The Chair of Australian Strategic Materials. It's my pleasure to welcome you to this annual general meeting of our company. I'd like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which we're meeting, and pay my respects to their elders, past and present. I also extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples here today. I'm joined in person by my fellow board directors, Nic Earner, Kerry Gleeson, and online by Gavin Smith, who joins us from Melbourne. Our CEO, Rowena Smith, is also present in the room here.
Also in attendance are Julie Jones, General Counsel and Joint Company Secretary. Dennis Wilkins, Joint Company Secretary. Jason Clifton, ASM's CFO, and Helen Bathurst of auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers. Questions on today's proceedings will be addressed towards the end of the meeting after all resolutions have been considered today.
Have been put to the meeting. For those joining me in person, you will be able to ask questions directly during the allocated question time. For shareholders and proxies viewing online, you can submit questions at any time. To ask a question online, click the Ask Now icon. This will open a new screen. At the bottom of that screen, there will be a section for you to type your question. Once you have finished typing, please hit the Submit icon to send.
Please note that while you can submit questions from now, I will only be answering during the allocated question time. Please also note that your questions may be moderated, or if we receive multiple questions on one topic, amalgamated together. I remind shareholders that questions should relate only to the business of this meeting.
Voting today will be conducted by way of a poll on all items of business. If you are eligible to vote at this meeting, please select the Polling tab, and selecting this item will take you to the voting screen and present you with your voting options. To cast your vote, simply select one of the options against each resolution.
You will then need to click Confirm to submit your vote. You do have the ability to change your vote up until the time that I declare the voting closed. For those here in person, voting is done by completing the polling card you should have received on entry today. Please complete the polling card and return it to the Advanced Share Registry staff at the registration desk.
If you have lodged your vote by submitting your proxy form prior to the start of this meeting, and you would like your proxy vote to stand, you do not need to take any announcements platform later today. As a proxies in favor of each resolution. The financial report for the year ended 30th of June 2022 is now tabled.
The auditor, Helen Bathurst of PricewaterhouseCoopers, is available to respond to any questions on our financial statements or the audit during the allocated question time. I refer you to resolution 1 regarding the adoption of the remuneration report. This is an advisory-only resolution, and I consider the resolution as displayed on the screen as having been read. The proxy votes received on this resolution are also displayed on the screen.
I now put the resolution to the meeting and move to the next item of business, which is Resolution 2 regarding the election of Miss Kerry Gleeson as a Director. This is an ordinary resolution, and I consider the resolution as displayed on the screen as having been read. The proxy votes received on this resolution are also displayed on the screen. I now put the resolution to the meeting and move to the next item of business, which is Resolution 3 regarding the re-election of Mr. Gavin Murray Smith as a Director. This is an ordinary resolution, and I consider the resolution as displayed on the screen as having been read. The proxy votes received on this resolution are also displayed on the screen.
I now put the resolution to the meeting and move to the next item of business, which is Resolution 4 regarding the ratification of an issue of shares to KCM Energy Company Limited. This is an ordinary resolution, and I consider the resolution as displayed on the screen as having been read. The proxy votes received on this resolution are also displayed on the screen.
I now put the resolution to the meeting and move to the next item of business, which is Resolution 5 regarding the amendment to the constitution. This is a special resolution, and I consider the resolution as displayed on the screen as having been read. The proxy votes received on this resolution are also displayed on the screen. I now put the resolution to the meeting and move to the next item of business, which is Resolution 6 regarding the renewal of the proportional takeover provisions.
This is a special resolution, and I consider the resolution as displayed on the screen as having been read. The proxy votes received are also displayed on the screen. I now put the resolution to the meeting and move to the next item of business. For this item of business, I'll hand over to Ms. Kerry Gleeson for Resolution 7.
Thank you, Chairman. I refer you to Resolution 7 regarding the approval of an issue of shares to Mr. Ian Gandel. This is an ordinary resolution. I consider the resolution as displayed on the screen as having been read. The proxy votes received on this resolution are also displayed on the screen. I now put this resolution to the meeting and hand back to the Chairman. Thank you.
Thank you, Kerry. I refer you to Resolution 8 regarding the approval of an issue of shares to Ms. Kerry Gleeson. This is an ordinary resolution. I consider the resolution as displayed on the screen as having been read. The proxy votes received on this resolution are also displayed on the screen. I now put the resolution to the meeting.
I move to the next item of business, which is Resolution 9 regarding the ratification of an issue of shares. This is an ordinary resolution. I consider the resolution as displayed on the screen as having been read. The proxy votes received on this resolution are also displayed on the screen. I now put this final resolution to the meeting. As all of the resolutions to be considered at today's meeting have been put to the meeting, we can move to question time.
Firstly, to those present in the room, do you have any questions on any matter considered today or for the auditor? Thank you. I'll now address any questions that have been asked by the facility, the online facility. Dennis and Julie, are there any questions from those attending remotely?
No, Chair. There have been no questions received relating to the resolutions.
Thank you. No questions.
There have been questions received relating to the operations, which we'll deal with at the end of the meeting.
Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. That seems to have exhausted any questions for today. We can now move to voting. As mentioned earlier, voting will be by poll. For those online, if you have not already done so, I invite you to vote using the function available on the meeting platform. This function will be available for the next 10- minutes, after which the poll will be closed. If you would like your proxy votes to stand, you need not take any further action. For those in Perth, could you please complete your polling cards and hand them to the Advanced Share Registry staff.
Mr. Chairman, if I may interrupt.
Please.
Can I just point out an administrative error on the polling cards. The resolutions on the polling card you may receive on the way in only go from resolution one to six. You'll need to add the additional resolutions to the bottom of that form before handing them back when you're cleared. Apologies for that oversight.
That's fine. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, just need to correct that. Seven.
It's seven, eight, nine. One, are they going to write?
Yes
... or?
Their resolution number and voting intention underneath. The registry staff will help you-
Sure
... in there. The polling cards, just to be clear, left off the last three resolutions for voting on. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Okay. Of course. Thank you all. I now declare the formal part of today's meeting closed, and thank you for your participation. The result of the poll will be released to the ASX later today. I'd now like to invite our CEO, Ms. Rowena Smith, to provide an update on the company's results for the year and an insight into what we can expect in the year to come. At the conclusion of Ms. Smith's presentation, there'll be an opportunity to ask questions. Shareholders viewing online can use the same question function to ask questions of Mrs. Smith, and we will address as many as we are able at the end of the conclusion of the presentation.
Thank you, Ian, and good afternoon to everyone joining us today, both those who have joined us in the room and those who are joining us virtually. I really thank you for taking the time to attend our 2022 annual general meeting. It is a real pleasure for me to be here. This is my first opportunity as CEO to provide you with a company update.
I'm gonna just start with the standard disclaimer, which I would just encourage you to have a look at later on. I do wanna start today with giving a review of the fundamentals of ASM. There have been a number of things that have changed since I came into the role as CEO. Our purpose, our vision, and our mine to metals approach have not changed.
You know, we are building a rare earths and critical minerals business to provide the high-tech metals that are used to solve the challenges of both today and the future. That mine to metals approach is core to our strategy. It starts with our Dubbo mine in New South Wales, where we will be mining, but also separating and refining the Dubbo resource into a number of high purity oxide products.
Then we take it to the first of our metals plants in Korea, where we then will metallize that oxide into purity metals, and then alloy them into alloy products that are the feed products into the high performance magnets that are then used for a number of advanced applications. The electric vehicles, the wind turbines, the solar power, et cetera.
Our customers are global customers, and we envisage in time that we will replicate the plant that we are developing currently in Korea, so that they are co-located with our customers as we establish those customers as offtake for Dubbo in time. Our focus to start with is really on delivering these two key projects.
Dubbo project, where we do have a suite of products that come through the processing facility that we've designed there. We have our light rare earth product, which is the neodymium- praseodymium oxide. We also importantly for Dubbo have our heavy rare earths, the terbium and the dysprosium. While they're in small volume, they are very high value products and something that's very special about the Dubbo project, because not all rare earth projects contain those heavy rare earths.
Another advantage that the Dubbo Project has is that we also have other critical minerals. The zirconia, the hafnia, and the ferro-niobium. That gives us a diversity of revenue stream for this project that will strengthen the economics of this project through the cycles. I will talk in a bit more detail about the progress we've made with the Dubbo Project over the last 12 months, but I think the key here is that we did significant work on updating the flow sheet, simplifying it, improving it for improved ESG performance, as well as to reduce the operating costs of the project.
We released that optimization study in December of 2021. Since that time, we have awarded the EPC Definition contract to Hyundai Engineering. We're currently working through talking with strategic investors and with potential offtake partners. We're at that point now where we're securing the financing to be able to commence construction. One of the things that's quite unique about ASM is that in parallel with doing the work of getting the Dubbo Project up, we have committed to building our first metals plant in Korea.
We've got three areas of focus for that metals plant in Korea. The first, and the one that we have, really prioritized to get constructed and commissioned, initially is the metallization of the light rare earths, so the neodymium praseodymium metal. That work we are using an enhanced established technology to metallize that product. We have installed the first of those furnaces.
We have commissioned them, and we have successfully delivered our first product to customers in September of this year, which was a point of great pride for the Korean team. We also have been constructing and commissioning the first of our strip casters, and this is the equipment that takes that metal that we have made, the neodymium praseodymium metal, and adds alloy to it to customer specification as a feedstock into the magnet producers.
We're just in the final phases of commissioning that equipment at the moment, with the expectation that we will have saleable production ready by Christmas. That's the first piece that we've really been focused on. The other area that's really exciting that we're doing there in the Korean Metals Plant is developing our own in-house innovative metallization technology, which we call the LK Process.
This in time will be the process that we use to metallize the heavy rare earths from Dubbo, the terbium and the dysprosium, and also what we will use for metallizing the zirconia and hafnium. But to start with, we are commissioning this technology using titanium. We've chosen titanium for two reasons. One is, it was a cost-effective, and readily accessible third-party feed for us to be using prior to Dubbo coming online. Also because we really see an opportunity for this to be a disruptor for the established process that is used for metallizing titanium.
The Kroll process is the traditional process for titanium metallization. It's a very old process, many decades old and quite out of date. It's environmentally impactful, and it has got high levels of chlorine that are used in the process, and it also is very energy intensive, so it has high levels of emissions. What we have got with the LK Process is we've got a process that is low capital, it's low footprint, it's extremely low emissions, you know, less than 20% emissions compared to the Kroll Process. Doesn't use chlorine at all. We see this as a real opportunity to, as I said before, disrupt the established way that titanium is produced. We're working on all of those things in our Korean Metals Plant.
You can hear that there's a strong story there in the technology that we're developing, as well as the metals and their end use, that this business is fundamentally about providing the world with the metals that it needs for that clean energy transition. It's, it is important, and we value that we're doing the right thing. We also have to make sure that we're doing it the right way.
Our investors, our customers, our shareholders, our communities and ourselves all want to make sure that we're building a sustainable business that is living those values. You know, as we look then at how we meet our commitments for community, you know, that's one area where we've had very deep connection with the Dubbo community for many years. That's something that we really value and will continue.
We've also, in recent times, been investing in a similar deep connection with our Korean communities. The health and safety for our employees is another area that is a very strong focus, and particularly relevant for us in our Korean operation, where we now are managing operational risk on a day-to-day basis now that we're in production.
We have got the commitment to make sure that we don't have any environmental harm, either in the work that we're doing across our Dubbo Project, as well as our Toongi Pastoral Company activities, as well as the work that we're doing within the Korean manufacturing facility. That constant focus on how we are going to deliver this at a net zero carbon and really looking at working, you know, additionally to the technology development that we're doing in Korea.
You're really working with New South Wales Government and what can we do to access renewable energies, as well as what can we do about improving the design for Dubbo to take advantage of the emerging technologies that allow us to have that stronger environmental performance. That will continue to be an area of focus for us going forward.
I did want to just spend a little bit of time though sharing what we are doing in Korea. There's been a lot of questions coming to me about what we are doing there. I have shared a number of times that whenever I get an opportunity to take a visitor to Korea, they are just blown away by what we have done there in Ochang, and I wish I could take you all there.
This is a photo of the plant that we have built in Korea. The pretty building with the orange spots on it on the right is the admin building. That's a three-story admin building where we house both the operational management and production support teams. Also that's where we house the research and development team that we have.
You might recall that we purchased Ziron Tech a couple of years ago and bought that research capacity as a fully owned subsidiary in-house. When we made that acquisition, we acquired an incredibly well-credentialed research and development team who are the team that are developing that LK Process that I spoke about before. They're co-located there. That large building, that is the L-shaped building, is the production facility. That building did exist before we started.
It was an old DVD company, but we have completely gutted it and refitted it. The rest of the properties on that 2-hectare plot were not there when we broke ground in July of last year. Since July of last year, we have done that whole construction and commissioned it and delivered our first saleable product to our first customer, a Korean magnet plant, all inside 15 months, which the team there are very, very proud of. The L-shaped production facility, the area under the black roof is the area that is dedicated to the neodymium production. There we have installed two furnaces and a strip caster, and that's what we're currently doing all the commissioning and production on.
The intention as we then increase the capacity of that neodymium production is to add an additional number of furnaces, another 13 furnaces within that facility, and also an additional strip caster. That will take what is normally a 600 tons per annum capacity that we have there at the moment through to the 3,600 tons that we're planning to have installed by the end of next year. The area that is the blue roof, the other part of the L, is the area where we have installed the titanium furnaces. We have two furnaces installed there. That has an installed capacity of 1,600 tons per annum.
That is as much capacity as we're planning to put there at the moment, although there is space to do another two furnaces. We can double that capacity within that facility if we choose to. The two tall buildings that make up the square, that build out the L to a square, are two buildings. One of them is the area where we do the material spread, and the other is where we will make the titanium powder. That's what those are. Then the smaller buildings on the left are the laboratory. We have a national accredited laboratory there to be able to do all of our assay work and be able to do all the quality assurance for products for customers as well as the canteen staff.
I speak about that, I'm sure you can hear, I speak about it with pride because, whilst I appreciate that the project did experience delays, predominantly due to COVID. We had disruptions to equipment delivery. We had disruptions to contractors being available. We had to get visas for people to come overseas to assist with commissioning, and we have had at times where we've had to close the plant because of COVID infection. We have had disruption there, and the timeline has been adjusted accordingly. Nonetheless, I am very proud of the work that the team have done there this year. Just a couple of photos that you can see there. The one on the left is actually one of the copper titanium pours we did.
The development of the copper titanium is a little bit slower than the neodymium process. It is a very innovative process. Understandably, we've got more work to do doing that process commissioning. That is a recent pour. We've been running trials there in the facility, and the trials that we ran through last quarter, we sent some of the samples to KITECH, which is one of the premier government-owned research facilities in Korea.
We sent the samples to get independent analysis, and we have got a report now that confirms that that product is being made to saleable spec, which is very exciting. We're in the process now of broadening out the product range that we can make and also. We're just in the final phases of commissioning that--V irtual. We've got some examples of some of the products that we're making now that will be on track with what we originally.
The customer contracts. What the Korean Metals Plant is that the actual customers have not increased their production requirements at the rate that was initially anticipated. It is going to go, the ramp-up is going to go a little slower than the original estimates. We're working closely with a number of customers. We've broadened the range of customers now to include customers in the United States and Japan, as well as the customers that we're speaking to in Korea, so that we can build up the production profile for our Korean Metals Plant.
Now I'd like to have a chat about Dubbo, because Dubbo, much as a lot of time and attention goes to the Korean Metals Plant, you know, Dubbo is our priority because that is the resource. That is ultimately where the feed for the metals plant will come from. We're really excited that we've got what we really believe is the right project at the right time. I'm sure most of you are deeply familiar with Dubbo. It's a long life resource.
We've got 20 years of reserve, plus an additional 50 years of resource identified. We have been working on this many years. We have, for over 15 years, been working with ANSTO, and have got a very advanced flow sheet. We have got all our major approvals in place. We have done significant design work. As I said, earlier, we released the updated optimization study in December, where we had done further improvement to that flow sheet, in part reflecting some of the recent results from the ANSTO work, where we had seen opportunities for improving recoveries.
Also, so that we could improve the environmental performance of the facility, taking advantage of, you know, the up-to-date technologies. We reduced the water usage by over 50% in recent times. We reduced the amount of road haulage that will be used. We've been able to reduce the amount of reagents that are coming in, but also we transferred a number of the haulage to rail. There's some of the things that we have been working on.
We issued the EPC Definition contract to Hyundai Engineering in June of this year. We're just working at the moment on securing the funding to be able to provide notice to proceed to Hyundai, with the desire for that work to commence next year, as we then secure the funding, talking with our strategic investors and the offtake partners. The financials that came through that optimization study are very strong. We've got a pre-tax internal rate of return of 23.5%, and a free cash flow of over AUD 400 million per year once we have the project in operation. We do have the challenge of funding it. The funding of it is AUD 1.67 billion, that is obviously a challenge for us, and one that we have been-
You know, since I've started in role, I've been going and talking to all of the various parties that we have been speaking to for some period of time to check in with what is the status, what is their level of enthusiasm, what is their level of commitment. I'm very happy to say that the amount of support for this project at the Australian Government level, at the New South Wales Government level, at the Korean Government level, federally, the Chungbuk Province, which is the state level within Korea, just continues to be so strong. The target last year was for us to have secured our investors, we were working with a Korean Consortium to progress that.
As we announced earlier in the year, we did get to a point where we recognized that that wasn't going as quickly as we wanted it to. We decided to step into a broader search, so not have the Korean consortium exclusively doing that work on our behalf, but to take that work more in-house again. That's in part because, you know, we've been talking to some of the large, you know, Korean end users. What became clear is they have a lot of enthusiasm for being Dubbo offtake partners, but they really wanted to work with us more directly than that model that we had was enabling. We have now taken that to working on that in-house. And that's really when we put the company presentation out last month with the updated timelines.
They're the timelines that we're working to to progress those conversations over the next six to nine months. One of the things that I think that graph shows that I think's worth just reflecting on for a moment, when you have a look at the gap between what the OpEx is versus what the revenue is, we've used relatively conservative price assumptions for the revenue. What you can see there is once we've got the offtake for the hafnium and the zirconia, then really all of the revenue that we get from the rare earths is free carry. This project continues to have a lot of exposure to the upside as we see the rare earth value increasing.
Lastly, just to give you a sense of what we're doing around marketing, we have actually got in the room for those who are here, Mr. Peter Finnimore, who is our Head of Marketing, and he joined us, just not long after I started in role. Peter has been assisting us in really broadening that search for offtake partners. You can see there the sorts of companies that are potential end users of the products that we make in Dubbo. Whilst we still have a very strong focus in Korea, you can see there that there are a number of companies that are Japanese, that are American, European.
That search that we have for offtake partners is also no longer solely focused on the light rare earths, but we're really looking at all of the rare earths. Sorry, all of the products simultaneously as we're taking that work forward. They're really the things that I wanted to share with you today as an update for you all. This is really a very exciting time for ASM. I really just want to re-emphasize, we have a high tech metal SPARC that is in production.
We've got a critical minerals project ready for development. We've got a very, very good team who are dedicated to getting this unique set of opportunities into production for ASM. The past few months have been incredibly busy. I'm really grateful to Ian and other directors for the support that they've given to me and to the team as we have transitioned in recent months.
I would also like to give my thanks to ASM staff, who have worked so hard in the last 12 months to deliver the progress that we've made towards our goals. I would also like to thank you all, those of you who have made the time, both in the room and to join us virtually, for both your time today, but also for your ongoing support to the work that we do at ASM. Thank you very much. I now hand back to Ian.
Thank you, Rowena. Thank you very much for that update. Well, we'll now address any questions. firstly, for those present in the room, do you have any questions?
With regards to the Dubbo offtake, you've got prospective and potential customers. What percentage has contact been made with them?
I think, you're wanting to the number of people that we've spoken to?
That you've spoken to. 50% that we've spoken, 20%, I don't know.
We've spoken to, more than is on that list. That list is not a, an exhaustive list of those that we've spoken to. I think I would be, you know, I think the focus at the moment is what are the ones that we have got real momentum in. What I'm seeing is that originally there was very strong momentum in the Korean offtake partners. What we've seen recently is a surge of interest from the United States, even more recently, we've seen a real pick up in the interest from the Japanese offtake potential. We've got more momentum in those conversations at the moment than we have had for some period of time.
Hello, Tom Murrell is my name.
Hey, Tom.
I'm a relatively new shareholder.
Welcome.
I bought some shares on the back of your presentation at New World Metals Conference in Ohio a couple months ago. Since then the share price has sort of weakened quite a bit and sort of halved my investment. Why is that, firstly, and secondly, what news flow do we have coming up that will materially impact on the share price in a positive way? Thank you.
Yeah. Share price is obviously a function of market sentiment, which we don't have a lot of control over. What we do have control over is our performance. You know, we set a lot of very ambitious targets last year, and a number of them we didn't hit, particularly the timeline we didn't hit. That's contributed. We've also been in an environment where there has been COVID and there's been a lot of impacts on supply chain over that period. That's in part contributed to our performance, but it's also contributed to just general uncertainty within the market. More recently we've seen, you know, those global economic conditions with the whole market shifting.
I think, you know, going forward, what I think is most important is that we have a clear plan with realistic timeframes on what we're going to deliver. That's certainly what we aim to do with the recent company presentation and, you know, providing that clear pathway so that people can see what it is that we are planning to do.
Then providing just more complete updates to the market on actually how we are progressing. Again, we've made effort in recent quarterlies to give a comprehensive update on the status of the work so that people can see what things have progressed and also then what we're expecting in the short-term horizon. They're the things that we're really working on.
You know, in terms of good news flow, you know, I think the things that we're really aiming for for mid-next year, again, are in that company presentation. We're really looking for, you know, the first of our NdFeB customers. You know, that's really a key milestone for us. We're looking for a offtake secured for Dubbo.
It may not be finalized by the middle of next year, but we certainly wanna have made material disclosures by the middle of next year on our strategic investor and offtake progress. I think they're the things that are going to make a significant impact for us on share price. We've got a number of other things that we're doing around funding, including a number of grants that we've applied for.
You would have seen We got the successful $500,000 grant last week from the New South Wales Government. There's a number of grants, both in New South Wales and in Korea, that we've got applications in for at the moment. There's a number of smaller things that we will continue to be progressing and sharing as they are completed. Thank you for your investment.
Thank you.
Thanks. Are there any other questions? Yep.
Profitability with regards the Korean Metals Plant. We're looking for the first, I think they are the contracts, supply contracts. How's the pricing for the passage product versus the market?
Yeah. The breakeven point I think we shared in the company presentation for that facility is the 600 tons per annum. Really getting to that level is the first hurdle that we're really focused on at the moment. The pricing in this market is actually one of the real challenges because there's not a lot of transparency. It's an emerging market, and working out what a fair way of sharing value along that supply chain is one of the industry challenges, not specific to us, it's an industry challenge at the moment.
What we're finding as we're talking to people is that, you know, some customers are recognizing that there needs to be a premium paid for a quality product that has good ESG credentials that is coming from an alternate source. It's a matter of well, what do you link it to? Do you link it to the end products or do you link it to, say, you know, China pricing? Those are some of the things that we're working through at the moment and actually it's, that's the core of the conversation to land what the right pricing mechanism is that's going to be fair and going to be robust through the cycle to be able to finalize those contracts with the offtake partners.
I think the NS World contract, we said we've done that one at the published pricing, but there's not a lot of published pricing for the alloy. There is definitely more complexity in that commercial discussion. We'll share that once we have finalized that with the parties. That's one area that we're really focused on at the moment is to make sure that we get a robust pricing mechanism that will work for both parties in a sustainable way.
Any other questions in the room? Thank you. I'll address any questions that have been asked by you online. Dennis Chong ?
Chair, a number of questions have been asked.
Thank you.
The first one is directed to you, Chair. That is when do you realistically believe Dubbo will start construction?
We've said the second half of 2024, but there's a lot of work still to be done. All I can give you at this point in time is what we believe, but if we can do it sooner, we will. There is a lot of work that needs to be done. It's, at this stage, it's what we plan is all I can talk to.
The next question, Chair, is also directed for you.
Yep.
That is from the period of November 2021 until the 18th of July 2022. Is the company aware of any information that, upon close reflection, should have been released to the market as it would have been the material news that may have contributed to the decline in the share value?
The answer is there's nothing. The answer is no. We actually have a very rigorous disclosure process. We actually discuss continual disclosure at every board meeting to make sure that there is nothing that is not disclosed to the market that needs to be released to the market. The answer to that, unfortunately, is no.
The next question relates to KMP and Smith, and that is: is the estimated, $40 million Annual EBITDA from the Korean Metals Plant calculated based on Dubbo feedstock or third-party feedstock?
We do an arm's length valuation of the KMP and we don't try to ascribe value from KMP to the Dubbo Project. When you look at the Dubbo Project, the prices are what we're anticipating will be market prices for the oxides. When you look at a valuation of KMP, then we assume that the feedstock is being purchased at market prices.
It's, it doesn't matter whether or not the product is assumed to come from Dubbo or from third parties in terms of the economic assessments of those projects. They are assessed independently. There obviously is value to ASM from having both the Dubbo Project and KMP, in part because we get access to that subsequent value uplift that you get from taking it beyond oxide to metal. Also there's strategic value when we're talking to our offtake partners to be able to provide them with an avenue as an integrated supply chain that takes it beyond oxide to metal and to alloy and bringing it closer to the input that they are seeking. The valuations are separate.
The next question relates to the NDPR and LK Process, and the question is: Is the Neodymium Praseodymium metal and alloy products produced using the low-energy metallization process, the LK Process?
I did cover this in the presentation, but, just to summarize, the light rare earths of the neodymium praseodymium metallization process is an enhanced, established technology that we have developed, but is not the LK Process that we're using for those light rare earths. We are using the light rare-- sorry, the LK Process for currently is for the titanium production, and we will, in the future, use the LK Process for the heavy rare earths, the terbium and dysprosium, as well as the zirconia and hafnium.
Received another question. When does ASM expect development of the KMP commercial scale process to be completed?
The commissioning of the neodymium metal mine is the initial phase of that is complete, and the commissioning of the strip caster is due for completion within the next just 30, end of November. Another five weeks or so. The installing of the additional capacity to take it up to what we said was our commercial scale plant, the 5,200, we're intending to do that through the second half of 2023, is the current plan.
The plan is contingent on us securing the customer offtakes that justify expansion in that timeframe. In parallel with doing that, development of the neodymium, you know, we'll continue to do the development of the LK Process using the titanium. That process will continue all the way through next year. Again, the ramp up of those product streams will be aligned with customer agreements over 2023 and 2024.
Received another question relating to changes in management at ASM. The first part relates to why did David Woodall leave, and the second relates to why did Ian Chalmers and I were stepped down over the course of the year.
In terms of the first, I'll answer the first question. The former managing director decided to resign and move on. He has now got a different position with a different company. At the end of the day, he has given us reasons, but it's confidential to him, and as a result, it's not for me to disclose. At the end of the day, we wish him the very best. In terms of Ian Chalmers, who's down the back. I've been finding the way. Ian has been totally devoted to Dubbo and ASM for decades. I, if you say why has he stepped down and gone.
Yes.
He stepped down and gone, guess what? We faced recently a situation where Rowena was in Korea. I was unavailable because I was tied up with something else. We had nobody that could have presented at a technical conference, Ian Chalmers, when we asked Ian, said, "I'd be delighted to assist." Anybody that thinks that Ian is not here, in spirit, he's here, and when he needs to be, I'm very proud to say he's stepped up to the plate, he's assisted us, and for that, I say thank you very much, Ian.
I know it's hard. As in ASM, I really do. By the way, I wish him all the very best in what he's doing at Alkane, because he's doing frankly, a top job there as well. I hope that summarized it. Ian, do you want to say anything beyond that? Nothing, sir. You did a fine job, thanks. Okay.
I think-
Excellent
... perhaps if I could just add, Chair. You know, Ian also continues to be our competent person. Certainly for me, coming into this role, is a trusted Advisor.
Absolutely
He has stepped down. I would argue he has not gone.
That's right.
Julie has given us her resignation, which was, certainly, very disappointing news for ASM, because Julie has been just such a strong performer and contributor for us at ASM. Julie, again, just got an opportunity that was too good to miss, and she goes with our very best wishes, and with an expectation that we will continue to be friends. We are at the moment recruiting for a new GC.
Okay. Julie?
Yeah, there's more questions.
There are.
There are.
Excellent.
The next one relates to awarding the FEED contract to Hyundai, and the question is, should the company award the FEED contract to Hyundai Engineering, considering another rare earths company has signed an offtake agreement with Hyundai Motor Company? Is there a conflict at all between the two?
I'm happy to answer that.
Okay. Over to you, Rowena.
I'm sorry, I just dropped my pen there. One of the things I think it's important to recognize is that whilst the word Hyundai may be in both companies' titles, Hyundai Motor Company and Hyundai Engineering Company are two separate entities. Having said that, you know, I think that the work that we're doing with Hyundai Engineering, I could not be happier with the relationship that we have with Hyundai Engineering. They are an active supporter of our project, and one of the things, one of the ways they have been supporting us is with introductions to potential offtakers in Korea, and I don't see any conflict of interest in us looking at every avenue for offtake with Korean entities. We will continue to pursue those conversations.
Another question from a shareholder. What is the bottleneck at KSM, and why are we not producing full capacity?
The bottleneck. I'm not sure what the phrase bottleneck means, but if I say what is the delay with ramp up with KSM, as I said before, you know, we've got the first piece was just delays in equipment arriving and delays in just being able to get that production commissioned. Which despite the fact that I'm speaking about delays, I still would argue to-- The challenge for KSM is we're building a business, but we're building a business whilst at the same time we're building an industry.
Every step of that supply chain from, you know, the mine through separating, re fining, through metallization, through alloying it, to magnet production, to battery production, until it's actually at the point where it can go in an electric vehicle, all of those steps are all having to be developed concurrently at the moment.
When I'm talking to people at KMP, or KSM, where, you know, the, both the potential third party feed and the potential customers are all themselves trying to grow their business and establish new capability, and they are all going through commissioning processes as well. I just, you know, think we have to be realistic about the pace at which we're going to be able to get all of those moving pieces, coming together. I am very, very optimistic about what we will see in time for KSM.
We have another question for the chair.
Sure.
This relates to the KCF agreement. A request has been made for an update as to the negotiations with the consortium in relation to the various investments under the framework agreement. Is there a plan B?
Well, the agreement with the KCF is now a non-exclusive. If KCF bring a qualified strategic, they're in. If we find a qualified strategic, they're not in. Apart from the investment that we've, they have made, for which we are very, very grateful. At the end of the day, there is a strong relationship. I know the people well. There's, there are a couple of people that are very, I'll say dear to me. Rowena has met people as well. They're good people. They're really good people. They weren't able to deliver what we needed at that particular point in time. Going forward, I'm still very encouraged, and the relationship is very much on course.
Another question from shareholders. This is about timelines. Anne [inaudible] has been mostly covering them, but Rowena, I'll ask it again for clarity, which is why have the timelines been missed in relation to Dubbo and its parts around for the week?
Thank you. I think the timeline for Dubbo has been impacted by, as we just said, that the consortium, whilst very committed, haven't been able to provide that strategic investor party on the timeline that we were originally aspiring to. That has then slowed down the activity because we haven't got funds to be able to commit to the next step in the process.
That's really what the focus is on at the moment, is, and we're working very closely with Hyundai on this as we speak, to find a pathway through to be able to do the notice to proceed, to be able to commence the engineering, the EPC work as soon as possible, in the original timeframe for that contract, which is by June of next year. That's the timeline.
Yeah. The next question relates to the KMP, and the question is Professor Li a member of the ASM team?
Professor Li is a consultant and a shareholder in the KSM, but not an employee.
The next question relates to the recent capital raise. The question is, what was the rationale behind running the capital raise over the past month?
I will speak to it. The rationale to the capital raise is to be able to put our company into a position of being able to do all the research it needs to build out further furnaces and to execute on the program we've actually now stipulated. At the end of the day, we could have waited and taken a chance, the worst case have been belted in the guts unfairly.
I do know that there are people that have short sold our shares, at the end of the day, that has impacted our share price. At the end of the day, I believe in ASM. I believe our project is very, very solid, and I've actually started saying something to people that's a little bit different. Ask the question, how many Dubbos are there? The answer, of course, is, there's only one. There are very few rare earth projects that have heavies and lights that are ready to go. My belief is, it's going to be a matter of time before somebody says, "I want this." Once we start, I think it'll be over relatively quickly. Sorry, I'm not meaning to put hurdles in your path, Rowena.
No.
I think I'm still very, very encouraged. As a result, yep, I stumped up to the plate and decided to put an additional $4 million into the company, and I think I'll be handsomely rewarded, hopefully. There you are.
Final question. It relates to the KMP and to your feedstock. The question is, what's the current status of feedstock purchased by the KMP to date? How much feedstock have you
You'll need to talk about that.
I wouldn't have that number off the top of my head, but what I would say is that we have got oxide to support the production of the metal at the current low rates. We have got metal to be able to support the commissioning of the NdFe strip caster, both neodymium metal as well as the alloys that are required in order to be able to make that product-specific alloy specification.
We have got the materials that are needed for the trials that we're doing in the titanium area. What we did seek funds for as part of the recent capital plan was to increase the working capital for raw materials so that we could run the neodymium furnaces at higher rates. That's what we're seeking to purchase in the first half of next year.
No further questions, Chair.
Thank you. This concludes the annual general meeting of ASM, and for those in the room today, I invite you to stay for light refreshments. To everybody who's been joining us online and in person, thank you very much.