Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Jhalak Rastogi, Associate Director, Investor Relations. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am. Thank you, Neeraj. Good afternoon, everyone. I welcome you all to Hindustan Zinc's first quarter FY 2024, ending 30th June 2023 results briefing. In this call, we'll refer to Q1 FY 2024 investor presentation, available on our company's website. Some of the information on this call may be forward-looking in nature and is covered by the safe harbor language on slide number 2 of the said presentation. Today, on the call we have with us our CEO, Mr. Arun Misra, and our CFO, Mr. Sandeep Modi. Mr. Misra will begin with an update on business performance, while Mr. Modi will walk you through the financial performance. After which, we'll open the floor for questions. I now request Mr. Misra to begin today's call. Over to you, sir. Thank you, Jhalak. A very good afternoon to all of you. Thank you for joining us today for the first quarter of FY24 results briefing. Before I begin today's results presentation, I would like to take a moment to share with you some of the key developments made at Hindustan Zinc this month, which is celebrated world over as Pride Month, to promote inclusivity in all spheres of business. Diversity and inclusivity are extremely fundamental to our value systems and embrace the different perspectives, identities, and ideas of our people. We have launched an organization-wide Zinclusion campaign. To celebrate the Pride Month, we organized empowering sessions with esteemed guest speakers from the LGBTQ+ community, Laxmi Narayan Tripathi, an activist, actress, Bharatanatyam dancer, motivational speaker, and Ella D'Verma, first runner-up of Miss Trans Queen India pageant under this campaign. Coming to our key priorities, on safety front, it brings me satisfaction to report a third consecutive quarter of fatality-free operations. Let me reassure all of you that we are continuing our efforts towards ensuring injury-free operations with even more rigor and alacrity in the present quarter as well. As a recognition of our management belief that people are our most valuable asset, I'm happy to share that we have been certified as Great Place to Work for fifth consecutive year, a true validation of our commitment. At Hindustan Zinc, it is our continuous endeavor to develop and nurture our people with our best-in-class people practices. Adding another feather to its cap, Hindustan Zinc won the prestigious People First HR Excellence Award in the categories of Leading Practice in Talent Management and Leading Practice in Employee Relations. An update on our key priority, ESG. I'm happy to share that Hindustan Zinc became the piloting member for Science-Based Target for Nature target setting, being the only one in India and the only metal and mining company amongst the member companies. We, as a company, have taken an ambitious target of 50% reduction in Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, and 25% reduction in Scope 3 emissions by 2030, and net zero by 2050, and are progressing well in our sustainability journey via multiple pathways. Coming to an update on our on-ground CSR activities, it gives me immense satisfaction to inform that we are progressing well on our social sustainability goals, promoting sustainable livelihood via skill development. Hindustan Zinc's Kaushal Kendra launched 3 batches with 75 female trainees in 3 trades, including unarmed security guard, retail sales and marketing, and office assistant, with 100% placement for 1st batch and placement in process for the other 2 batches. I would like to share that 2 of our Zinc Football Academy players got selected in Rajasthan State team. Driven by our inclusive growth strategy, we can continue to strive towards making a positive impact in the community across the 7 thematic areas, including women empowerment, education, sustainable livelihood, health and water, environment, safety, sports, and community asset creation. A quick snapshot of developments made in the quarter are given on page 4 for reference. Moving on to the market. The base metal prices continue to remain impacted by concerns around the global economy and other diverse macroeconomic factors. The global economy has been facing headwinds in the form of rising interest rates, soaring inflation, and slowdown in manufacturing and construction sectors in most of the world's major economies. Strengthening of US dollar also remains a key factor impacting the prices globally. The global manufacturing PMI has also declined to 48.8 in June, as compared to 49.6 in May. The S&P Global India Manufacturing PMI dropped to 57.8 in June from 58.7 in May, after rising sharply from 57.2 levels in April. Based on the economic indicators and outlook projections by IMF, India seems to be a bright spot for the global economy. Economic activity in India continues to remain resilient, with a GDP forecast of 5.9% for 2023, offering one of the best realizations avenues for the outside world. This quarter, the global zinc supply and demand forces remained underperforming. The domestic demand for zinc continues to remain buoyed on the back of strong fiscal trust on infrastructure and construction, further supported by robust recovery of the Indian economy, resulting in industrial production growth. Globally, there has been an imbalance lately on account of sluggish demand and market expectations of higher refined zinc production. With demand growth of 0.8% in calendar year 2023, medium-term global zinc demand outlook remains resilient. Touching briefly on lead. Lead prices have been range-bound, and during the quarter, averaging at $2,117 per ton. Weak demand due to off-season of lead-acid battery sector has balanced by the supply-side developments, including the impact of suspension of a Mexico-based mine. Domestic lead demand remains robust, supported by constant growth in automotive, industrial battery segment, and infrastructure development. Coming to silver. During the quarter, prices remained volatile, peaking early in April at $26 per troy ounce, and closing the quarter with an average price of $24.1 per troy ounce. Overall, silver prices remain influenced by a combination of factors, including the dollar strength, gold prices, supply concerns, interest rate expectations, industrial demand, and geopolitical uncertainties. Silver demand is expected to be bullish, driven by evolving solar panel technologies, vehicle electrification, and investment in 5G infrastructure. Coming to an update on operational performance. I am happy to report highest ever first quarter mined metal and silver production of 257,000 tons and 179 tons, respectively, up 2% and 1% year-on-year, respectively, with consistent refined metal production. I would like to bring your attention to the seasonality of the first quarter, which is traditionally viewed as a subdued one. However, we strive to neutralize the same by deploying structural changes made as a result of our continued learning over the years. Coming to our growth strategy for FY 2024, producing concentrate and metal as per our guidance remains the key, scaling our smelters to achieve the same is a prerequisite. There is a strong focus on cost optimization and production efficiency to strengthen our cost leadership globally. With our alloy plant ready for commissioning in Q2, we are targeting to enhance our value-added product portfolio significantly. On our investment front, I am happy to inform that all our projects are now coming on track. We are targeting commissioning and production from our alloy plant, Rajpura Dariba mill, and fumer plant in Q2, FY 2024. With the current run rate of mined and refined metal, we are confident of delivering as per our guidance, and would like to keep it unchanged. With this, I hand over the call to Sandeep for an update on the financial performance. Thank you, Mr. Misra. A very good afternoon, everyone. As an integrated zinc producer, it remains one of our strategic priorities to continuously strengthen our cost leadership, thereby protecting margins. This quarter was exemplary of the same. In the presence of such volatile LME environment, we persistently focused on our core principles. As a result, we delivered a strong 1st quarter on the operational front, confining the external impact on our financial performance. I am happy to share that our cost reduction program has resulted in continuous cost optimization for 2 consecutive quarters, with a total saving of approximately $100 in last 6 months. Giving you a deeper sense of financial for the quarter ended June 2023, revenue from operations for the quarter was INR 7,282 crore, down 22% YoY, majorly on account of lower zinc and lead prices, lower lead volume, and differential strategic hedging impact, while benefiting from our volume delivery, improvement in zinc and silver, better silver prices, and favorable exchange rates. Sequentially, revenue was down by 14%, primarily due to lower zinc LME, lower metal and silver volume, partly offset by improved silver prices. Our cost of production before royalty during this quarter was $1,194 per ton, 2% better sequentially, 6% better YoY in USD terms. Ordinarily, you have noted the first quarter exhibits lower mined metal and higher cost of production. However, this quarter we could improve the quarter-on-quarter cost sequentially for the first time in Hindustan Zinc's recent past. The improvement was mainly on account of softened coal and input commodity prices, better domestic coal availability, operational efficiencies, and better grades. You may refer slide number 13 for further details. The resulting EBITDA for the quarter was INR 3,359 crore, down 36% YoY and 20% sequentially, mainly on account of lower revenues impacted by significantly lower zinc and lead LME, partly offset by improved cost and better silver prices. Sequential decline in EBITDA was further impacted by lower metal and silver volume. Please refer to EBITDA bridge from slide number 19 to 20 for further details. Our consolidated net profit for the quarter stood at INR 1,964 crore, down 37% YoY and 24% quarter-on-quarter, primarily on account of lower EBITDA, partly offset by lower tax expenditure. As communicated in the previous quarter, the company has moved to the new tax regime from this fiscal year, and the effective tax rate for this quarter was approximately 25%. Coming to our cost and CapEx guidance for the fiscal year 2024, we keep both our cost and CapEx guidance intact. We are confident of achieving the same on the back of rather placid input commodity cycle. With this, I conclude my comments and we open the floor for your questions. Thank you. Thank you very much. We'll now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. The first question is from the line of Amit Dixit from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead. Yeah, hi. Good evening, everyone, and thanks for taking my question. First of all, congratulations for achieving reduction in cost QoQ, which is very unprecedented, given the production volumes are generally lower. While I understand that, you know, a bit of it is due to lower coal cost and possibly better linkage materialization, if you could quantify both of them, how much was linkage materialization in this quarter and your imported coal cost? Part B of the question is that if I see the COP per ton guidance, that is even lower in this, I mean, compared to the one that we have achieved this quarter. Is it a function of increasing production volumes, or you expect coal costs to further decline and linkage materialization to improve? Yeah. Sandeep here. Thanks, Amit, for your question. I would say normally, if you see quarter four to quarter one, if you see the last five years, our cost has been always increasing. You are right, due to the quarter one, volume normally remains lower because our mines start for preparation. If you see in the last five years, it has been always 10%-15% higher. First time, we are seeing 2% decline, and if you see two quarters sequentially, it's $100. By and large, this is on account of the softened coal prices, both imported and linkage coal has improved, which was last year, quarter one, 10% in our blend. It has improved to 28%, and that is also coming 100% through rakes. That has given a significant benefit in our cost. At the same time, our grades also have improved from the last year, 6.9%, to this year, 7.1%. That is second on the operational part, where we have reduced our dilution and improved the grade. Automatically, this last one year, lot of technology intervention were also done, which has improved our mill's recovery. It is a combination of the market, our own efforts, and operation efficiency. These are three factors on which we have worked upon, due to which we have got this cost reduction. As far as your guide, my guidance is concerned, between $1,125-$1,175, we believe that given the current our cost structure and the way we are working, we should be able to achieve our cost guidance for the full year. That will be near to the lower band of the guidance which we have given. Wonderful. Thanks for the elaborate answer. The second question is essentially on the mine development. How much it was on the account of revenue and capital? It was around 24 km in this quarter, and 50/50% you can assume approximately for capital and 50% revenue. Okay, great. Thank you, and all the best. Thank you. Thank you. Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. Next question is from the line of Pallav Agarwal from Antique Stock Broking. Please go ahead. Yeah, good evening, sir. First I'd like to. Pallav, sorry to interrupt you. Your voice is breaking, may I request you to come in a better reception area, please? Hello? Yes, go ahead. Firstly, I would like to, you know, commend the performance on the cost front. Given that the LME is not within our control, but, you know, we can try and control the cost. Also just on the, on the zinc outlook. Given that prices for zinc have corrected more than other non-ferrous metals, you know, do we think that it should stabilize at these levels, or there could be some recovery in prices going ahead? Yeah, so if we have to comment on, going forward, worldwide, there is a inflations in US is coming down and there is a hope there, in infrastructure push that US government is doing, will increase the speed of constructions. Chinese economy should work better. If you look at the stocks in Shanghai exchanges have gone down, while LME exchanges must have gone up. In India, the infrastructure push is on, and considering more states are undergoing elections, so the governments will further push, and the 2024 elections coming up, government will further push investment in infrastructure. We believe that, although Indian economy occupies a sweet spot in the global economy, so we will see good prices in India or even globally, recovering towards the end of the second quarter. I hope that by December or January, we will get much better LME than what we are getting now. I have always been saying that looking at global supply/demand scenario, anywhere between $2,900-$3,100 is a stable, and I think the journey is towards that only. Sure, sir. Also on the cost front, sir, you know, are we seeing better coal linkage availability, you know, given that, you know, the production has improved at Coal India? Do you feel that there can be further, you know, I mean, a sharper reduction in costs in the coming quarters? Not only coal, we have seen, as Sandeep has explained, partly it is of course, because of coal. Also, we have restructured most of our operating contracts, working with the business partners to bring in much more cost efficiency, redoing the contracts in a much, much different way than the way we used to do earlier. All those will start fructifying because most of the contract, you know, after placement and the partners' mobilization, takes about two to three months' time. Most of those benefits will start accruing from quarter two, quarter three, and quarter four, we'll see maximum benefits. We can safely predict that our guidance, cost numbers will achieve as a combination of both. That is one is of course, coal. We are fortunate getting more coal from Coal India. At the same time, the other structural initiatives, which is on the performance efficiencies contracting, that will also start bearing fruit. Also we are working on recovery of metals in our mills. We will be commissioning the fumer, which will add some more product to our kitty. All that will start bearing fruit in the quarters ahead. Sure, sir. Yeah, thank you. I'll return to the queue. Thank you. Participants, you may press star and one to ask the question. Next question is from the line of Kirtan Mehta from BOB Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Kirtan, may I request you to unmute your line from your side and go ahead with your question, please. Hello, am I audible now? Yes, you are. Thank you. Thanks for giving me this opportunity. I had a couple of questions regarding our new roaster at Debari and the fertilizer plant. How is this current progress tracking with your target, both in terms of timeline and cost? We are absolutely on the timeline. See, the Debari, all orders have already been placed, and by the next week or so, the site work will start. Fertilizer site work has already started, orders are in place, people have been mobilized. All both these projects, which are very key to our future, are already on, and we will achieve the commissioning of these projects well in time. Could you also remind us about the current targets for the commissioning? Roughly between 18 to 24 months for both the projects. From today, it will take another 18-24 months? 18 months. Yeah, the roaster will be much earlier, maybe around 14 months, whereas the fertilizer will be between 18 to 20-22 months. In terms of this roaster, how does it compare with the existing operations in terms of its efficiency and the profitability? No, see, roaster only converts the concentrate into calcine. The efficiency comes when we start producing in the electrowinning process. This is only to increase our calcine making capacity, and since our leaching section, which are, or the electrowinning section, has got better capacity than the current roasters. We will add more volume, roughly about 50-55 KT to our productions through this. We have much more inbuilt roasting capacity. Going forward, our further growth will come when we will start investing more on our electrowinning and leaching capacity, depending upon how far we progress in our mining capacity. We can clearly see a pathway of achieving 1.25 million tons in maybe another 18 months or so, from FY 2024 onwards. Understood, sir. Would it also be possible to sort of explain on the economics of fertilizer plant as well? Fertilizer plant, see, is now in the project stage. Post project, mostly it will be DAP fertilizer it will produce, and we will be using our own sulfuric acid and a mix of rock phosphate, both from Rajasthan, that we'll buy, and some may be imported. Then this entire area between Rajasthan till UP and parts of Haryana are importing about 1 million ton of DAP every year. We will be producing in the first phase only 0.5 million ton, about 500,000 tons. We should be able to supply to them. Fine, sir. Thank you. I'll go back. Thank you. Thank you. Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. Ladies and gentlemen, you may press star and one to ask a question. The next follow-up question is from the line of Amit Dixit from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead. Thanks for taking my question again. Have we done any incremental hedging, I mean, while the zinc prices were falling, or are we, I mean, unhedged as of now? We are completely unhedged as of now. We do only strategic hedging. Last time we did, when we believed that prices had gone to the top. At this point of time, we have not any hedged quantity. Okay. If you could give some idea on the Zinc International acquisition. Last time you mentioned that it has not been entirely called off. What is the status on that? No, I think there is no further movement on that, and I guess whatever the rules allow will happen. As of now, I have nothing more to add as far as the past status was concerned. Oh, okay. Okay, thank you. That's it from my side. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, you may press star and 1 to ask a question. The next follow-up question is from the line of Pallav Agarwal from Antique Stock Broking. Please go ahead. Yes, sir. Just a question on the premiums, on the physical premiums. How has the trend been, you know, sequentially? Have you seen any improvement in zinc and lead premiums? Yeah. Our zinc premium have improved sequentially, quarter-on-quarter. However, if you see in a year-over-year basis, the premium has bit down. While this has been a global phenomena, and as you see, the LME also down. Sequentially, it has been almost, I will say, 15% increase. Okay, sir. About byproduct prices, how is sulfuric acid, how is the trend been over there? ... sulfuric prices, it's a combination of two things, one is the geographically and also the sulfur index. If you see YoY basis sulfur index, you can see the market has gone significantly down. Our acid prices also accordingly has taken a hit. However, sequentially, if you see the acid prices have improved, but YoY basis, our acid prices have gone down on account of the globally in line with the market prices. Okay. Okay, sir. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. A reminder to all the participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. Next question is from the line of Pradeep, from BFAM Partners. Please go ahead. Hi, I had a quick question, in terms of the general reserves to retained earnings transfer. Can you just update the status on that, please? General reserves to retained earnings was approved by the NCLT, and then, it was also approved by the shareholders. At this point of time, the second motion hearing is yet to happen, which is scheduled on the 31st of July. These procedural matters are still pending, so as and when it happens, we'll have to intimate to stock exchange after getting the board approval. Got it. Do you anticipate any hiccups in this process, or this is more like a procedural step that needs to be completed? It's a more like procedural aspect, because we don't have any secured creditors, so we don't feel anything hiccups would be there. Got it. Got it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Next question is from the line of Vikas Singh from PhillipCapital. Please go ahead. Good afternoon, sir. Thank you for taking my question. Sir, just wanted to understand, last year we were talking about 1.35 million-1.5 million tons of capacity. Since we have 1.2 or 1.25 in sight, have we drawn up the plan by when we can reach, what would be the CapEx? If you could just elaborate on the same. No, first, as I said, after the roaster project is completed, we will launch expansion of our electrowinning process as well as our leaching process. That should happen only when we stabilize on further production of mine metal. If that happens, because it has to be always looking at how much expansion we are having in the mine. That is the next step is 1.25. Once 1.25 is achieved, we are on the design stage of expanding Zawar Mines, which is currently producing 4 million tons, to go to 6.5 million tons, and RD Mine, which is currently producing about 1 million tons ore, to go to 2 million tons ore. These two expansions should take another 2 to 2.5 years. Once those expansions are there, new mills come up, and by that time, if the smelting capacity reaches to 1.35, we should be able to do that. Its timeline, if I say, we were talking of 1.25 in FY20 25, we may talk of 1.35 in maybe FY 2027. Understood. Just a follow-up, so you are talking about Zawar expansion. Had the necessary approvals for the mine expansion are already in place, or that process is yet to be started? Oh, no. We are already in the process of environment clearance, forest clearance, all absolutely in place, and people are working around it. In the meantime, designs have been done. You know, you need to take forest clearance first to move the mine, you know, mining plan approval and all that. Everything is in place. Understood. Sir, just if you could just give us the CapEx figure for this year and how much we have done in 1Q? Our maintenance CapEx for this year is around $375 million, and we have done around $90 million in this Q1. From the growth CapEx point of view, which is largely the roaster and fertilizer, we have done around $50 million advance we have paid to the parties. Understood. Thank you, sir. That's all from my side. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next question is from the line of Ashish Kejriwal from Nuvama Institutional Equities. Please go ahead. Yeah, hi. Good evening, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. Sir, three things. One, is it possible to share what was the average realization we got for sulfuric acid in this quarter? I think this is not the part of our standard disclosure, but this is in line with the market, what I can say. Okay. Secondly, on, silver prices, obviously, you mentioned that you are not hedging any, lead or zinc. Do you intend to hedge, silver prices going forward? What's your outlook on silver prices? Silver prices, as you see, Mr. Misra, also about the US inflation, as the inflation goes down, these kind of metal, precious metal, actually prices increase. We believe that the prices may hovering around between $25-$27 per troy ounce. At this point of time, I want to be in a position to comment about anything about the hedging. It is a very dynamic situation, and as and when something will be crystallized, it will be basically in the best interest of the company. Okay. Thirdly, last, you know, on 3 or 4 years basis, government normally changes royalty rates on zinc, lead or silver. Have you heard anything from the government that, you know, soon they are going to change royalty rates on the same? No, no. I don't think that is the case, because just by virtue of LME only last year, the governments got one of the highest ever royalties that they collected from us, without having to do with the change in royalty rate. I guess there is no push or no pressure on government as of now to change the royalty rates. Everybody knows that LME coming down to $2,200 or $2,400, and that is a temporary phenomenon. It will come back to $3,000 again. There is no pressure as such on government for this. Sir, when we are talking about that enough zinc prices can go back to $2,900-$3,000, means, what gives us the confidence? Is it just because demand recovery or cost push? If I ask now, what will be the last quartile of the world cost curve in zinc, which gives us the confidence that zinc prices can go back to $2,900-$3,000? If you look at world economy, so that there are no such, you know, any core factor that has undergone a big change. Everything is same. Of course, US economy saw a inflation push, but the Biden's infrastructure proposal coming down to ground. In fact, if you look at cutting across party lines, senators and everybody taking credit of the infrastructure work, is creating positivity. We see a big push in American economy recovery there. Europe, yes, it has, I think, the difficulty of gas issues and all that was behind them, and now it will come back in a big way. Whatever happens in those economies, we are primarily focused in domestic economy. In as far as IMF reports are concerned, India still presents the best possible investment scenario for world money as far as manufacturing industry is concerned. We are very hopeful with multiple state elections and then national elections next year, there'll be huge push on infrastructure, which will see a lot of, you know, building of infrastructure projects, which will have, further zinc consumption. To me, the balanced status, which is between 28 to 3,000, will always remain. It's not a big issue. This current situation came because of, one, US, there was an issue regarding whether the debt ceiling will be raised or not. Second, people were not knowing, what will happen to the Europe economy on a long-term US, Russia, Ukraine war. I think people have got adjusted. Whatever is happening on the geopolitical front is something everybody has learned to live with. Sir, what is the fourth quartile of the world cost curve? The fourth quartile of the global cost curve will be around $22,000. If you read, one of the mine of the Tara, of the Boliden, they also had to suspend the operation on account of, when the LME was around $2,250. I think the 90, what we read from the media and the research reports, 90 percentile of the mines will have to be shut down if the prices go below $2,000. Okay. Okay. Thank you so much, sir, and all the best. Thank you. Thank you. A reminder to all the participants, you may press star and 1 to ask a question. Next question is from the line of Pradeep from BFAM Partners. Please go ahead. Yeah, hi, thank you. I have a couple of follow-up questions. One from a capital structure point of view. Obviously, we continue to have a net cash position, but that's kind of come down quite significantly. Going forward, is there any guidance that you can give to us, one, in terms of what kind of debt-to-EBITDA levels that you're comfortable with, and probably, you know, any minimum cash levels that you would like to kind of retain on the balance sheet? That's one. Secondly, you know, just some guidance from a brand fee perspective, we are at probably at 2% right now. Is there, you know, an anticipation that in the coming years, given that the, at the current level, there are fair bit of financing requirements as well, do we anticipate this going up? Is there a level at which you think that this, the brand fee kind of, can be capped at? Thanks for the question, Pradeep. If you see the debt to EBITDA, currently we have at the June end, we have a gross debt of INR 9,300 and cash of INR 9,700. Even at current level of the LME, if you see, we can easily generate the EBITDA of almost INR 11,000 crore-INR12,000 crore. I won't be in a position to comment that debt to EBITDA, what would be, but we are very comfortable situation, very strong balance sheet. At current level of the LME also, given the volume and the cost structure we talked about, we can generate INR 8,000 crore of the cash during this FY 2024. That is with a certain assumption. Second, coming back to, about your question on the brand fees. At this point of time, this is 2%. Anything for that, any change, I think this is a subject to the board approval, so I won't be able to comment anything on that part. All right. No problem. Thank you. Thank you. A reminder to all the participants, you may press star 1 to ask a question. I now hand the conference over to Jhalak Rastogi for closing comments. Thank you, everyone. With this, we close today's earnings call. For any follow-up questions or clarifications on the results, please feel free to reach out to investor relations team. Thank you. Thank you very much. On behalf of Hindustan Zinc, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.