIA good. We are good. No. There are other things that are very different from the semiconductor that are just as important for us. But what is important, all of them, at the moment, are pointing in the right direction for this business. Okay. So as we sum up, is it fair to say that almost half of your results are tied up with solar PV, semiconductor, and the strength from AI and optical fiber? So more or less half of your results. And it's weird that it is equity accounted since it is such a large part of your results. You can say that, and we don't disclose what the single market represents for this business as well as for the others. I let you take your assumptions Okay. Thank you very much, and congratulations. Thank you, Laurent. T he next question is from Aron Cuccarelli of Berenberg. Please go ahead. Hello. Good morning, Alessandro Dazza, Sébastien Rouge team. My first one is, again, on the quartz business. I would assume that most of the growth comes from higher prices. I mean, I understand there's also volume growth, but I would like to understand what kind of visibility do you have for prices in the high-purity quartz for 2024? Or in other words, is there more supply coming on stream, or do you expect the supply of these products to remain quite tight? If you can elaborate on the reasons behind that, if this is a reason based on the fact that the product is superior to the one from competitors. The second question is about price mix, good price mix in 2023. I would like to understand a little bit how you think about pricing going in 2024 in an environment where raw material costs are going down? The third one is on CapEx. So you invested EUR 97 million in growth CapEx in 2023. I would like to understand a little bit the moving parts for 2024, how much you think about growth CapEx and maintenance? And I have a final one, which is just a clarification on carbon black and synthetic graphite. So is it fair to assume that in your EBITDA for 2024, there's no contribution from these businesses yet? Thank you. Aron, thank you for many questions. Let's start with our high-purity quartz. I think the most important thing you said is it's a superior product, and it's high quality. It is effectively a unique product that starts in a unique mine, a unique deposit in the U.S., and we have a unique process technology, really state-of-the-art, to make it one of the best products in the markets. That's what really drives the growth. The work that the team there has done to create something of extreme purity is what really drives the growth. It's for sure not only pricing. It's solid organic growth. It's volume growth because we are becoming the preferred solution, the preferred supplier for our large customers. There is competition, and one of our largest competitors in Europe has recently published a big study on this market. I'm sure you will find it. They are increasing capacity. So I don't think it's a matter of tightness. I think it's really a matter of the value that this product brings to the technology and to the application, which is a little bit Imerys' history. The next question you pose is on carbon black. Carbon black in a lithium-ion battery is probably 1% of the cost. But if it's not good, you can throw away your battery. So that's a little bit our strength. We supply something which is a small part in the overall finished product, but it has an incredible impact on the performance. That's what I would like to say on quartz. And coming to carbon black, and then Sébastien, I'll let you comment on the price mix component or side. No, no. There will be a significant impact in 2024 in carbon black, for sure. The business is there. We are talking about a EUR 230-250 million business that is delivering its contribution to the group. Capacities are largely installed. Some will be finished in 2024. They will be filled. So not only what we already have will deliver, but I think the new capacity will start to deliver sales, volumes, and EBITDA in 2024, pending these markets to rebound or restart along the line that we expect. So there will be a contribution. We count on it. It's important. Even if a few months of delay, I'm very confident. And the last word on my side on CapEx. Yes, EUR 97 million in the year 2023. It was a peak in terms of graphite and carbon business, second line of graphite, third and fourth in carbon black. This side of the business in terms of CapEx is coming to an end. We should have around EUR 25 million to go in 2024. And then I believe we have solid, well-built, expanded capacities to feed the market, at least for the next two, three years. So on the graphite and carbon, I do not expect any significant CapEx going forward two, three years. And as we have announced in our Capital Market Day, the next step will be a new facility somewhere else in the world to serve the next level of productions. The second big chunk of strategic CapEx was around lithium projects. On the contrary, we did not spend much in 2023. Sébastien, how much was? EUR 36 plus a little bit in the UK. So let's say around EUR 40 million were invested in all our studies, tests, labs, drillings. 2024 will be a big year. So we are counting on investing significant money in the lithium project. Overall, to make it simple, we expect 2024 to be lower in terms of strategic CapEx and lower in terms of running CapEx, so maintenance, overburden, sustenance, small developments as this year. This year, we invested EUR 30 million less than the year before because we believe our assets are well invested, well maintained. We have reached what we wanted to reach. You need to invest to keep your assets at a good level. But good work was done. Volumes are, let's say, flattish or have been slightly down. Therefore, I think we are looking for a year of lower CapEx than in the past in all senses. Price mix? On the price mix, I think what we can also summarize is the very brutal shift between 2022, 2023, and in short, we hope 2024 is normalising. 2022, we had massive increase in cost, massive increase in price. 2023, you have seen that the trends are reversing. We started the year with a continuation of year-on-year cost and price increase. It has crossed the line in Q3, and you see that in Q4, year-on-year, we are the only on the other side. A good positive contribution of cost, in particular freight and energy, that are stabilising at lower level, importantly, and adjustment in price so that we keep this very good dynamic of adapting the price by country, by market, by customer, which is one of the strengths of Imerys. What we see in 2024 is more stabilisation of the different elements, price and cost. We've been able to hedge a large amount of what can be hedged, currency and commodities, hedging of electricity, hedging of oil and gas has been made for the most of 2024. So now we can deliver to our customer a more stable price valid for the full year and also enjoy more stability on the cost side. So our commitment is still to monitor the balance, to make sure it's slightly positive or positive, but we do not expect at this day swings as brutal as we have seen in the last two years. The next question is from Jamie Fletcher of The Analyst. Please go ahead. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Unfortunately, it's more on the Quartz Corp. The first one was so I think you kind of alluded to this, but the income from the JVs now is 25% of operating income. So I just wanted to ask if we can expect more detail and discussion on this in the next results. And then the second question was, so my understanding is that given the bottleneck of high-purity quartz in solar, TQC has been able to secure longer-term contracts, much higher pricing, but also that CapEx is mostly covered by large prepayments from solar customers securing supply. So meaning the cash, even with growing capacity, the cash flow is very strong. So what can we expect in terms of dividend policy at The Quartz Corp? Hi, Jamie. The only question that I wish to answer is that will we communicate more on this business? The answer is yes. That's what we are considering because, as you rightly point out, it has become a significant component in our overall activity and, of course, in our financial accounts. Therefore, with Sébastien, we are considering on how we could feed you with more up-to-date information. On the rest, what you're asking are confidential information, if we have what kind of contracts, what kind of CapEx, what kind of prices we do. It's really confidential to the business itself. I know that one of our competitors has published something in this direction for other reasons. It was interesting to read, but it's also a competitive disadvantage when you publish too much. So on your other questions, I'm not in a position to answer. Sorry. But we will. Be patient. Be patient. But we are working on how we can give you a better picture on this very nice business. That's for 2024. And I hope as soon as possible. Okay. Thank you. And sorry, just to follow up, are you able to confirm at all if there is a dividend policy in place at the moment? Just trying to understand how things might flow into EBITDA. Also, I prefer not to comment. It's part of our joint venture agreement. So I do believe that it's confidential information. What I think is clear for me is two things. One thing, and if you look at Imerys as a whole, is the same. One thing we want to guarantee that each business has the required money to continue to progress, to continue in its capacity to deliver, to invest, to maintain its assets. So that, for me, is the first priority when I look at this business as well as the others. The second is once the money is available and you've secured your long-term business, of course, you distribute. Imerys is distributing last year an exceptional one, this year again, a high dividend. So for sure, we will make sure that dividends are distributed as long as the mid-long-term development of the business, especially a good one like this one, is secured. So. Great. Okay. Thank you very much. Clearly, before, it's the first time this business has distributed dividends. This business was built. So we had debts. We repaid all the debts in the past. Now it's the moment to enjoy the returns. So I see no reason why it should not continue to distribute its dividends, especially if the business remains solid. But we will decide as we move along with our partner. Thank you. The next question is from Matthias Kubli of Tiger Asset Management. Please go ahead. Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Obviously, there were already quite a few questions on The Quartz Corp, the Quartz joint venture, but I just want to follow up on one point. I mean, when we look at publicly available prices, your material for the inner layer seems to have gone up significantly in price. What we have seen is from CNY 28,000 per tonne to more than CNY 400,000 per tonne. This level of prices, are you now able to roll up with these prices on new contracts? And do you think this is sustainable? And to follow up would be, there is only one competitor in this market, as you mentioned, one European competitor, Sibelco. Do you see anyone else being able to enter the market short-term to end these prices or this cycle? Thank you. Hello, Matthias. Needless to say that commenting on prices is not the right place, not adequate. I think each product determines its own price. Like our carbon black, like our kaolin or our carbonates, it's the value in use. So I'm sure that if a customer pays a certain price, whatever the price is, it's because there is value attached to it. I disagree that there is only one competitor. There are other competitors. The one you mentioned is for sure the largest. But there is a very solid Chinese company producing this product. There are others around the world, smaller. But there is competition, which is healthy for the market. Still, I think it is to produce a high-purity product like this one is not something you can do tomorrow. It takes and we didn't do it in three years. This business belongs to Imerys at 50% when it was created with our friends in Norway since 2011. It took us years, years to reach the quality, the purity that somebody called superior in the past. So it's efforts, it's R&D, it's knowledge of applications that gives you then eventually a competitive advantage that you may use in the proper way in the market. But there is competition. We will always be careful and monitor this competition because that's what you need to do if you want to be long-term profitable in the market. That's what I can say, Matthias. Thank you. Thank you. The next question are three written questions received from Ibrahim Hommani from CIC. The first question is, "Can you elaborate on 2024 in terms of prices and volumes?" The second one is, "Regarding the impairment of the paper assets, on what ground will occur the future disposal?" And the third one is, "Lithium, how do you grasp the decline of lithium prices? Thank you. Hello, Ibrahim. I guess the voice call didn't work. So thank you for posing the questions. How do I see 2024? Partly, we mentioned it in the outlook. I think construction will remain subdued, at least at the beginning of the year. We don't see a recovery now nor in the coming months. What I hear from banks is that interest rates will drop, will start to drop this year. I think alone the message that there is an inversion could have a very positive impact and allow a restart of this sector. It will take time. We will not see immediately. As you know, it takes time to build especially a house, residential, which is our strength. So construction will remain so, so. Automotive, I would say flattish. On one side, there is demand, but inflation, costs. A car today is expensive. Interest rates at this level will not facilitate decision by consumers. So I hope to have a medium to good flattish to good year in automotive. Consumers will remain solid, especially with inflation dropping, especially if interests drop. So I see positive there. Industrial, I think it depends on the rest. If there is demand for automotive, for construction, machinery will move. Therefore, slow starts. But I'm confident that after really 18 months of low business or slow business, I hope around the second half to see a pickup. EVs will continue. Energy and electronics should continue. So all in all, on volumes, I do expect and I want to be optimistic a volume growth for 2024. Maybe not exceptional, but a growth compared to 2023. Prices, as Sébastien said, I think we are entering a phase of stability. Costs, typically prices. So I would tend to say flattish environment. If inflation drops, variable costs are on the drop year on year. We have still something to gain because last year it progressively went down, energy freight and so on. So I would rather say stability on pricing, if I may guess. Paper, you speak about a future disposal. We are analyzing our options and alternatives. We didn't say that we are disposing of this business, but we remain convinced that from a strategic point of view, Imerys today is focusing on growing markets. The paper market has a structural decline. Might enjoy a good 2024 after a very low 2023, but still on the mid-long-term, we will consider potentially a divestiture. The market has changed. As I said, 2023 was really a terrible year that, by the way, impacted the overall volumes of the group up to a 2%-3% level, although it is a small business, really driven by inventories. Entering 2023, inventories were sky-high and therefore a lot of mills stopped, reduced, or even stopped production that are partially restarting now. We thought it is prudent to adjust the value of our assets to this new reality, a lower market, a smaller market. Therefore, we have taken this step before any other decision is taken. It's just, I believe, a prudent approach since it is an accounting entry. We will keep you updated if there are any strategic decisions, of course, in this direction. Last on lithium, if you listen, if you manage to find some of my statements about a year ago, you will see that I said I do expect a correction in price. $80 was crazy per kilo because some brownfield capacity will come on stream rapidly, easily. It's the easy one to expand capacity if you can. That's what happened. Plus, just as for our carbon black business for lithium-ion batteries, exactly the same, overstocking, end of the year with pipeline full of raw materials, batteries, and cars with a battery. So I would say two factors that put supply or production above demand. And that's why we saw these prices collapse very rapidly. One of the largest producers of lithium just announced recently that at this level, a lot of producers are losing money. Therefore, they will not continue. And based on these prices, nobody will start a project. It's another way to say prices will rise. Prices will need to be higher if we want to sustain the growth, the investments in this field, and the growth of this business. No question on future demand. So after, I cannot tell you, there are different opinions if it's going to be a year or two. But everybody today is, or every study today confirms that the mid-long-term price of lithium will go way beyond current prices because demand will continue to grow and capacity will not be enough to match demand. I personally fully aligned with this idea. Then your lithium has to be competitive. And I believe both EMILI and British Lithium will be competitive in a production scale. Our potential future production is down the road few years in a market that I hope by then will have re-stabilised. Summary is our expectations, our dreams on lithium have not changed at all. Of course, we will be more prudent before we start the big investments. And as I said in the past, we will try to secure some of our volumes before launching this big project. But I have not changed at all my opinion on the long-term attractiveness of this business. Thank you, Ibrahim. The next question is a follow-up from Aron Cuccarelli of Berenberg. Please go ahead. Hi. Thanks for taking my follow-up. One is on construction, which is representing a big chunk of your business. We'd just like to ask you for a little bit more color. It looks like the market remains; it's bouncing around the bottom. Customers are really managing cash at this stage. Maybe can you give us a little bit more color around the conversation you've been having over the last two months since the year started on construction and you have inventory levels at customers? And the second one is, again, on the high-purity quartz. Can you confirm that the visibility you have from a volume standpoint in this business is similar to the rest of Imerys? Thank you. I want to understand a second. If we have visibility for this business. So basically, it's on visibi lity. Construction, I think your comments are straight to the point. Today, customers manage inventories down. So I don't think there is a lot of inventories in the pipeline. On the contrary, we start hearing customers saying, end users saying, "I cannot even construct because there are no inventories." We see some urgent requests for supply. But as you say, it will remain a bit slow for the nearby future. But there is no inventory. And therefore, the moment that the confidence is back, I think we will see really a significant increase. Demand for housing is there. There is a lack of housing. So it's only a matter of confidence. Of course, interest rates then need to give this confidence. And then we will see it coming back. But no signs yet. For sure, not going down. That's important. As I said, it's stabilized and ready for the next one. On the second question, visibility around business, limited in time because it's not our products typically don't have very, very long lead times. So you basically look at 4-8 weeks. But the visibility is around rather the end markets. Some of your colleagues mentioned semiconductor will go up, optical fiber will go up, photovoltaic and solar will go up. So for me, the visibility is given by the end markets. There will be ups and downs. There is Chinese New Year, so production drops. But the main underlying markets are on good trend for the nearby future. And I really don't see at the moment anything that should impact these three markets, frankly, because we are cabling everything. We are microsemiconductors in an electric car. Artificial intelligence will be needed. And we all want renewable energies. So fundamentally, I believe the visibility is given rather by the end markets. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is a follow-up from Sven Edelfelt of Oddo. Please go ahead. Yes. A couple of follow-ups from me as well. On the high-purity quartz, you have roughly 90% of the market together with Sibelco. So correct me if I'm wrong, but if those two mines are closed by the U.S. administration for whatever reason, it will damage close to 90% of the photovoltaic and semiconductor market. And therefore, you have here a very strong position on pricing power. But the first one. Secondly, on the volume, you had -6.1% in Q4. What was the monthly trend? I mean, it was obviously December would have been the best month. And possibly, can you give us an indication of what was January? Possibly already positive or flat. And lastly, on your margin, your prices are going down. This is consistent with a declining cost. And if I look, it seems to me that you had a positive price over cost on margin gain in Q4 despite negative volume. So can it be extrapolated for a full year 2024? I'll leave you the last one. Complicated question, Sven. Thank you. I don't comment on market shares. I think you are a bit optimistic, but I don't comment on market shares in the High Purity Quartz world. I'm not as pessimistic as you are in terms of geopolitical risk. Yes, we have a mine in the U.S., but it's not our only source of raw material. We also have some other sources, including, among others, Norway with a quite good deposit. So I think we are balanced in our supply. I feel more comfortable having different sources. Then we have this treatment plant, which is really an exceptional tool that allows us also to consider different sources. And therefore, I'm sure we will be a partner to these industries, semiconductor, photovoltaic, and so on in the future, independently from the geopolitical tensions. I hope and I believe, and no comments on pricing. Volumes for the group, I would say in Q3 was mixed. We had a good October. We had a low December, which was a bit surprising. It is true that everybody manages inventories this year, probably more than in the past. So difficult to give you a trend. Maybe the positive message is that January that we just closed is not bad. It's not bad in terms of volume. So that reconfirms that probably the worst is behind. Let's see if the next months will confirm that the curve is pointing up. On prices overall, Sébastien, do you? On prices, I think our commitment is always to look at the balance. I think you got the answer in the questions, Sven. We will be in Q1 with high comparable, both in cost and price. So we can surely expect that both of them are relaxed. We stick to our commitment of adjusting the price to the best commercial conditions, geographic and customer. So I think it will be up to you to extrapolate. But we confirm our commitment to maintain a positive balance throughout the year. I think the last years have proven that overall, we were able to manage that ahead of the curve. So sometimes we need a few months to catch up in one direction or the other. But I would say historically also, when costs were going down, it was not bad for Imerys as a whole. Okay. Thank you. Gentlemen, that was the last question. Back to you for any closing remarks. Thank you. So if there are no more questions, first of all, thank you for dedicating this time this morning. And for the many questions we have received, we have noted that there is increased interest in our high-purity quartz business. It's well noted. And we will see if we can follow up with a bit more on this topic. Other than that, at the end, in a difficult context, I think we delivered. We delivered on the guidance. We delivered with fantastic cash in 2023. Probably low point behind. So let's see what 2024 brings. Thanks to cost savings, cash management, I think we are equipped. We are equipped to enter the new year. Ready if volumes don't pick up. I believe even when volumes pick up, with the cost basis we have today, I think we will be very happy with the performance of this company and of this group. Thank you very much. Have a good day. Bye. Thank you.