Welcome everyone to the BCI Minerals September Quarterly Update. We'll now commence this presentation. Thank you.
Good afternoon, everyone. I'm David Boshoff. I'm the CEO and Managing Director of BCI Minerals, and with me is Steve Fewster. He's our CFO. He's been with us for almost 12 months now and has made a significant contribution to our organization. I was reminded coming into Sydney. We're speaking to you from Sydney today, and I was reminded on how important it is to have a good schedule with a little bit of contingency. We both came in on 2 separate flights, and there was delays coming into the airport. But as a good schedule, we had a bit of float in our schedule and made it well and truly on time. So I'll talk to 4 separate areas with you this afternoon. First of all, we cover the safety performance.
Next, we'll work through the operations commencement, and we've got some great pictures of that later on. We'll talk through the construction progress, and then Steve will step you through the cost and cash management. In all these 4 areas, we've made some really good progress. I do want to note that in conjunction with this quarterly update, there's also a quarterly update report on our website, so please refer to that at your leisure. And also, if you do have any questions, please add that to the chat function, and we'll get to that at the end of the presentation. We are proud to have a very collaborative relationship with our traditional owners at Mardie, the Mardudhunera and the Yaburara people.
When we celebrate the opening moments, they joined us, and it was great to see just the excitement on their faces for this important moment. We have a good collaborative relationship with them, and to mark that moment with them, that's going to benefit both parties for generations to come, was really good to witness. We've also reached a very important milestone of 7.5% Aboriginal and Torres Strait employment at our site team. Something we're very proud of. If you haven't heard a lot about BCI until now, I'll step you through our values and our vision. So first of all, we are a values-driven organization, and we are developing minerals for the modern world. This includes specifically for Mardie, the salt and potash phase.
Our vision is to create long-term, sustainable opportunities and value for our team, our communities, as well as our shareholders. Our purpose is to develop and operate the Mardie project and to consistently deliver low-cost, world-class, sustainable, high-quality salt and SOP. And Steve will step a little bit more through his experience in visiting our customers in Asia recently. I've been very encouraged this quarter to see our values operating firsthand, not only for our teams, but also for our contractors. And of course, we celebrated the commencement of operations, as you can see in the photo above, and it was heartwarming to see how the team is functioning as one and focusing on winning as one team, as well as finding a way in this quarter. Our project is located in the Pilbara.
Of course, this area is known for its world-class salt operation, salt climate, as indicated by those other salt operations in that area. However, the Mardie project will be the largest in Australia, will be the third largest in the world, and we'll be producing 5.3 million tons of salt and 140,000 tons of SOP per year for 60 years. During this quarter, we continued to focus on our safety performance. Specifically, we reinforced and embedded our fatality prevention measures, and, as a result, our total recordable injury frequency rate has reduced, and we've also continued to implement and embed our leadership in the Field Safety Program by embedding some training programs with both our contractors as well as our leaders on site. We've also conducted some key environmental monitoring, as well as cleared a significant amount of mesquite.
Mesquite is the invasive weed in that area, and we cleared 153 hectares of that in this quarter. Also, as I mentioned earlier, we have reached 7.5% Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment on site. We've also sponsored 3 individuals from the school leavers area and specifically through the health scholarships with the Pilbara Kimberley University Centre. During this quarter, we have received the approval from the Commonwealth for the optimized Mardie project. This meant we can commence operations on the tenth of September. This, of course, was a very specific milestone. It also allowed us to commence construction in the optimized Mardie area, and I've got some more photos of that later. The overall project footprint is more than 100 sq km, and for us here in Sydney, that's like the distance from Manly to Parramatta.
Now, the project is already more than 50% complete, and we've commissioned the primary seawater intake pumps, as I said, on the tenth of September. I'm going to walk through a bit of a visual on what that looks like. We completed Pond 1 , we completed Pond 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, and currently construction is ongoing in Pond 8, as you can see there, and Pond 9. We're also progressing really well in the crystallizers, with more than 22% completion. We've commenced the secondary seawater intake construction. Again, I've got a good photo of that later on, and then the jetty is at 2.4 kilometers. Next, I'll hand over to Steve.
Yeah, thanks, David, and welcome, everyone. Within the corporate part of our business, we also had a busy quarter. In July, we completed the sale of our Iron Valley assets. Just after the end of the quarter, we achieved financial close. Between now and we expect around February when we'll start to utilize that debt, there's a couple of further conditions precedent that we'll work through. One of those is around binding offtake agreements, and I'll talk a little bit more about that. During the quarter, we did sign a non-binding strategic cooperation agreement with Befar Group, a chemical company out of China. Thanks, David. I'll go into a bit more later.
Excellent. Thanks, Steve. So I've got a couple of photos I'll show you now. On the tenth of September, we commenced the pumping at the primary seawater intake. This photo was actually taken when I was there. I'm there, somewhere in the middle of that group, and we managed to live stream this also to our team in West Perth. This is, of course, a very important moment, and it reinforced for me the values of our organization and how the team has come together to deliver on this important milestone. We were also joined shortly after, on the 26th of the month, by WA Premier, Honourable Premier Cook, also the Federal Minister for Resources in Northern Australia, Honourable Madeleine King, as you can see there, center photo. And then, with us was also the Honourable David Michael.
He's the WA Minister for Mines, Petroleum, Ports and Rail, and we commemorated the official turning on of the pumps, as you can see in the photo there. It was also great for that moment to be joined by our funding partners, as well as some industry stakeholders, contractors, and as I mentioned in my opening remarks, by traditional owners. We've all been part, and they have all been part of this journey for BCI to get us to this point, and certainly a good moment to celebrate that with them. Now, only in a few weeks, the water has flowed from Pond 0, as you can see on the bottom right of that picture, into Pond 1, and that's the top of the picture. And then, a couple of weeks later, it flowed into Pond 2, which is sort of the far top right corner of that picture.
Again, a very important milestone for us, and we are not far from commissioning the next transfer station, which is transfer station 2-3. Also, as a result of the OMP approvals, we're able to commence our construction in the OMP area, which is. You can see the small map on the right-hand side of your screen. This area here is QBirt. They've done excellent work with us to be able to help us to remain safely on schedule and for this big part of the earthworks to continue successfully. As you noted from my earlier click-through on the progress of the ponds, current construction is happening in Pond 8 and Pond 9, and the QBirt team has already completed 6 through to 7 this quarter. This included the delivery of a significant volume of rock, as you can see in the picture.
34,000 tons of rock armor has been imported and placed on these walls. This rock was supplied by the Pilbara Quarries. They are an indigenous-owned company, and it's been great to partner with them as well in this important part of our project. What we've also done is we have commenced construction on the secondary seawater intake. You can see that in the picture, and of course, if you look in the top of that screen, that's where the jetty is, so it gives you an idea of proximity. Since this picture was taken only a couple of weeks ago, we've commissioned the pipeline, as you can see in that screen. That's all connected up, and we started with the conditioning of our crystallizers.
And the jetty, of course, this is a very important part of our project. This enables us to ship salt productively and competitively. We are able to load transshipping vessels at this jetty once it's completed. And this will then enable us to load up to Newcastlemax vessels that we can deliver to our customers. Of course, that creates a key competitive advantage in our shipping costs. Now, as for the schedule, I mentioned that in my opening remarks during the quarter, which you can see highlighted on your screen, we have continued to construct Pond 6, 7, 8, and 9. Of course, with 6 and 7 completed. Crystallizer construction have also progressed well. We've already completed 10 crystallizers during the quarter. The brine production circuit has also commenced.
That was the secondary seawater intake you saw in the picture earlier. SOP design has progressed, and marine structures has reached the jetty head part of that work. This means we are still on track to deliver our first salt, targeting the end of quarter 2 in FY 2027, and I'll now hand over to Steve to take us through the financials.
Yeah, great. Thanks, David. So at the end of the quarter, we finished with AUD 177 million cash in the bank. And when combined with the AUD 981 million in our syndicated facility. The project, the salt phase of the project is fully funded. To date, we've spent AUD 788 million on the project in total, of which around AUD 658 million of that is on CapEx. During this quarter, we spent just over AUD 100 million on the project, with around AUD 50 million on the ponds and the crystallizers, as well as the transfer stations. In addition, we spent around about AUD 24 million also on the jetty. So a lot's happening in that space.
The project is the capital expenditure for the project is AUD 1.443 billion, and that includes AUD 156 million for contingency. As David pointed out before, the project remains on schedule, and consequently, we remain on track to come in on budget. Now, that's no mean feat for a project of this size, and we're very, very grateful for the great work that our team is doing, combined with the great work that our contractors are doing. And the sort of mindset they're applying to problems means we're able to solve things quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively. During the quarter, as I said before, we did complete the divestment of our Iron Valley assets. And as part of that agreement, we've received the first payment of AUD 26 million.
So that's, that's sitting with us now. So with, as I also said before, we achieved financial close just after the end of the quarter. Now, that's really important to us because as part of the project, we do need to issue a number of bank guarantees. So what this does is it allows us to issue those bank guarantees without having to allocate cash from our own facilities, and we're now able to leverage the syndicated facilities agreement. So we're very grateful, and appreciate all the support that we do have from our lenders. So NAIF is our largest lender, then followed by Export Finance Australia, Export Development Canada, Westpac, and ICBC. So we do have a terrific syndicate there.
In terms of the first drawdown, as I pointed out earlier, we're expecting that to occur around about February next year. In terms of the market, I've just returned from China, and I've got to say I've come back very excited by what we are seeing there in terms of demand, and growth, and demand within the salt sector. The graph there on the right is a forecast demand and supply graph, which has been prepared by Wood Mackenzie in October this year, so very current. But what that's showing there is demand is continuing to grow, but there's not a lot of new supply coming into the market. So we are by far and away the largest new project coming to market.
There's some additional projects in China that are being developed, but where our customers are, those developments are a long way away, and seaborne salt is still more cost-effective than those land-based projects. So some of those things that are driving the demand for salt, there's a lot of new chloralkali and caustic soda plants being constructed in China, and particularly just to our north in Indonesia. As I said, there's not a lot of new projects, and some of the existing projects, what we're seeing with Mexico is there's been a contraction in the amount of supply that they're delivering into the market. Now, that's being offset to a certain extent by the production that's coming out of India.
Over the long run, we do expect that supply-demand imbalance will right itself, but certainly over the next couple of years, as we start to enter the market, we see it as being extremely positive time for that entrant. As I spoke to earlier, the offtake agreements are a very key part of our debt facilities, and we've put in place an offtake agreement back in March with Chandra Asri. We signed a binding offtake agreement with Wanhua Chemical, a Chinese chemical company. We continue to work through the Japan, Korea, and Taiwan market, and the purpose of my visit recently was to go and visit Befar to continue to work forward on a binding offtake agreement, which is the next step after putting in place the non-binding strategic cooperation framework agreement.
Map on the left shows you where demand is coming out of. We are very much focused on the Asian market, where we do have a geographical advantage, as well as, as David pointed out earlier, the jetty and the transshipment arrangement we have puts us at a significant freight competitive advantage against some of the other producers in the Pilbara. So overall, we're very excited about the outlook for the market, and we think it's perfect timing for our entrance, in 2 years, in just over 2 years' time. Thank you. I'll hand you back to David.
Thanks, Steve, so during this presentation, we walked through 4 different areas. First of all, I covered our strong safety performance for the quarter. Next, we walked through the operations that's commenced, and of course, you saw the photos there of this important moment for our organization. We also covered the construction progress, so we are more than 50% through construction, and then we finished off with Steve taking us through our disciplined cost and cash management for the quarter. We will now have the opportunity to ask some questions, so if I can remind you, if you haven't entered questions in yet, please enter the chat function, and then Tammie, who is joining us from Perth, will be sharing those questions with us for Steve and I to answer. Thank you.
Thank you, David and Steve. We've had some questions already posted. Can you talk us through how the monitoring is going of the ponds and whether we're seeing increasing salt levels after the ponds have been filled?
Thank you, Tammie. Yeah, good question. First of all, I'll start with saying that our bore monitoring system is world-class, and it's excellent to be able to see such clear and very frequent results from these bores. So absolutely, our model has predicted that there will be changes in the salinity as well as the water depth in this area, which is consistent with what we've applied and got approval for from the Commonwealth Government, and we have, of course, seen some changes in these bores. However, I think it's important to remember that the objective of the Commonwealth Act in this particular case, so the EPBC Act, is to validate and manage impact to MNES, so Matters of National Environmental Significance.
And I'm, I can share with you that we have had no impact to Matters of National Environmental Significance, and we don't expect there to be impacts in the future.
Thank you. A related question: have we seen any seepage in the pond filling so far, or any readings from the groundwater monitoring that would indicate any problems with continuing to fill the ponds?
So we have not seen seepage through the walls of these ponds. Of course, what we have seen is that there are interactions between the groundwater and the water in the ponds. Again, this is consistent with the model, that the model's predicted. And I think what's important to remember is that the model, the objective of this first 3 months is to validate the model and to ensure that our water model is consistent with the actual results we're seeing in the field. And so far, happy to say that, yes, it's been very consistent, and we haven't seen any unexpected impacts.
Thanks-
And David, I might just build on that. So as David said, we have seen some seepage, but the other thing to remember is we've introduced what we call an algal mat into these ponds, and over a period of time, that will actually seal the floors. So any seepage that will occur is expected to occur when the water is first filled, and then as that algal mat covers the entire floor, then that seals it, and that prevents any further seepage.
Yeah, that's a natural process that occurs over time, so that's again happening as expected.
Thank you. Again, just to clarify another question, is our groundwater monitoring within EPA limits?
So the EPA, we have set triggers and thresholds, in conjunction with the EPA. And yes, as I mentioned earlier, it is consistent with the model, which means it's within the prediction. The EPA doesn't have limits per se. What happens is those triggers or boundaries are set through the development of the management plan, which is what we've done in conjunction with the Commonwealth.
Thank you. More broadly, what do you see are the key challenges for the project going forward, and how do you intend on mitigating them?
So I'll talk to a couple, and I'll let Steve jump in as well. I think first of all, of course, we have to continue to construct in a disciplined way. We are only halfway through the project. There's still a lot ahead of us. We still have some design work to complete with the SOP plant, of course, with the salt plant, and all these things require us to continue to execute with discipline. So that's a really important part, is not to get comfortable anywhere through the process and continue to use those skills and management strategies that's helped us to this point to continue for the rest to ensure we stay on budget. I think secondly, this salt process is also a very natural process, so of course, we've predicted how that will work.
It's important that we continue to monitor this, as we discussed quite lengthily just before. On the groundwater management plan, we have to have that reapproved, which I'm expecting in the next 2 or so months. Again, that's going to be important milestone for us. And then lastly, it's really important to produce our product on time, so it's really important to continue to focus on that schedule to ensure we execute the critical path on track. So those are the 3 points I'd make. Steve, you want to add anything?
Yeah. I would've said twelve months ago when I started, certainly there was a lot of cost pressures in the mining industry, particularly in the Pilbara. What we have seen is quite a bit of a pullback in that area, so that as a risk has is actually moving in favor for us. But again, I come back to our teams on site, both our teams and our contractors and our engineers have put some really, really innovative thinking in place to ensure that we do achieve, we do achieve budget. I think, again, earlier this year, I was certainly concerned about the level of interest in our product, and I think there's, you know, this is being reflected in our share price as well.
I think there was certainly a number of doubters around the project, whether that was debt, whether that was equity, or whether it was customers. But the number of inbound interest we're now receiving from equity and from customers certainly supports that there's growing faith in the project. And I think the milestones that David spoke about earlier around we've now commenced pumping, we've got approvals to complete the construction of the project. The project's fully funded. It certainly started to spark a lot of interest.
Thank you for that. A comment's been raised around the presentation stating that there's a 60-year life of project, but is that estimated to go well beyond that, with maintenance?
Yeah, that's a good question. So we usually use the 60-year life as our life of mine, if you will, definition. That is because the approval from the WA State Government is limited to 60 years, so they can't issue licenses for longer than 60 years. But of course, we expect that to be renewed at that time. Our source of our resource in this case, of course, is seawater, and we don't expect that to run out anytime soon. And our maintenance strategies is meant to continue. So like any other operation, there are replacement strategies, there are normal maintenance strategies, and all of that is intended for this project to continue from an asset perspective indefinitely.
Can I just build on that as well? So the beauty of this project, and I'll do a quick contrast. This project will last for 60 years and beyond, as David mentioned. So that means there's no expiring of an ore body. We're not having to find and do exploration and then build a new project to replace production that is running out. So what that means for shareholders is there's a low sustaining CapEx that is attached to this project. But the other thing that it does is it creates very long-term annuity-style returns, much like an infrastructure project, more so than a resource-style project.
So that 60 years, and as David said, beyond that, does provide us with a really unique project to bring into development.
Thank you. We've got a few questions on SOP. Can you give us an update on how the design for the potash processing circuit is coming along? And any comment to make on that in relation to the original BFS design as published in 2020?
Yes. Thank you, Tammie. So on the SOP project, we've made significant progress in our feed work. What I think is important to remember is we still are going through a detailed feed work study, and of course, that's the work that I have kicked off with the technical team. We have also received our test results back from a company that's testing it called Bluestar in China. I'm actually heading there in November, and the test results are demonstrating that our flow diagram and our design specifications will be able to produce KTMS and SOP from seawater, which is very encouraging. Of course, there's more work to do to ensure that our volumes and our timing is working out.
Our technical team is specifically looking at what did not work for those other producers in WA, and also for those international producers, specifically from Canada, the US, as well as from China, what worked for them, and what were the differences? I'm presenting that to the board, not long from now, and we're hoping to make a decision about that investment in the new year. I think what is important also is that in this particular case, some of the issues that we've seen from the others is a lack of feed product. And of course, that means you have to be at the right time, make that investment decision. So we'll share with the shareholders as soon as we're ready.
But that work is continuing, and I want to make sure that, like our values say, we're going to do what we said we're going to do, and that includes delivering the volume of the SOP production stream.
Excellent. There's a couple more questions in relation to SOP. 2 of them are related. So what are your confidence levels in starting on time for SOP? And as part of that, will there be a pilot or test design, and when would that be?
Yeah, so I think the important part here is we'll have to demonstrate to the market, not only to the equity providers, but also specifically to the debt providers, that we will be different to those other producers in WA. That means we have to do it right, and I think in this particular case, it requires us to go slow than to go fast. So the objective is to make sure technically we've really solved it end-to-end. I do expect that will require a slightly larger pilot plant. Of course, we've done some pilot work already in components of the plant. But at this moment, my intention is to explore the opportunity of a larger test facility, or pilot facility, to fully validate the flow diagrams, fully validate the site conditions, and how that's generating KTMS for our chemistry.
Of course, all of those things are going to be very important when we need to go back to obtain debt from the debt market. It's all about confidence. Yeah, we'll take our time to get that right.
Thank you. Moving to salt and the price for it, what price do we expect to receive for the salt? And can you talk about the salt price market itself?
Yeah. So salt, I might just quickly talk through the pricing, the price-setting mechanism. So on an annual basis, around about July each year, the salt producers and the buyers will come together and sit down and negotiate a price. And that price will then be set, and volumes will be then set for the calendar year that follows. Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, slightly different. They set their pricing and volumes for a 2-year period. So they are currently doing that now, which means when, as our project, as we get to FSOS or first salt on ship, we'll be. That will be the first point in time when we'll also enter that Japan, Korea, Taiwan market. So that's lining up nicely as well.
But the way they, the way that price is then, the price is determined, is there's 2 key components. So firstly is what's the demand for salt? What's the supply? So usual economics there. What's happening in terms of the cost base for salt producers, and to what extent can those costs be pushed onto the buyers? And then the other piece that sits on top of that is the cost of freight. And what you'll notice in our quarterlies is we talk about a CFR price. So that's a price for the salt, combined with the price of freight into the market. Now, what we saw in the last 3 months and what we're expecting to see over the next short period, is the price of salt itself is probably gonna tighten.
And as I pointed out in that chart earlier, supply isn't gonna keep up with demand, and we think in the next between about 2026 and 2031, that shortage will actually hit the price, salt prices. But what will counteract that is what we're seeing in the freight market, is freight prices have tempered a bit, and we think that that will continue for another couple of years as well. So on a CFR basis, and we don't make margin on the freight, on the underlying product, we think there's gonna be continued, there's gonna be a price increase over the next 3 to 5 years. But and some of that will be partially offset by softer freight costs.
Thank you for that. Last question: where do you see BCI Minerals going beyond Mardie or in addition to Mardie?
Yeah, great question, and this is certainly the bit that's very exciting for me and also for the leadership team. You will note that our vision has not changed for a little while. I think it's really important, firstly, that we deliver the Mardie project successfully, and we do so with the demonstration of our skills as a leadership team and our ability to deliver on what we said we're going to do. I think thereafter, there's a lot of good opportunities. I'm very excited about the competitive advantage we have as a niche or a focused producer on salt and then eventually SOP. And I think there are definitely opportunities to expand in the salt market domestically, to be able to run other assets better than our competitors, given our focus and disciplined capital management.
However, I have to, I guess, remind all of us that we first have to walk before we can run, so our focus initially is to deliver this project very successfully, and in doing so, build that confidence in the market to be able to back us on our growth strategy.
Thank you, David and Steve. That concludes the questions.
Thank you, everyone.
Thank you.