Good morning to everyone, and welcome to today's webcast. I'm Rowena Smith, Managing Director and CEO for Australian Strategic Materials, and I'm conducting this webcast this morning from Perth in Western Australia at our head office. In the spirit of reconciliation, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect this morning to their elders, past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today. I'm going to take you through a company presentation this morning, which we have released to the ASX, highlighting some of our recent announcements and milestones.
ASM is building a global rare earths and critical minerals business to provide the high-tech metals that are needed, to solve the challenges of today and the future, but in particular to support the clean energy transition. Our strategy is to go from mine all the way through to metals, building a vertically integrated supply chain. It starts with our project in New South Wales, the Dubbo Project. This is an advanced project where we will be mining, but also doing the value add of separating and refining those materials to take them through to high purity oxides. There'll be a suite of oxide products that we will produce there in Dubbo.
We will then be able to take those oxides either directly to global customers or through to one of our metals plants, the first of which we have already built, and it's in production in South Korea. Our metals plants, in addition to taking the Dubbo product, will also take third-party oxide materials, and we will metallize those to pure metals. But also we will make the specialist alloy products that are the feedstocks for the magnet producers that are producing the high-performance magnets, that are an essential part of the electric vehicles, the wind turbines, and a number of the other advanced technologies. We have an ASX listing and a very experienced board of directors and executive management team that is led by our Non-Executive Chair, Mr. Ian Gandel, who is also our largest shareholder. We have got a strong amount of cash.
Last reporting period, as at 31 December, we had over AUD 45 million in cash. We have had very significant news of late, which we're excited to be sharing with you today, as we are seeing U.S. partnerships really begin to play a significant role for us. The first of those announcements was the letter of interest that we received from U.S. EXIM for the Dubbo Project execution and construction phase for $600 million U.S., which is over AUD 900 million in conditional debt. That was then followed by an announcement that we've awarded a contract to U.S.-owned Bechtel to complete the front-end engineering design work for both our non-processing and our processing infrastructure work.
And with it, we have submitted an application to cover over 80% of that FEED contract by a program that the U.S. EXIM run that's called their Engineering Multiplier Program. But it's a program that is specifically designed to provide funding for this last phase of engineering for critical minerals projects. We have also announced that we have already received an additional letter of interest from U.S. EXIM in support of that EMP funding application, where they have said that they are interested in providing a further $32 million, or just under AUD 50 million, in funding to support that contract. So we'll be talking about all of that news as we go through this presentation today.
But we will also be talking about the latest news from our Korean metals plant, where we're making great progress with the technical validation processes on our alloy product with customers, and looking to commence commercial sample sales this month. So we will start with our Dubbo Project this morning. Our Dubbo Project is a very unique ore body. It's positioned to meet global demand for critical minerals and rare earths, because it has a unique combination of those materials. We have the neodymium and the praseodymium, which are the light rare earths that make up the bulk of the materials for the high-performance magnets.
But we also have, importantly, a very high proportion of the heavy rare earths, the terbium and the dysprosium, which are added in small volumes, but are an essential component of those magnets that allow them to really perform in high-temperature environments. We then also have three other materials that are on the critical minerals lists in most of the Western countries: zirconia, hafnium, and niobium. The deposit itself is a very long life deposit. We've already identified a 20-year life of mine based on JORC reserves and a further 50 years of resource. It's in a fabulous location in Dubbo, in New South Wales, close to infrastructure, part of the New South Wales Renewable Energy Zone, and we get very strong support from government.
We've received over AUD 17 million in grants recently from federal and state government to support us on the early construction work that is underway. It is construction-ready with all the major approvals in place. We've got our flow sheet work very well advanced. We've been working on that with ANSTO for over 17 years. So it is very comprehensively tested and we are now working on the final engineering work that will be progressed by Bechtel Engineering. Our focus, therefore, is on critical path, which is to secure the offtakes and funding to be able to take this project into construction.
We are, with the grants that we received from government recently, progressing some of our ESG improvement work, making sure that the design that we go forward with when we take FID really represents the latest in thinking and latest in technologies to be able to target that carbon net zero. We've already improved our water requirements and been able to reduce that by over 60%. And we did, just in the last couple of months, just go through a independent rating of our ESG performance by Morningstar Sustainalytics, and we're very proud that in the latest review they published they rated us in the top 10% of best-performing diversified metals and mining businesses globally. So we'll continue to progress that work as we go forward.
But really, our focus at the moment is on securing funding so that we can move forward into construction, and that starts with the contract that we have let with Bechtel. The Bechtel contract is a partnership that enables us to secure further funding. It's a U.S.-based company. We were already working with them to do the non-processing infrastructure. So what we've done in the last few weeks is that we have broadened their scope to include the processing infrastructure. It allows us to do it as an integrated piece of work, which is definitely an advantage, but it also gave us an opportunity to apply for this Engineering Multiplier Program that U.S. EXIM have to be able to actually fund this final piece of the engineering work.
So Bechtel worked with us over the last few months in order to prepare that submission, and we have now submitted that to U.S. EXIM. But as I said earlier, we were very pleased to receive the initial assessment from U.S. EXIM that they have interest to support that program for up to $32 million. The next step in that process is for us to go through a detailed due diligence with U.S. EXIM, which we will do over the next couple of months, when we will then, you know, expect to see that they will confirm the funding that they will provide, which in turn will enable us to commence the broader scope with Bechtel.
The work, once it's complete, will enable us to take that final investment decision and commence execution of the Dubbo Project. It will give us the final firm design that enables us to get the costing firm for the final CapEx for the project. But what we also can see from this is that it also allows us to get further grants and further funding for the project. The first example of this, the actual letter of interest for the construction phase that we also received from U.S. EXIM, and this also was off the back of a proposal from Bechtel of what the construction phase would look like if they were leading the EPC, and they were optimizing the U.S. content in that phase of the construction project.
So U.S. EXIM have given us, again, a conditional, letter of, of interest for funding up to $600 million of that, of that phase of the- At the moment, our estimate for that, as in December 2021 financials, is $1.67 billion. So this gets us over halfway, toward that target. And when you combine it with, the letter of support that we've already received from the EFA, then we've really got very significant momentum there in being able to fund the project.... This is very important for us as we talk to our offtakers. We've been progressing discussions over the last 18 months with offtakers, and some of those conversations now are very advanced.
But what we can see in those conversations is that in order to commit to those offtakes, they really are wanting to get reassurance on what our funding pathway is. So for us, we know that this announcement and the progression of this funding from the U.S. is going to be a very important catalyst in those discussions for offtakers. It's also an important catalyst for discussions with other funding opportunities, both with other governments, but also private investment that is also looking to participate in the project once we can demonstrate that we have reduced the overall risk associated with funding. So since we've made this announcement, even we can see the uptake in the interest that we have and to be able to progress discussions with other funding opportunities for the project.
The conversations around funding, I do just want to dwell on for a little bit. There is an enormous amount of support globally for this alternative supply chain to be developed. We are seeing that through the export credit agencies. So obviously we've already seen that support from Australia and from the U.S., but we've also got conversations underway, and some of these, again, very long-standing conversations in Korea, in Canada, and with a number of the European export credit agencies. But we also are seeing a very strong support here within Australia through the range of funding vehicles, the first of which is the Critical Minerals Facility. The photo there is a photo of the Prime Minister with Minister King and Ambassador Rudd, sitting at a critical minerals roundtable in Washington, D.C., that I attended.
You can see the back there is Secretary Raimondo. But this was very high-level discussions between the U.S. and Australia about building alliances, aligning policy, but also looking for collaborative funding opportunities to be able to establish this alternative supply chain. It was on this day that the Prime Minister announced that Australia was doubling the Critical Minerals Facility from AUD 2 billion to AUD 4 billion. And we certainly have got conversations underway about accessing those funds as we continue. That's an AUD 15 billion fund, but AUD 1 billion of that has been earmarked for critical minerals. And again, they're just establishing their processes, but we're in conversations with them about accessing funds for the Dubbo Project.
And then most recently, on a smaller scale, but with monies that will be available much more immediately, the International Partnerships Program, which again, we have a submission and awaiting feedback for it. So a lot of different opportunities in Australia to seek funding for this project. But then the other conversation that emerged post this critical minerals roundtable that I attended in Washington back in October of last year is some of the other policy that's emerging in the U.S. The Inflation Reduction Act is certainly a piece of legislation that supports these alternative supply chains for critical minerals to develop within the U.S. and with allied countries. But one that's really very important for us in ASM is the Defense Production Act, Title III.
Over December, in the weeks that followed the critical minerals roundtable, the U.S. passed legislation to extend the Defense Production Act, Title III, to include Australia as a domestic source. And what that allows is for the Department of Defense to directly fund projects like the Dubbo Project in Australia. The type of funding that they are considering is what they call a non-dilutive equity. It's not called a grant, but effectively it is a grant. And I think it's important that we recognize that when we look at this suite of funding options that we're exploring at the moment, some of them are low-cost debt, some of them are grants, some of them are equity. The Australian funding options are able to provide a mix of those different funding options.
And that in combination then is a very strong base for us to go into discussions around whatever private equity or debt we want to secure to supplement the suite to be able to fully fund the project to go forward. So this is a very active area for us at the moment with conversations underway, and we will see in the coming months as we secure additional letters of support and progress discussions in these you know various different funding mechanisms. We will update the market as we reach milestones in those. So the focus for Dubbo for 2024 we will continue to progress the non-processing infrastructure work. That work's been underway with Bechtel for a number of months already. It's well on track. It is progressing very well.
It's one of the big advantages that Bechtel had when we sat down to talk to them about broadening the scope. They already had this deep understanding of the Dubbo Project, and it's why, you know, we've been able to put such a compelling proposal forward to the U.S. EXIM. We're really enjoying the collaborative approach that Bechtel are using as they're working with us, and we'll continue to work closely with them as we finalize the EMP funding in the coming months as we go through that due diligence with U.S. EXIM. And we're targeting to commence Bechtel FEED contract in about September, so in the second half of this year.
That allows us, on an updated, project timeline, to complete the FEED work in the first half of 2026, and then, take that final investment decision to move into construction, and on that timeline, we would be completing construction and commencing production in 2028. But clearly, the activity, as I've said before at the moment, is really to secure that further funding through the discussions that we have underway with our offtakers, but also talking to investment parties, the export credit agencies, and the various different government agencies. So in addition to all the excitement that we've been having with the Dubbo Project, we've also been continuing to work on our Korean metals plant. I do have a video that I just want to show, to share with you, what is happening inside this facility.
Because people often ask me, "Is it a pilot plant?" No, it's not. You can see here it is a commercial facility. It's been built to very high commercial standards, and we're very proud of it. We're producing here the neodymium and praseodymium metal, which is that light rare earths metal, and we're also. That's the strip caster there that you're looking at. We're also making the strip cast, the NdFeB alloy, that is that material that goes on to the magnet producers. So we're in production here. We've been producing the metal there since 2022, and been delivering that in regular deliveries to a Korean customer, NS World. So we're in production and then in the process of ramping this facility up.
The real challenge for this facility is that we took a very brave decision and established this metals plant right at the beginning of this alternative supply chain being established outside of China. And so what we have here now are conversations with both the upstream parties and the downstream parties to really enable the whole of this supply chain to establish itself. What we're finding as we're talking to potential third-party providers of the raw materials, the oxides, is that there's very little of that available outside of China at the moment. We have been working very closely with a number of potential suppliers in Vietnam, but also more recently in Europe and in the U.S..
What we're finding is that the oxide providers don't want to commit to moving into production until they know there is an established, credible downstream, supply chain for them to supply into. So our facility is a very important part of them, progressing and committing to commencing production, and we're anticipating that we will see volumes of these materials become available in the second half of this year, in small quantities, and then, really ramping up into larger quantities through 2025. So in parallel with that, what we're also doing is working with the magnet producers. There are more magnet producers outside of China than there are oxide producers, but it's still very much an emerging industry.
The first of our alloy sales that we announced are two emerging magnet producers in the U.S., Noveon Magnetics, who also are a Department of Defense supplier, as well as U.S. Rare Earth. But we're now in conversation with a number of established and emerging magnet producers across Europe, Korea, and the U.S. as we work with them to go through the product validation processes. Our facility is designed to be able to produce 3,600 tons per annum of this alloy material. Our current installation, we've installed capacity up to 600 tons per annum. And so really this first ramp-up phase is working with both the raw material producers and the customers to establish the flow of materials to support a 600 tons per annum production. But it's a very easy second phase expansion for us.
We've learned a lot in these early phases of operation, and we've been able, as we've been developing our technology and developing our operational know-how, we've been able to now, in the last few months, upgrade our existing furnaces and strip caster to be able to reflect those learnings. So we've made a number of enhancements to those to make them more operationally efficient. And we've also done the groundwork to prepare for the next furnaces that will be the next, the first part of that phase two expansion when the customer demand supports it. We've also, in the last year, started working on developing our metallization technology beyond our current product suite and the titanium work that we've been working on to include the terbium and the dysprosium.
So that's a very important part of our product development suite, to be able to produce the terbium and the dysprosium metals that are a part of that NdFeB alloy, so that we can provide that full suite of products to customers as we go forward. We're also very proud of the fact that we did set ourselves a target to be Scope 1, Scope 2 carbon net zero from commencement of operation. When we released our annual report late last year, we were very proud to confirm that our first year of full production in this facility was delivered, meeting that goal. So really, our focus at the moment is progressing these new customer opportunities. The NdFeB strip alloy technical validation process, as I said before, we're advancing that across Korean, European and U.S. markets.
We're working with emerging producers. Again, it's a similar chicken and egg sort of tension for them. They don't want to establish their magnet facilities until they know that they can source the metals through a non-China supply. So we're working with them to demonstrate that we can provide that for them. The process then is quite involved. Once you've established that relationship with them, they then will do a series of validations around your ESG performance, around your laboratory facilities, to show that you're going to be able to manage the quality assurance requirements that they have. They then share their recipe for their alloy, and the magnet producers all have their own boutique recipes.
So we then need to develop our own capability for that specific alloy, and then you start sharing with them small volumes, and they will then test them for physical characteristics, they will test them for chemical composition, and then they start to actually use them to check to make sure that it does actually produce the magnets with the right performance that they need. So then the last step in that technical value for us to be able to provide commercial-sized samples. So we're very excited that this month we're seeing the first commercial sample, 465-kilogram sample, that is due for delivery actually this week to a European customer.
That is aiding that final technical validation process that enables us to then say, "Right, we're qualified," and we can then go into the final commercial discussions for offtake negotiations. We also have an additional number of customers in Korea and in Europe, where we're expecting to reach this same milestone over the coming quarter. So that's a really important milestone for us as we're establishing our ramp up for this Korean facility. We continue to have discussions with our existing customers to align our delivery with their project, sorry, with their production needs as well. And we're anticipating that we will really start to see these volumes flowing through 2025. So that's a bit of an update on ASM and what we've been working on recently as we're building an alternative global supply chain.
We are already in production, making those high-tech metals and alloys that are needed for this clean energy transition. We are receiving very strong government support, both here in Australia, but also, importantly from the U.S., and we're anticipating that we will see that continue to build over the next 12 months. One of the reasons why governments are so interested in supporting us is because the Dubbo Project is construction ready. They recognize that, and they want to support us getting it into production, and they realize that funding is our critical path. We've now secured AUD 1.12 billion of conditional debt, and we are very focused on continuing to build on this momentum over the next 6 months. So that's the update for this morning.
I just, look, thank everybody for joining us, and I hope that's been helpful for you to get an understanding of what we're working on at the moment. So with that, I will hand back to Harmony to conclude today's webcast. Thanks very much, everybody.