President & CEO, Boliden
Bolidens vd: "Vi presterar bättre än någonsin"
Gruvbolaget Boliden ökar resultatet och höjer utdelningen mer än väntat. VD Mikael Staffas medger att externa faktorer bidragit särskilt till vinstlyftet.
"Min uppfattning är att Boliden aldrig har varit så starkt som idag och att vi presterar bättre än någonsin”, skriver Mikael Staffas i rapporten.
Det senaste halvåret har Bolidenaktien mer än dubblats i spåren av metallprisrallyt.
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About Mikael Staffas
Mikael Staffas, President and CEO of Boliden, discussed the company's recent quarterly report in a July 2026 interview, describing it as "a pretty good report" with strong production, particularly at the Aitik mine and new Lundin units, though noting challenges at Tara and a slower-than-expected ramp-up at Odda due to a programming error causing emergency stops in a roaster furnace. He stated that Boliden's balance sheet is "very strong and good" and not under pressure, despite a weak cash flow, and emphasized that the company's diversified operations allow it to manage issues like those at Garpenberg, which he said would risk bankruptcy as a standalone entity. In a May 2026 podcast, Staffas described his role as managing approximately 100 responsibilities across production, environment, people, and government relationships, stating that "you cannot do any of them wrong" without causing a major problem. He criticized Finland for lacking a coherent industrial policy, saying decisions "come out of nowhere" and are not consistent, and called for a stable policy that would survive multiple elections to support mining and metal processing investments, noting that Boliden had a "billion euro on the table" for further investment at Kevitsa.
Transcript (21 segments)
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Host0:00
Mikael Staffas, welcome to the broadcast. I describe you as very positive in the CEO letter. Do you agree with that description?
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Mikael Staffas0:10
Yes, I agree. I am very positive and strong. And now it echoes a little. It is very positive and strong. And then I get an echo here that I can't really hear.
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Host0:23
Let me try asking another question and hope it goes better. How would you describe the fourth quarter?
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Mikael Staffas0:35
The fourth quarter is very stable and the production is good. Also, I would say, what you haven't mentioned here that is interesting for us and actually for shareholders, which should be mentioned first every time, is our mineral resource update that I released this year. It is strong this year. We have a need to be able to continue for another 100 years, and then we must have success in our exploration. We spend one billion per year on exploration, and this has come out today. We thought we would try this year with the pressure that if we send it two minutes before we send the quarterly report, maybe someone will read it first anyway, but I haven't really succeeded with that yet. But from a production perspective, it is a good quarter. It is basically in line with our own internal expectations, completely. And then it is always a bit difficult to calculate our results in these situations because when there is a lot of up and down in the metal market, it affects our results and some other bits that make it difficult to calculate. But this is a good result.
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Host1:36
Then something about metals, the impact on the income statement.
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Mikael Staffas1:43
Yes, we have that and we publish it. You can read very clearly how our metals affect things. A 10% increase in the gold price or silver price is just under 200 million on a quarterly result. Copper price and zinc price, that is maybe 300 million on a quarterly result, a 10% increase or decrease. So that is very clear, and a 10% change in the dollar exchange rate is maybe 500 or 600 million. As said, all well-known and well-documented. What is a bit messy if you look at us is that some disappears in internal profit elimination because we have produced the mines but it hasn't come through the smelters yet. And that is of course a difficult math, and we have a fairly real negative internal profit elimination that is purely a timing issue in the income statement, and it is clear that if it hits 600 million negative, it is quite a lot.
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Gabriel2:38
Hi Mikael. I am sitting here reading this interesting mineral update that you put out a few minutes before the report. Should I be worried about the decrease in mineral reserves and should I, as a Dalmas, be happy that Garpenberg now seems to offer more and not less deposits?
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Mikael Staffas2:54
You should be very happy as a Dalmas that Garpenberg continues to offer more and more, and there are additional mineral resources there, and we have indicated at capital markets. We are looking at possible expansions beyond the 4.5 million tons that we have received permission for now. It has been appealed, but we have received it. And we will naturally come back to this in capital market days and other things, because it is clear that Garpenberg is great. Varisk should not be worried at all. If you read in more detail, you can see that we have not made any update regarding the ore reserves in justice. That is, it is the same figures as last year, minus the 40 million tons that we have mined during the year.
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Analyst 23:38
Hi Mika Anders. I wonder how much, you have the plan now to go to 4.5 million tons in Garpenberg. What is the next step? How much can you increase to then?
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Mikael Staffas3:50
Yes, there are many bottlenecks in this system. You need to have a mine that can produce, a hoisting system, a shaft that can handle such things. You need to have a plant that can handle it, and you must manage the handling of the tailings and dam situation. We have a part where four and a half is the first step, but we are naturally looking at larger numbers ahead. The closest thing in time that needs to happen is that we need to get a shaft in place. Because without a shaft, we won't be able to get stably up to four and a half either. But then in the next stage, and we are talking maybe five years away, we will need to work with our environmental permit and be able to get that permit, and then we also need to have a solution for the tailings, which we are also working on over time.
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Host4:40
So it is clear that with that update that you, Gabriel, had seen, it is clear that it would be more of a dereliction of duty not to expand the Garpenberg mine. Now, if these metal prices hold, you will get incredible free cash flows in the coming years. Will it go to dividends, or will you also increase capex? With a capex plan of 15 billion for 2026, one might think that in a situation with these metal prices, you will invest much more in 2027 and 2028.
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Mikael Staffas5:18
That is a bit early to talk about, but we will have to see if these spot prices break through into our planning prices. But we have, and this is no news, we have for example a project called Elitrest. It has been in our calculations for a long time. We have not prioritized it because it has not been quite as profitable. But honestly, if one were to believe that today's gold prices would last forever, it is a very lucrative project that we are looking at. We have Nautanen and we have Laver that we have talked about in rounds, where we don't yet have any processing permits because they are appealed, but they also look good, and it is clear that if these prices were to hold, it would also be a service not to increase the expansion rate.
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Host6:03
And I wonder a bit about the Finnish operations, where a new mining tax is expected to be passed. What will this mean for you concretely, and especially what happens with Kevitsa?
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Mikael Staffas6:19
Yes, it is already through. It is already passed for 2026, this mining tax. It is very negative for Kevitsa. Maybe not for, or yes, it is negative for the daily operations. It costs money. It costs somewhere between 20 and 30 million euros per year. But it is also negative for what we call Kevitsa Take 5. We are at Take 4 now and it lasts until 2034 or something like that. 2033, 2034. There is an opportunity to invest in a new take. Very large capex. And we are very uncertain about that, so it is probably less likely that it will be implemented now due to the uncertainty around the tax situation in Finland.
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Host7:03
And last quarter you talked about how gold and silver had gone through the roof. Since then we have seen further new records. How do you view this incredibly volatile commodity market?
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Mikael Staffas7:22
Yes, regarding gold and silver, I don't really know what to say other than that it is something that we as mining people don't understand. It is a financial matter about what happens with the US national debt and what Chinese bondholders do, and so on, which we cannot and in no way think we can. On the other hand, we know, and we have said several times, that there is a negative correlation between exchange rates and precious metals. We are very glad we have the precious metals because they tend to go in the opposite direction of the currency. And if we didn't have the metals now, we might be talking a lot about our negative currency exposure. But we have now been more than compensated by the higher precious metal prices. Then, similarly, in the shadow of this, copper and zinc are also doing well. They are not as good as the precious metals, but fundamentally rising as well. And that we can talk about. That is much easier for us to understand in terms of global supply and global demand. And we have said for quite some time that there is a challenge in global supply. Therefore, prices should go up, and we have also seen that during the fourth quarter.
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Host8:28
Just so I understand, we should talk more about the weak dollar, but we don't need to because all metal prices have gone up so much. Was that what you just said?
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Mikael Staffas8:38
Yes.
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Host8:38
Yes. Okay. Does it become a distraction that the silver price shoots up and down like that? Is it troublesome or distracting in any way for you who manage mines?
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Mikael Staffas8:51
No, not at all. For us who manage mines and in everyday life, it doesn't matter that much. Then there is probably someone who has to handle deliveries and contracts and such, it becomes a bit special when it swings like this. But it is quite few people in the context, and it is a positive problem.
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Host9:08
Thank you very much Mikael Staffas for being with us here this morning, and congratulations on a strong report, we can say.