Good morning. And welcome to the Loma Negra First Quarter 2023 Conference Call and Webcast. All participants will be in listen-only mode [Operator Instructions]. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Also, Mr. Sergio Faifman will be responding in Spanish immediately following an English translation [Operator Instructions]. Please note that this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Diego Jalon, Head of IR. Please, Diego, go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to Loma Negra's earnings conference call. By now, everyone should have access to our earnings press release and the presentation for today's call, both of which were distributed yesterday after market close. Joining me on the call this morning will be Sergio Faifman, our CEO and Vice President of the Board of Directors; and our CFO, Marcos Gradin. Both of them will be available for the Q&A session. Before we proceed, I would like to make the following Safe Harbor statements. Today's call will contain forward-looking statements, and I refer you to the forward-looking statements section of our earnings release and recent filings with the SEC. We assume no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect new or changed events or circumstances. This conference call will also include discussion on non-GAAP financial measures. The full reconciliation of the corresponding financial measures is included in the earnings press release. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Sergio.

Thank you, Diego. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us this morning. As usual, I would like to begin my presentation with discussion of the highlights of the quarter and then Marcos would take you through our market review and financial results. After that, I will provide some final remarks and then we will open the call to question. Starting with Slide 2. We started the year in a very good shape and we are very pleased to share with you another quarter of solid results and meet increasing macroeconomic uncertainty. The industry remained [recently] maintain the positive momentum and setting another quarter of growth. Bulk cement demand is contributing to this trend boosted by private and public small interest return works. Our top line for the quarter increased 2.9% with same volume growing above the industry and boosted by the increased activity of concrete and [aggregates]. Our segment EBITDA for the first quarter stood at $63 million, up 15% from first quarter 2022. When measured in pesos, it showed a decrease of 19.7% compared to the same quarter last year adjustment by inflation. Although margins [suffered] some compression due to higher energy inputs in the cement segment and increasing participation in the top line of the other segments with lower margin. We keep on delivering world class EBITDA margin. In the sense the US dollar EBITDA per ton stood at [indiscernible] $40 for the quarter, 1.6% above 2022 first quarter. Continuing lower focused maximizing value to our shareholder at the beginning of the year we distributed a dividend payment of $19.5 million. Additionally, we recently announced and distributed in kind another dividend for the amount of ARS22.2 billion, always maintaining a strong balance sheet with a low [6.37] [Indiscernible] of 0.46 times. I will now hand off the call to Marcos Gradin, who will walk you through our market review and financial results. Please Marcos, go ahead.

Thank you, Sergio. Good morning, everyone. Please turn to Slide 4. As you can see on Slide 4, even though 2022 ended posting a 5% growth, the first quarter started to show a deceleration. The last market expectation report from the Central Bank shows a shift in estimations for 2023. Driving the growth expectation to negative territory and reflected an increase in economic uncertainty. While the construction activity shows mixed results for the first month of 2023 with a reduction in February, the cement national industry sales shows a [resulting] growth of 3.1% for the quarter despite a strong base of comparison and the challenging environment. Although still in high figures bulk cement shows a year-on-year contraction, while bulk segment continues to be the dispatch polarity posting growth. Concrete producers’ demand is a principal contributors to bulk performance, driven mainly by private infrastructure projects, both residential and industrial, coupled with a smaller mid-sized public works that are gaining more incidence in the shipments. In this sense we're seeing the breakdown by the patch model shipments continues to gain tariff, showing a participation of 43% against 40% in first quarter of last year. Given this positive start of the year, we remain cautiously optimistic for the upcoming month as economic volatility will probably increase as we approach the elections and this might affect the level of activity. Turning to Slide 5 for a review of our top line performance by segment. Top line was up 2.9% in the first quarter, mainly due to the increase in concrete and aggregates revenues, that more than compensated the decrease in the cement segment. Cement, masonry cement online segment was down 3.5% with volumes growing 4.3% year-on-year with a softer pricing dynamic. Concrete revenues increased sharply 32.8% in the quarter. Volumes were up 26.2% in…

Thank you, Marcos. Now to finalize the presentation, I please ask you to turn to Slide 13. To wrap up this presentation, I would like to highlight a few final takeaways. We are pleased to see how far the industry remaining at the start of the year positing growth figures despite the already strong base of the corporation. We are following with [addition] the evolution of the economy as we approach the presidential election, which could affect the volume of the industry for the remainder of the year. In this context, we remain focused on managing the business to keep on delivering strong results. We consider the maximization of value generation to our stakeholder one of our main objectives. This is why in addition to the dividend payments that we distributed in January, we recently approved a second dividend payment that was distributed in kind, seeking to follow our goal in the most efficient way. I would like to conclude by thanking all our people and stakeholders for their commitments and support. This is end of our prepared remarks. We are now ready to take your questions. Operator, please open the call for questions.

[Operator Instructions] And the first question comes from Alberto Valerio with UBS.

One thing that I was a little bit surprised on the results was the increase on the energy expense. On the other hand of the global energy price, maybe Argentanian dynamics is a little bit different. So if you could give some color about the [contract] that we had for the remainder of the year, and what we should expect on this line?

…and actually thermal energy, we've had an increase this year and also by the end of last year. The good news there is that this increment was lower than you could see in other regions and the outcome for the near future is also positive. [Indiscernible] this year we should be around $3.2 million BTU. [Several] contracts that we already signed for the next few years are below $3.

Our next question will come from Daniel Rojas with Bank of America.

Just a follow-up on the last question in terms of thermal costs. That contract you say you signed below $3, is it related to the gas pipeline expansion and can we assume that going forward, one of your competitive advantages will be your ability to tap into much lower gas costs coming from Vaca Muerta? And I know it might be too early, but can you share with us the savings in terms of EBITDA or EBITDA margins that you think you can gain from these competitive advantages?

The pipeline is moving forward as scheduled. The forecast production in Vaca Meurta for this year are very good, and several of the contracts that we signed are linked to this improvement in production. [The comment] before the improvement in the price of the gas that we are paying is going to lead to and improve also in our margins for the next few years. Regarding gas supply, we don't see any competitive advantage with the other cement producers in Argentina.

A follow-up, if I may. I don't want -- I'm sorry for trying to -- for you to become political analysts. But if you could gauge a little bit of what's happening in the political scenario in Argentina. One of the candidates that's leading ground lately has talked a lot about changing the dynamics of how public bidding is done in Argentina or how public constructing is done. I know it's early but what are your thoughts on the political change that may come and the implications for public spending?

The [macro] political scenario is very volatile these days due to the elections. I would like to remark that the participation of expanding the total volume of [cement] demand is vital, for every government, public spending and incentive are a way to raise the level of activity of the economy. In the infrastructure deficit in Argentina it's the point that we can see even in housing and infrastructure in general. The final point between all the political parties. It's how this infrastructure issue should be financed, it's obviously the public sector, the private sector or a mix [indiscernible]. [We should] all agree that if we think of Argentina and is to grow in the next few years that this infrastructure deficit should be taken care of.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question will comes from Rodrigo Nistor with Latin Securities.

Given the current [elevated] inflation environment, could you please discuss your pricing strategies, specifically, the frequency of price increases and how these adjustments are impacting demand for your cement products? Also, if you have observed any changes in demand as a result of the recent fluctuations in the [indiscernible]?

Could you repeat the last line, we didn't hear you well?

The last part?

Yes, the whole question please.

If you're observing changes in demand as a result of the recent fluctuations in the [blue chip shortage]?

Regarding prices, we are increasing prices in a monthly basis. We always say it's a combination between our cost inflation and for the inflation in general and the -- this part of the year for the late of the year, we are mostly in line with inflation. Regarding the volatility of the market, the macro political situation always brings some noise. On the other hand, when the gap between the official effects and the blue chip effects widens, this typically brings some -- it's a driver for the…

And this concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Diego Jalon for closing remarks.

Thank you all for joining us today. As always, we really appreciate your interest in Loma. As always, we will remain available for any other questions that you may have. Have a nice day. Thank you.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.