Good afternoon, and welcome to the Savannah Resources Plc Investor Presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen-only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted at any time via the Q&A tab situated on the right-hand corner of your screen. Simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll. I'd now like to hand you over to Emanuel Proença, CEO. Good afternoon, sir.
Thank you, Lily. Good afternoon, everyone. Well, as usual, I'll try to go through a set of slides that summarize the thesis behind Savannah, but also some of the major updates of the last couple of months. The last time we did one of these presentations was in November. We're trying to keep you informed every four to five months. To date, we have been able to comply with that, and we have also been able to show you significant progress at each of these meetings or to repeat significant progress that we have already announced. I think today will be, again, the case. You will have Henrique and myself available to respond to any questions that you may have. As Lily referred, please do pop them onto the Q&A box. Okay?
Let's go through what is, for us, significant developments in this process of developing Europe's largest spodumene projects. You will know by now that we continue to be the owner of 100% of Europe's largest spodumene lithium deposits, which has grown significantly in terms of mapped resource in September last year, which was, for us, a very important achievement. It's proved that what was already Europe's largest became a globally significant resource with that resource update. If you recall, the resource update also shed some light into the additional exploration target and show that there's plenty to go.
You will know that, yes, last year we also became a strategic project as nominated by the European Commission, and on the back of that, we had very important good news at the start of this year with the process that has started and occupied us significantly, mostly the finance team for the previous six months, and which ended up with the signature for grants, a very significant grant with the Portuguese state for the development of this project. Recalling that this is non-refundable money, but also that it is only money that comes as we build. As we build and spend our capital, we will have part of that investment reimbursed, which is basically the way these incentives to large industrial investments work. We have a significant carbonates equivalent resource with all bodies remaining open. We are already working with Europe's most established lithium player and refiner.
We also have plenty of additional offtake to place, something that we're working on through this year. It has been very important for us to keep as much flexibility as possible on the commercial front to date. It allows us to have more tools at DFS, now that we are very close to DFS, to deliver additional significant value for our shareholders and to achieve the best commercial deals possible that supports project financing and other development efforts. You will also know that we have progressed significantly towards DFS, and that we expect to achieve DFS stage in summer this year. For projects and a company like ours, that is a very important milestone, as you all know, I think. We keep progressing so as to be in production in 2028.
There's plenty to go, but we're progressing at good speeds, and we're so confident that at some point, we will have that very important news to give you on production. There's no significant changes over the last five months in terms of register. There has been a bit of growth in the institutional investors' blocks. Some of the buying on market that you will have seen has been mostly associated to these more specialized investors who dive into the opportunity and see the inherent value in the projects. They also know how much is yet to be done and how much effort will still be required. I would say that the fact that we continue to deserve more and more of the trust of these institutional investors is good news for everyone.
You will also know that our share price has improved quite a bit since last year when we had to do two raises at very tough market conditions. Those who have participated in those raises are at this stage more comfortable with the valuation, I'm sure. Those who are long-term holders and now see valuations that are a bit more consistent with the value that this project is expected to deliver. We will also explain to you a bit more where we stand in terms of valuation versus peers to tell you that there is plenty to go and that we are fully focused on continuing to deliver on the milestones so as to further de-risk the project and further materialize the value of the whole project on the share price. This analyst coverage further reinforces that we are on the right track.
Seven key developments that I think are worth highlighting. The first three are associated to the market in which we operate. The lithium price has recovered very significantly in the last 12 months, and it continues to signal actual strength. In May to June last year, we reached the bottom of $580 per ton in a week. It was a tough bottom for almost everyone in the markets. A bottom at which we continued to say that we could be in operation, and that is something that only a few projects could say and can say about those price levels. Most of the operating projects were suffering at those levels and we also said back then that we anticipated a significant recovery to come soon. The recovery was more significant and faster than we anticipated.
In only 12 months, the price of lithium of spodumene in the markets grew by almost four times, and almost three times only in the last five months. In November, we were talking, and the prices were $1,200-$1,500, if I recall. They are now very close to $2,400 per ton. Recalling you that these are prices at which we would be tremendously comfortable in operating and in which we would be delivering very, very significant value for our shareholders. We believe that at these prices, the markets can redevelop and can re-accelerate. The truth is that these last years of very low prices are taking a toll in the ability of supply to develop and to respond to growing demands. Also, for that reason, we see equity flowing in again.
We have seen a few interesting equity raises in the market in the last couple of months. We have also seen significant movements on the legislation side, that Europe continues to try to accelerate this industry that it has forgotten for very long periods, and it now needs responses fast. Obviously, these responses are hard to achieve very fast, but some players are responding, and we are amongst them. Only in these last five months, we have seen RESourceEU, the program, come out, I think it was in December. We have now seen the Industrial Accelerator Act being announced only 1.5 month t o two months ago.
It is still going through the usual process of validation at European institutional level, but most of the things that are there are either supportive or very supportive of projects like ours, namely in terms of how much the batteries that will shape the European markets in the coming years needs to be produced more and more, with more and more components from within Europe or from within Europe-friendly countries. Obviously a project like ours that is in Europe is well-positioned to take advantage of these efforts. The four other news are important developments within Savannah. I think that we are very happy with the progress that we have achieved. We know that there is still a lot to go, and that some shareholders would want even more to have been achieved.
It is important to acknowledge that we signed a very important deal with the Portuguese states, stating very clearly that the Portuguese state is behind the project, wants this project and this value chain to be developed. The same day that this deal with Savannah was signed, there were three other deals that were signed with a refinery project, a cathode material project, and a battery plant project. Altogether, the four projects are the largest industrial investments in Portugal of this century already. It is a very important endorsement for the project and for the value chain. For us, in particular, it helped us with an additional tool for financing the project, up to EUR 110 million of non-reimbursable grants associated again to delivery of the project and money that comes after we spend it through construction in six-month cycles, if I recall.
That was a very important breakthrough for us. The second important step was that we acquired the Aldeia concession. I will show you in the map afterwards, but we have been working almost for five years in this other concession that has an operating feldspar mine. We thought that there was an interesting lithium opportunity there that was totally synergic with ours. We confirmed that, and we then exercised the option to buy this concession, which further materializes the depth and size of the opportunity for the Savannah project. We strongly progressed towards DFS. I can reiterate that over the summer, we will have a DFS, and we have also evolved in the financing and in commercial fronts, and Henrique will tell you a bit more about that in the questions. We are seeing a very good level of interest from banks and from potential off-takers.
Of course, the fact that the lithium price has recovered and that the market is tighter helps. We are in a good position to capitalize on that market momentum. Lithium is back in high demand. That's what this price translates. It is also what the demand and supply trends translates. Good news for the world is that demand is accelerating. The not so amazing news for the world, but important news and important context for us is that supply takes a bit longer to develop. There are a few projects out there that are either finally being delivered now or that can add capacity in the next one to two years. What we and the PARAs see is that that will probably not be enough for the level of demand that we are seeing. The market was not anticipating the high level of demand for battery storage.
It was cautious on EVs, and EVs are progressing faster. There are new uses of batteries. There are new chemistries of batteries. Some of them use more lithium, and so all of that is generating a larger imbalance, which we will be well positioned to surf. You have a few numbers here. Only last year, global sales for EVs passed the 20 million electric vehicle mark. It's up 20% on the year. The fastest growth was in Europe, so Europe re-accelerated significantly, 1/3 more demand in 2025 than in 2024, and this growth is continuing in Q1 2026. We're seeing 1.2 million EVs sold to European roads. That's 27% growth versus same quarter last year. In China, sales keep also progressing at good speeds.
We continue to see North America a bit higher, but truth is that in these markets, in the global context, North America is still not very relevant, and so the macro trends are more defined by the other economic blocks. On top of EVs, battery storage has grown brutally and continues to grow very significantly. The numbers for this first quarter in Europe have just come out, and only in March, so only in the month of March, if I recall, it was 6 GWh of demand. To put that in context, that is as much as the whole year of 2023. It is massive growth. This is a sector that is already starting to become relevant for lithium demand and is on track to continue to accelerate.
The impacts of these are tremendous in terms of the ability of electrical grids to be more served by solar and wind over the coming years and decades, and also in terms of how much the world is able to source its electricity competitively. Portugal and Spain are quite well- positioned in this matter, but the world is all progressing in this direction quite fast. We've spoken about the lithium price recovery. We've spoken last time about some of these very large companies that are investing in lithium supply, and this imbalance is a direct consequence of some of these macro trends. We have also seen a few very hectic months or weeks in these last two to three months. It is important to say that these U.S.-Iran war and the geopolitical tensions that also unfold are only making the case for lithium stronger to much stronger.
Supply risks have gone up, energy prices have gone up, inflation is going up. Growth and living standards are more challenged and require more solutions like this one. The energy and climate challenges are more pronounced today. The world requires shorter supply chains, and the replacement of ICE is becoming more and more important and is not a lightweight vehicle topic alone anymore. It is growing into heavyweight vehicles and transportation. There's plenty to go, but the trend is becoming stronger, and that is also important to note. Now back to the Barroso Lithium Project. These slides, the image to the left shows you the Aldeia concession, and let me dive into that for 30 seconds. In red, you see the C100 Licence, the first licence for this project, and in orange, you see the Aldeia concession licence.
If you see in the middle, you have a Block A there, and it's in the Block A that we did the drilling that allowed us to confirm that there is significant additional lithium potential there. That is also the area in which that feldspar operation has already been going for the last year. It is an operating area or an area that had operation that we are integrating into the project. What is relevant to say also is that our plant will be in between Pinheiro and Grandão, so hauling times and costs between Aldeia Block A and our plants are very small. It is a very synergistic project to ours, and we're very happy to have it also on board. On top of that, Aldeia Block B in the middle of our concession area also allows us to have control of an additional source of pegmatites.
There are plenty of other pegmatites in the C100 area and also growing into Block B. For the long term of the project, it is also good news. It is important to state that these additional ore bodies were not reflected in the Scoping Study, for which you have the numbers that you already know to our right. Recalling that this was done in 2023, and that the DFS now in the summer will revise these numbers. What we had back then was 14 years of initial life of mine, which is more than enough for the start of a project like this. Not the whole story at all, but more than enough. We have an initial CapEx of $280 million and all-in sustaining costs between $500 and $600, a post-tax NPV at 8% of close to $1 billion.
These were already very strong numbers that's rendered these projects very interesting for anyone who follows. Truth is that we hope and believe firmly, with the new information that we've had over the last few years, that we can do even better than this through time. Now let's do a solid DFS first and show you what this means for delivery of the project. Then over the course of the years, I'm sure we will have many of you continuing the journey with us and seeing the further news that come afterwards. We've spoken at length about the size of this project. It is not a huge mine. There are other bigger mines, even in Portugal or Spain. For the lithium space, it is very significant.
For the ability by Europe to source its own lithium, it is in the size of projects that allows many countries to fully electrify their fleets, which makes the projects very relevant. It is also important to remind you that we have been following and talking about the Keliber Project in Finland. That project is now in operation on the mining site. That was also a very important breakthrough of the last few months. Europe now has a solid lithium project in its own territory. It is smaller than this one, potentially a bit less competitive than this one, but it is an important breakthrough. If the Finns are capable of delivering a project of quality in this space, the Portuguese will be able to do so.
The Europeans have also already said that they want this to happen, and we're here to help that become a reality. Again, on the quality of the project, we've spoken about the mineralogy. We've also spoken about our position in the global cost curve, reminding you that we hope and want to be in the second quartile of the global cost curves, spodumene and lithium, which is a very good and comfortable position to be in. It will allow us to generate and deliver value every year, even in tough market conditions. We anticipate that the lithium market will continue to have ups and downs. It will continue to be volatile. We believe that there is further potential for it to continue to go up until the moment we start producing.
We want to have these projects prepared for any market conditions, and we focus on delivering just that. This image tries to show you a bit of the 3Ds that we've started to play with. Of course, it is hard to see a 3D in a slide, but this gives you a perspective of the mining area here in the middle with the four ramp paths, the four levels, and with the gravity helping these projects also do what it is supposed to do. That's the industrial level. You're seeing also the roads here that come from the lower area of the site and up to the roads you see up there to the North and East sides of the brown area. You see our offices. That's where we want to be working as soon as possible.
Apart from that, you see all the other usual elements of mining and industrial projects. Where are we continuing to focus our efforts? In strengthening the ties with the local community. Here, I will only tell you that on top of continuing to do the good work that has allowed us to progress significantly over the last two years, we have a growing number of staff living in the local area or being from the local area, and we have just signed in the last couple of weeks, five memorandums of understanding with local entities. That is also a good progress. It's not only that we feel more welcome, it's also that we're starting to talk business and starting to talk opportunities with some of the local entities that are important and relevant for local life. We're talking about things, a variety of local entities.
We will tell you more in the next updates. We're trying to keep this information non-detailed on purpose because we have a few other deals that are ongoing right now. Once we have signed these additional deals, we will tell you more about all of them at the same time. It is good news, it is encouraging, and it is additional confirmation that we are on the right track with everyone locally and nationally. Again, back to financing. This is also a very important front. Henrique will tell you a bit more in the Q&A, but we are working with a variety of options for financing these projects. What we have seen in the last couple of months is better than anticipated news on the commercial banking front, which is a very important front for any Project Finance.
We have also seen interest from a set of other funding options with different governance, with different costs, with different structures, with different abilities to leverage. Henrique will elaborate a bit more, but we continue to see good news coming out of these fronts before the end of the year. Again, we're working at full speed on all the fronts to come online in 2028. There's plenty going on with the various teams. We continue to be confident that we can deliver this. As we deliver, some of you will also have seen this slide. It is normal that valuations go up. DFS is a very, very important milestone for any project like this. Projects are usually valued on a price to net asset value pre- DFS and post- DFS.
If you see the numbers here, a post- DFS valuation tends to be very significantly higher than a pre- DFS valuation, and certainly a post Start of Construction valuation and then a post start of production valuation also continues to be better. On top of the many opportunities for news flow, stay tuned and attentive to these milestones. They are important valuation milestones. In summary, so that we can focus a bit more on the questions, the trend is good. The resource keeps growing. Aldeia is a very important complement to our projects. We're very close to DFS and are already working on a set of other fronts that deliver important milestones. Post DFS, there is no genuine EU competitor, which gives us an opportunity, but also a very important responsibility.
The value opportunity today is stronger than it was five months ago, and we firmly believe that it will continue to be stronger as we go. Finally, further validation continues to come in. Alantra has done its study and released its price range. SP Angel has done a revalidation of rating. CaixaBI has kept its valuation. Canaccord has increased its price target. The local association and the endorsement is important for us. Portuguese validation of the grant is very important for us, and European supports under the strategic project is important for us. We firmly believe that we can deliver significant value for you all. I'll go through your questions because there are certainly plenty of them that are interesting.
That's great. Thank you very much for your presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the Q&A tab situated on the top right-hand corner of your screen. Just while the company take a few moments to review those questions submitted today, I'd like to remind you that a recording of this presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A, can be accessed via your investor dashboard. As you can see, we have received a number of questions throughout today's presentation. Emanuel, could I please ask you to read out the questions and give responses where appropriate to do so, and I'll pick up from you at the end.
We will happily. Thank you, Lily. There's a few questions that are easily tackled, so I'll start with those. Clarity on the timing of the new resource and the new reserve estimates. That's a good question. We told you in September and then in November in the RNS and then in the presentation that we are not at this stage focusing too much on growing the resource. We want to deliver the project. You are correct in asking about the reserve estimates. As we deliver DFS, the resource will become a reserve, which means that it is material that we know we can get out of the ground and sell to the markets at significant profit. We are yet to define whether the reserve estimate will come a couple of weeks before the DFS or whether it will come at DFS.
I would anticipate good news on the reserve side. I would anticipate no major news on the resource side. The best guidance for where the resource stands continues to be the September update. That would be one question. Feel free to ask again or to clarify the question if you believe that I haven't responded fully. The other question is if we could clarify what's needed for the compulsory purchase access process on land to progress. One of the deals that we're trying to work on is associated to accessing a significant portion of the land. This to say that we continue to engage positively with many of the owners locally. We have just signed the deal to buy another seven plots, and we may be close to a deal for renting an additional set of plots.
You are also right to ask because we have said in the past that we will always go through a compulsory purchase process, which is something very normal and frequent in the region because of property rights that are not fully defined in the area because of inheritance issues and other border definition issues. That process is ongoing, and what we expect is that we have validation and the support to go by the Portuguese state in parallel or right after RECAPE, the confirmatory step on the environmental compliance process. I would expect that to happen closer to the end of this year, which is all in line with the timeline that we have at this stage. Now, associated to this, there are also a set of questions here on the land easement process.
One of them asks if we can say something about Savannah's ongoing engagement with the ministry and agencies involved, and why you remain confident that the land easement will come through. The first message to acknowledge that we expected this process to be faster. Unfortunately, bureaucracy is still heavy in these fronts and sometimes things take longer than we wanted. We have also told you that even though it is taking longer, we have managed to at least progress the DFS fronts in parallel. I can tell you that we are speaking to entities involved in this process almost daily at this stage, which further reinforces my strong belief that it is just a matter of going through those bureaucracies and allowing everyone to be absolutely certain that the process is bulletproof, that it is being done at the best quality and standards possible.
Unfortunately, that comes at the cost of delaying these sub-fronts. Luckily, it hasn't come at the cost of a significant delay in the overall project. I know that Portugal wants to be less bureaucratic, wants to be faster, wants to be better at allowing important industrial projects to develop and to help the Portuguese have better jobs. Unfortunately, the country has yet to do more in that front and in this sub-element of the easement, we are a bit victims of just that. At the same time, we're confident that the various entities involved are trying to do their best and that they will get to the finish line in a matter of days or a couple of weeks.
Henrique, before everyone gets bored about me speaking, do you want to say a bit more about the economics of the project, the financing of the project, and where we are in terms of engaging with the various providers of either debt or other facilities?
Sure. Makes sense. I think there's some questions around that. Firstly, just clarifying that, just taking into account then when you're talking about total cash needs, we'll have to count what will be needed besides the CapEx. We will have to count in working capital interest and overhead costs during construction period, so that will be part of the total cheque that we'll need. For that, we are working, as said, on the Project Finance front. That Project Finance front will be anchored by offtake agreements. On that offtake agreements, we'll have the offtake agreement with AMG as the first one that we, as you know, we still have it open for 25%-50%. Discussion with several other players, still a little bit too soon to come to a conclusion.
We're working with several other players to reach at least 75% of total production under offtake agreements and a take-or-pay settlement that will be the basis to put together a Project Finance. In this Project Finance front, as you're also aware, we are in one inside, talking with KfW and so KfW together with the German ECA, so the other arms that could allow us their support on a Project Finance structure and also exploring other opportunities with other commercial banks or even debt funds. That makes more or less from the senior debt side. We can also consider as one of the questions that future capital raises, obviously, that at some moment we'll need for construction to raise additional funds. That will come together with the normal ratios that the Project Finance will require.
About the grant for that, just remember that the grant is you have to invest and then you get reimbursed, and you get reimbursed up to the number is under EUR 10 million and only 75%, that meaning EUR 82 million, will be disbursed during construction period. The other 25% will be during the first five years of production as we'll deliver the project and is related to some project KPIs. I think I got it more or less the idea about that. Feel free to ask for more clarifications.
Yep. Henrique, I think it is fair to say that the receptiveness of commercial banks has been better than we expected, right?
Exactly. I think that the market conditions nowadays also helps to see the lithium market, even if it's a volatile commodity. It looks like to be a market with deepness and that can support the Project Finances. Most of the commercial banks, European-based, are showing very, I wouldn't say enthusiastic, a bit too strong, but at least there is support for the project and that's something that puts us very confident that we'll be able to deliver a strong Project Finance.
All right. I think it's one of these fronts in which we benefit from being in Europe. Europe is an economic bloc that is more used to supporting projects on Project Finance basis. That should allow for these projects to get into production with a less equity-heavy model than you would have in an Australian or African or Brazilian projects, for example. Which should help deliver even better returns for shareholders. Again, good progress in this front with the commercial banks, with the commercial fronts, with strategic partners, also. Now is the important window opportunity for us. It starts now and goes into DFS plus three, four months. That's where we expect to do most of the important deals here. Henrique and continuing to work well in these fronts and they expect the Project Finance to be delivered or broadly completed before the end of this year.
We've spoken about November, December, for these fronts. Correct, Henrique?
Yeah, exactly. That's our timeline, which is aligned with all the banks. That's what we want to deliver.
Let me go through a few more questions, Henrique. Another question associated to whether there are any major hurdles yet to clear in relation to the local and regional authorities. There has been very good progress in these fronts and so the fact that we are more local today, that we engage with everyone actively and positively on sites, that we speak to all kinds of media, and that we keep all local entities and authorities as much informed as possible about what we are doing, is building more and more confidence. It is also showing more and more that the value that we have promised that this project delivers to the region starts to be materialized. As we have progress in these two fronts, so the hurdles start to vanish or to disappear.
Even more than a very specific hurdle on the timeline, what I wanted and continue to want is that we have the best possible relations with everyone in the region because there's plenty to work on to deliver the full value of this project. When we do a local training center for the local community to be more prepared to work with us, we are de-risking the project. We are improving long-term value. We are improving the ability to have local, stable talents in the team. When we detail the project for our roads and work together with municipality and others in the region, that further strengthens the solutions because it allows us to ensure that we do proper roads that serve very well our operation and also serve well the region.
When we engage positively with the various local institutions, we find better solutions even for some things that have been asked by national environmental authorities. This allows us to bring to national entities alternative solutions that have been built by us and the local community together, and that provide for the same effects at either better costs or better impacts. That's more and more positive relation with everyone in the region. That is the effect which we are welcome to witness if you ever want to visit us on site, is helping a lot to reduce the risks and to reduce the hurdles for projects like this to be as successful as possible.
At this stage, I see that if we continue to do things right locally, we will continue to deserve more and more the trust of everyone, and we will continue to be able to progress the project. Another question is, what job roles will be in the next round of hires as the project progresses? It is a good question and it is associated to an important work front. First, answering directly your question and then speaking about what comes afterwards. It is the construction team that is most important now. Over the coming six to eight months, we will be hiring key elements for the construction team. These will be key elements that already build on top of the existing team, because we have very good geology professionals, but we also have very good mining, construction, and operation professionals in the team.
Boris and João, that have come in the last months, are people who have either built or operated mines for the last 20 years-30 years. They are very, very experienced, and they help us make sure that we are making the right calls as we progress. They also help us make sure that we have the information well-structured so as to allow newcomers to come in and be productive and effective as early and as fast as possible. I can tell you that we have a few other candidates on the pipeline right now, and we are very lucky that this project has been of a high media profile and that it is one of the few strong projects developing in Portugal, because that is allowing us to attract talent from all over the globe.
There are plenty of Portuguese who work in this space and are working either in Canada or in Australia or in other jurisdictions where they have built a lot of experience to support projects like this, and they are eager to come back to Portugal, and they are eager to help develop a project that is so exciting and so important for the sector in Portugal. At this stage, we have a good pool of talents that we can tap into, and that allows us to be confident that we'll be able to build a strong construction team. That construction team is the backbone of part of the operations team afterwards.
People like the feed engineer, the water engineer, the EPCM support for a few of the fronts, the team that will help in the various specialties of NPIs and so on, all of these people will come in over the coming months. We don't want to bring them too early, but we want to bring them on time so as to be able to help deliver the project at the best quality possible. I would say that over the coming, say, eight months, if things progress well, we should hire another 30-40 staff that have the skills that are important for construction and then for operation. What is also important is that we already start working today in order to have as many people capable of working with us in the future, because construction is not the end, is another step of the project.
It is very important to have the best possible talent pool for the 300+ people that we need to have when in operation and also for our subcontractors, because they will need to have talents in the area. That's the reason why we have accelerated this local training center project. We hope that over the coming months, we accelerate it, and that in September we start to have the first classes for people who want to learn more about how it is to work in an industrial environment and to work in a plant and in a mine like the ones that we are building.
Last but not least, we are also seeing interest from the diaspora, from those who have left the region and gone into construction jobs in France or in Switzerland or in Luxembourg and want to come back and join their families with a good job opportunity like the one that we can deliver here with this project. I hope this has answered the question. It was probably a bit too long. I'm sorry for that. Another question is associated to the good progress that we've made in building a relationship with European Commission last year. The question is: How do we build on that? I think that we are building on that as we progress.
The grant in itself is a very strong endorsement by the Portuguese state, but it would not be possible if European institutions were not behind the project and they were involved in the grant process and if local authorities and regional authorities were not more confident that we are doing the right thing. We have confirmation of that with the signature itself. Progressing at European, national, local, and regional level is not disconnected. It is fully connected and good progress there helps with grants, but it also helps with other work fronts. We have already started engaging with European entities on the legislation associated to the Industrial Accelerator Act, for example. We've provided our opinion in relation to how policies in Europe can be best shaped to help accelerate this sector.
We are doing that together with other industry players in the sector, and we are seeing good receptiveness. I think that Europe wants to deliver better in this front and wants to hear from those who know so as to accelerate. Another question here: With Barroso position, the Europe's largest volume in resource. How are you balancing long-term strategic offtake agreements with retaining exposure to lithium price upside? It's a very good question. The first answer is that the offtakes that are being negotiated are not fixed price offtakes. They are indexed to market prices. They can potentially have a floor here, an indexation with discounts there, and so on, but they are fundamentally indexed to the lithium prices. On top of that, as Henrique referred, we won't go past the 75% of offtakes at this stage.
The additional production is important for operational flexibility, but also for us to tap into spots when they are useful. We can also fill the markets directly with those additional volumes. Let's also remind you all that we don't see the project finishing only with this stage of project. We believe that there is more afterwards in the future. With the offtake contracts and their indexation to price, with the spot volumes that remain, and with additional potential for the project, there is plenty of connection between the value of the project and lithium price upside opportunities. How are things progressing with the various infrastructure pieces required for the project, roads, power lines, et cetera? A good question also. Power lines progressing quite well with the support of E-REDES, the Portuguese entity that is involved in these projects, with direct action with all the various entities involved.
It is progressing on track and with good news here and there. We are actually in the process of preparing to buy our first capital piece of equipment, the transformer. Transformer for the power station is a piece of equipment that usually requires long lead times, and so the fact that we're progressing with that purchase also shows you that we're confident there. On the roads, same thing. We have broadly finalized the engineering for most of the roads elements of the project. So you are seeing all the pieces come nicely together, and some of them will be much more advanced than the FS stage when we deliver the FS. That is also important for us to mitigate risks, that a small piece of the project delays the whole project.
We're very conscious that those risks exist in these projects, and so progressing well in this front is also a good, important risk mitigator. A question on the CRMA and whether it is tied to commercial benefits. The question is, what commercial benefits are the result of CRMA now and in the future? I have seen throughout the media and the social media also, specialist media, questions around the importance of the Critical Raw Materials Act and doubts as to whether it is delivering the expected results. I don't buy into that theory. I think that there was perhaps an expectation that a piece of legislation would just unblock everything and make everything easy, and that's not how things work. Pieces of legislation help, but it is down to the projects themselves and to the ability of them to be very competitive and so easy.
I think that the European regulatory framework has improved with the CRMA, and it is further improving with the Industrial Accelerator Act and RESourceEU. If we want to sell our spodumene, and we want to place it well with the best players globally, it's on us. We need to do the work, and that's what we are doing. I'm not waiting for a European platform to help me define who I should be selling the product to. We jumped into a plane last month and we went to Shanghai, and we spent there a week. We are traveling to Sweden next month. We have part of the team that will go to Morocco this month. We've been to Canada and the U.S. and Brazil last year. We've gone to Australia.
We've gone to South Africa only three months ago, and we will continue to do that because we know that we need to engage with everyone face-to-face and to build the trust, that then builds the contracts that generate the long-term value that all our shareholders expect. I can tell you that at this stage, we have interested parties in offtakes coming out of Europe, out of South Korea, out of China, out of Japan, out of the U.S. Only the fact that those want to know more about our project and want to see how they can grab parts of the production volume is very encouraging for us and should be very encouraging for the region. We know that we have a good project and that the resource that we will work and the product that we will deliver is appealing to many.
We also know that many of those that are either in China, in South Korea, or in other blocks of the world, want to bring more industrial projects into Europe and into Portugal in particular. We think that by developing our projects, we increase the odds, and we accelerate the delivery of those projects. That's what we're focused on. European legislation will help. It will potentially even give us upsides on our business plan from what we are building right now, but we want first to have a very strong business case and very strong project and to deliver value at scale regardless of legislation, of European legislation framework. Another question, how has the CapEx estimate evolved in light of inflation in mining service and EPC markets across Europe, and what contingencies are you building into the updated project's budget?
This is also a very good question, especially because I have been showing you numbers from a Scoping Study that is dated from 2023. Inflation has taken its toll since then. Exchange rates have taken their toll also, and the project has become more mature in all of its aspects. This means that you will have updating numbers at DFS, and that some of these numbers will have moved north. Truth is that you will also have some good news there, some things that we did not see fully at Scoping Study, or that when we detailed into the FS stage became better than what we expected at Scoping Study. I would expect numbers that are slightly higher than those of the Scoping Study at the FS, but I would continue to expect a very solid project from a fundamental perspective and from an NPV perspective.
I hope this answers the question. I'm sorry for not being able to tell you more about what this actually means before we actually deliver the DFS, but I don't want to ruin the surprise as we go. Henrique, do you want to add anything on this one in particular because you're also quite involved?
Yeah. There were specific questions on contingencies that we cannot so say about which contingency you're using, but I can tell you that we are preparing to use the contingencies based on the current market conditions and the conditions to implement the project. These are based, as it has to be on a DFS, based on the true offers from suppliers. The numbers were reliable, that's what I can tell you, and with the appropriate contingency.
Very well. One other question on European refining capacity. What's our view on the European refining market outlook when production starts? Do we expect enough European refining capacity to be built by then? The short answer is, part of the refining capacity will start to be there by then, but not all the European refining capacity that we want and that we need. Right? Let's be blunt. You have a few refining projects that are progressing well within Europe, but you don't have all of them, and they are not progressing as fast as our project. I think that is normal. You need a few pieces of the value chain to be in production for the other pieces of the value chain to accelerate. You need to have a few projects to mitigate the risks of the other projects.
Let's be clear, it is very hard to build refining capacity without having feedstock secured. If you don't have good feedstock solutions, you have an additional source of risk for your refining project, and that makes things very hard. We know that we will have to send some of our products elsewhere at start of production. We are prepared to do that. We are being very cautious with the business plan that we're building, and we're considering no upside from selling locally because we want all of these additional levers of value to be upsides post DFS and not to be taken for granted when they are not, when they are hard to achieve. At the same time, we have been engaging with various European refiners or prospective refiners, and there are good news there.
We firmly believe today that in the medium term, Europe will have more than enough refining capacity for our project and for others. That is also very important. If it depends on us, Europe will have even more refining capacity and even better prepared refining capacity than what is anticipated right now. We've been working with AMG Critical Materials on this matter for years. We've been working with other players in Germany, in the Nordics, in Portugal, and Spain also, to have more refineries in the region. It is a matter of time for us.
We want to have a very solid project that delivers value from day one, but we also know that it is a matter of time before additional value can be delivered by the fact that we don't need to sell as much to elsewhere, and that we can place all of our production into European territory and potentially into Portuguese territory. There is obviously the advantage of the AMG relationship, but there are also other relationships that we have been building sustainably over the last years that will help us, both with Portuguese, with Spanish, with Germans, with Finns, and so on. We're very positive in the medium to long term, more positive than the market perhaps is right now.
We're basing that positivism on what we know from the developments of some of these projects and the level of appetite and attention that some players in this space have for spodumene and for this value chain. I think we have covered all the questions. Right, Lily?
That's great. Thank you for answering all those questions you have from investors. Of course, the company can review all questions submitted today and will publish those responses on the Investor Meet Company platform. Just before redirecting investors to provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important to the company, Emanuel, could I please just ask you for a few closing comments?
All done for us. It was good to cover all of these rounds in only one hour. I hope it was interesting for everyone. I'm certain that the level of enthusiasm around this project grows as we deliver these additional milestones. We have plenty of them in the coming six to 12 months, starting with some additional news on the local relations and then the DFS in summer. Before I go into holidays, I want to be here again with you talking about those very important developments that we've been working for for many years and are just around the corner now. Thank you all.
That's great. Thank you for updating investors today. Can I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that our management team can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete and I'm sure will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good afternoon to you all.