Unidentified Analyst: Hello
Operator: Just one moment please. Your conference will resume shortly. [Operator Instructions]
Unidentified Analyst: Hello?
Marco Levi: Yes, sorry, we had a technical difficulty. We had a technical difficulty here. I don’t know at which point of my answer I was interrupted, but what I said, the quality of the mine in South Carolina, based on the analysis that we have run, is far better than the current quality that we have in Alabama in terms of impurities. And as a consequence, we plan to use the quartz out of this mine, starting second half of next year, to supply our silicon production and use Alabama to produce ferrosilicon.
Unidentified Analyst: Are you facing competition in this market?
Alex Rotonen: Are you referring competition for quartz mines?
Unidentified Analyst: Yes, I guess for silicon. I would think that with what’s going on in the Inflation Reduction Act, that sort of thing, that it would invite a lot of competition. But I guess I want to know. How strong your franchise?
Marco Levi: In silicon metal, You mean, or in quartz?
Unidentified Analyst: Yes. In quartz.
Marco Levi: In quartz. Well, this is why we moved pretty fast a few months ago, because we expect a significant growth in demand of silicon metal in the United States. And we assessed that our reserves in Alabama were not enough, and were looking for quartz of a certain quality that we have found in South Carolina, and we have been, I don’t know if faster or whatever than competition, but we have secured the rights of this mine on this mine. Yes. Quartz is very common. The point is that it’s true that what you said before, quartz is very common, but the right quality of quartz is not necessarily so common everywhere, particularly in the U.S.
Unidentified Analyst: You mentioned in your comments about you closed on a French facility. Did that bring in capital, or is that future cost savings? I think it was at the end of your presentation.
Marco Levi: Yes. A couple of years ago, we decided to stop production at one of our plants in France that was producing Ferrosilicon Foundry and silicon metal for furnaces in Chateau-Feuillet. This process in France is always long, and one of the requirements when you operate in France and you stop production at one side, there is a law that imposes the Company — to the Company who stops production in France to look for a buyer. And we had a long process where we had hundreds of interested buyers. But at the end, this process has been finalized on October 31 with the divestiture at a nominal value, I would say with the divestiture of nominal value of the plant to Swiss steel.
Unidentified Analyst: So cost savings going forward or everything is normal.
Marco Levi: Cost savings going forward because we are not, we are not operating this plant anymore and we have reallocated productions that other side.
Unidentified Analyst: On your capital allocation that you’re going to tell us in February, for whatever it’s worth, pay off all the debt, do a base dividend, and then have your cash flow 50% to a cash dividend and 50% or buyback 50% to. Do you have other projects that you want to do?
Alex Rotonen: Yes. We will announce the official plan with details in February. So we obviously haven’t finalized it. If we had, we would have announced it today on exact form of that return. So we’ll discuss it more in February with details.
Unidentified Analyst: Okay, thanks for the great work. Appreciate it.
Marco Levi: Thank you.
Beatriz García-Cos: Thank you, good to meet you.
Operator: Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference back to Marco Levi for closing remarks.
Marco Levi: Thank you. Thank you for the Q&A. That concludes our third quarter 2023 earnings call. Thank you again for your participation. We look forward to hearing from you on the next call. Have a great day.
Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
