Hello and welcome to Core Lithium's December Quarter Investor Call. Today's call will start with investor presentations, followed by a question-and-answer session. Participants on the call will have the opportunity to ask questions by pressing star one one on their telephone. Participants on the webinar have the opportunity to submit written questions through the web portal. I will now hand the call over to Core Lithium CEO, Mr. Paul Brown. Please go ahead.
All right, thanks for the introduction. Warm welcome to everyone. It's great to see so many on the call. We look forward to presenting our quarterly update with you all today. And firstly, I'm just joined by my CFO, James Virgo. Just moving through the slide deck, just wanna draw everyone's attention to the usual disclaimers. Please take the time to have a read and understand it. Just moving to our quarterly highlights, so the December quarter saw a consolidation of our focus and activities since processing operations ceased at Finniss mid-last year. We've made a good range of progress on a number of fronts. The restart studies, we've made significant progress. I'll touch on that later in the slide deck. Our spending levels have slowed in line with our budget, leaving the balance sheet in a really strong position with around about AUD 50 million in cash.
At Finniss, the site is well prepared for the wet season, and we've maintained a high environmental standard, as we keep our site on restart steady. We've also returned some very positive drilling results from lithium and gold in and around the Finniss area, and more specifically at Shoobridge. The sustainability performance, I mean, this obviously, you know, remains a key focus of myself and my management team. I'm really pleased to report we're executing, you know, really well. This is a critical aspect of maintaining our license to operate in the Northern Territory. I'll just move through a few, you know, highlights. So we had no environmental incidents. We have seen two minor safety incidents with our drilling contractor, but I will point out up until then, you know, we hadn't had any safety incidents.
So the team really did well executing that, our strategy and our drilling program, but disappointingly, we did end up with two minor safety incidents. They certainly didn't result in any lost time, lost time injuries, and they were managed really well, with some key learnings implemented across the remainder of the drilling program. Along with maintaining the site in a restart-ready position, a key focus for the quarter was wet season preparation. The onset of the wet season in mid-January was later than usual, and we're in a really good position and well prepared, for the onset of the rain. Pumping and piping infrastructure is installed and in good condition with significant water storage capacity available at site.
We're also working on keeping weed levels under control at our mining and processing sites, with the purchase of a weed spray unit in that period, again, a key requirement, under our environmental license. Just moving to our activities on restart and our study. Like, in terms of mining, we've done a lot of work on BP33, which is our underground development. That'll be our second mine apart from Grants. So BP33 hosts more than 90% of our current 122.5 kiloton lithium ore resource. It will be the cornerstone of our initial mine plan, and certainly form a key part of our restart. We're investigating a range of ways to make this development asset lower cost, more efficient, and certainly higher in returns.
As you can see from the slide, in order to achieve these objectives, we're looking right across the project for ways to optimize the mine design, mining methods, you know, reducing our mining dilution, really understanding our mineralogy, and network, ventilation, and certainly dewatering. These work streams will start to be finalized in the current March quarter. So we're looking forward to reporting the outcomes when we finalize these key work streams, and we'll most likely report that in the middle of the year as per previous discussions and plans. But we are on track to deliver a restart study. We're also looking really closely at Grants. So I think, you know, Grants' open pit presents a really good opportunity for us. That'll be, you know, that's our existing pit and certainly where we will start mining.
So we're looking at ways, you know, to mine that more efficiently and certainly looking at options to try and extend that mine life, you know, again, looking at mining methods, mine design, and cut-off grades. So specifically now focusing on processing. Just as a reminder, you know, when we did finish processing last June, our recoveries were at 65%. So the team, you know, did a remarkable job. If you have a look at, you know, our ramp-up compared to certainly others, I've spoken about this quite a bit. You know, we really did achieve some fantastic results. So, you know, we're expecting to start this thing up, you know, with all those key learnings and really hit the ground running. But I really wanted to call out the 65% recovery.
So we are looking at ways to improve recoveries and operating costs, while minimizing capital. This has included considerations about whether we change or add to the current dense media separation circuit and looking at new technologies which might be able to support or adapt, and improve recoveries and efficiencies. At this stage, we're not expecting any major changes to the current Finniss plant, which would require significant investment. But that is certainly a positive. Recent focus on applying the learnings from the previous operating history and opportunities for greater efficiency, and incremental improvements based on the expertise of our new management team. We have a relatively new, well-built, well-maintained plant, which I think we can get more out of by applying more discipline and certainly more planning. On top of the mining and processing, we're also keeping a close eye on the market.
We have seen a slight positive uptrend in spot prices recently. We've also been in China talking with our customers about our restart objectives and plan, which was certainly well received. We look forward to reporting the result of the restart study, again by the middle of 2025. And I'll now hand over to James to run through the corporate balance sheet and financials.
Thanks, Paul. And hello to everyone. I'll briefly elaborate on the quarter's cash flows and the balance sheet. So referring to slide seven, as Paul mentioned, Paul closed the quarter with approximately AUD 50 million of cash in the bank and continues to remain debt-free. I'll walk through the key movements during the quarter. Costs for the quarter reflect care and maintenance activities, exploration, and corporate activities with no residual production-related costs carried over other than the QP payment that was made. Cash flows are now stabilizing and align with our anticipated budget projections. One-off non-recurring payments of AUD 3.5 million for the QP relate to the May and June shipments that were completed last financial year. This payment closes out all open sales transactions from the prior year.
Finniss site maintenance costs of AUD 3.4 million relate to site and DMS plant care and maintenance, site salaries, and the Finniss safety and security. With wet season preparation works underway, some costs are higher in line with our seasonal expectations. Exploration expenditure of AUD 3.4 million primarily relates to drilling, sampling, assaying, and ancillary activities for the Finniss Shoobridge and Blackbeard projects. Further details on the activities to come later in the presentation. There was a favorable AUD/USD movement for the company, so that saw a AUD 2.7 million cash flow impact, which offsets the unfavorable movement in the previous quarter. We continue to be focused on strict compliance with our budget, and cash flows remain within our expectations. One other point to reiterate is we still highlight that we have approximately 5,000 wet metric tons of sludge being concentrated at site and 75,000 wet metric tons of lithium fines.
These are available for sale, but depending on market conditions, and with that, I'll hand back to Paul.
Thanks, James. Just moving to our exploration and exploration results, so specifically lithium. I'll briefly touch on some encouraging results we achieved at two projects in the quarter. Our key focus for exploration in 2024 was targeting lithium targets within striking distance of our Finniss infrastructure. These targets have a potential to create the most value if they can be included in our future mine plans at Finniss utilizing our infrastructure. At Blackbeard, which is on an already granted mining lease around 20 kilometers from the Grants processing facility, we had a great result of 63 meters at 1.67% lithium oxide adding to another quite similar wide high-grade hit from the previous drilling campaign.
Blackbeard shares similar similarities in geometry and grades to BP33, which is a we have an ore reserve of 8.68 million tons at 1.38% lithium oxide has been identified to depths of 800 meters. So again, that's our second deposit. So Blackbeard specifically remains open at depth, with the deepest hole so far returning the previously mentioned 63 meters at 1.67% oxide at only 250 meter vertical depth. So while this is encouraging, there's certainly you know more work to do there. But you know there's clear resource potential, and this is certainly an area of you know focus as we review how we're going to shape that asset or potential asset in the coming months. Moving to Shoobridge. So again, just to refresh, Shoobridge you know was a prospect.
Again, we targeted lithium specifically, but you know, in that first drilling campaign we had, we intercepted a number of positive gold intercepts. So during the quarter, we received the final results for remaining seven holes of RC drilling at Shoobridge. These results were in line with those previously returning, you know, shallow hits over minable widths with grades up to 19 grams per ton. Following these positive results, we completed a second phase late in the quarter and before the wet season, this consisting of close to 3,900 meters, which really is 27 RC holes and around about 500 meters, including three diamond drill holes. So we haven't announced that program yet, and we're expecting those results to come in in the coming weeks.
So the Shoobridge project is located in a highly prospective gold mining district with several multi-million-ounce deposits within 100 km of our project. It's still fairly early days, but based on our drilling to date and the gold prospectivity in the surrounding region, there's certainly encouragement to do more work along the four-and-a-half km trend that we have identified so far. We'll certainly, you know, continue to do, you know, more work on targeting, you know, in the region before deciding what next steps and certainly how Shoobridge fits into our overall strategy. So look, finalizing our value proposition, you know, remains, you know, consistent. You know, concluding our highlights, obviously, you know, we've got strong sustainability, you know, our restart studies is well progressed and due to be out by mid-calendar year.
Our exploration results have been positive and strong, and we're certainly very well positioned for a lithium market recovery. I'll now hand back over to the operator and look forward to answering some questions along with James.
Thank you. As a reminder to ask the question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw the question, please press star one one again. Please stand by as we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Richard Knights from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Oh, hi James. Just wanted to ask a question about cash burn going forward. So, I mean, if I strip out the QP adjustments and the FX, it looks like your burn rate's about AUD 10 million for the quarter. Is that the way I should think about it? You know, over the next couple of quarters in particular, given you're sort of heading into the wet season, is there risk that that gets a little bit higher in terms of care and maintenance spend?
Hey Richard, it's James here. I'll answer that question. So exactly the way you're thinking about it is the right way to take out those non-recurring, QP and FX differences. I think you must, yeah, consider that there's the wet season as you alluded to. So there was a little bit more spend coming through that December quarter as we lead up to that sort of seasonal period. So that will have a marginal impact on the December and the coming March quarter. The other thing to remember as well is that, as Paul alluded to, all that drilling was done pre the wet. So there was a bit of drilling that came through in that December quarter as, you know, the wet season comes and drilling completely stops, and we do have assays and a few other exploration costs.
But again, that cost component of the business will significantly reduce. So we do see the coming quarters have a reduction compared to that December quarter. I will just acknowledge that the March quarter will have a little bit of that seasonal impact from the weather.
Yeah, I think probably just to add to the care and maintenance activities, Richard, like we did put the care and maintenance schedule and budget together at the start of this current financial year, and pleasingly, you know, those activities, you know, and schedule are being maintained, and as I sort of previously mentioned, we are on a fairly light touch, you know, care and maintenance. We certainly haven't wrapped the plan up, expecting to be on, you know, an extended care and maintenance period, so I think that, you know, what we're seeing is that those costs and activities, apart from, you know, seasonal pumping and various other things that have to do with weather, are relatively consistent, so you know, over the next, you know, couple of quarters, we, you know, we see those activities being maintained.
Certainly, we haven't seen any major costs being added into those activities either.
Yeah. Okay. Thanks. And actually, just to follow up, just while I've got you, just on Blackbeard, I mean, it looks like you've made a discovery there. How important is it to you to sort of continue drilling that prospect and build it up to a resource? And if so, do you expect to have a resource on that in 2025?
Sorry, Richard, you cut in there, but I think the question was largely around Blackbeard. Are we gonna have a resource in 2025?
Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yep, that's right.
Look, I think, you know, we will be doing more work on that. So we are reviewing, you know, results of our completed campaign. And certainly Blackbeard, obviously being 20 kilometers away from infrastructure, being on a fully approved mining lease. And the grade and intercepts we've had would indicate that, you know, we'd wanna go and continue doing work there. That certainly hasn't been finalized. We've got our geologists crawling all over that program at the moment. And they'll look to present something from a program to James Bruce and I in the next few weeks. So looking really positive and certainly, you know, some key indicators there would be encouraging us to go and do more work.
Okay. Great. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, Richard.
Thank you. Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. I see no further questions on my side.
So we'll move to some written questions that we've received through the webinar platform. As you can appreciate, the questions are largely in a few key themes s o what I'll do is aggregate them into buckets essentially. So the first question really relates to that quarterly cash spend comparing the September quarter with December, noting that the care and maintenance costs have decreased. So I think the key thing to acknowledge there is, as the site transitioned from production into the full care and maintenance in the December quarter, there was that natural step down between September and December. So exactly as Paul alluded to, the site's being maintained in a restart ready state. So, you know, there is that continued spend, but certainly a big step down from the September quarter.
And also where a restart study work is continuing. Yeah, so engineering third-party validation samples, etc. Yep.
The next question which we received is about our stockpiles, Paul. So as I mentioned, we have 5,000 tons of concentrate there, and as well the fines material. So just wanted to get your thoughts on how we see that stockpile and do we consider selling it or what are our views on that material?
Look, our reviews remain consistent. You know, we have, James said, 5,000 tons of good quality coarse grain spodumene sitting at site. You know, one of the advantages of spodumene i t certainly doesn't deteriorate. It's well protected, and being well managed and secured on site. So look, you know, obviously when the market returns and the time's right, that provides us, you know, great flexibility to sell into the market. But currently, that's not what we're looking at doing, and we certainly don't, you know, need to be doing that. As far as the 75,000 tons of fines, look, similar option to the spodumene concentrate that's there.
So, you know, when the market returns and the time is right, you know, again, great flexibility for us to do a number of things. But currently, again, well preserved. We're in, you know, there's no urgency to sell any of that.
Thanks, Paul. That's probably all the questions we've received through the platform. I believe we've answered the rest of them through the discussion that we've already had. So might hand back to Paul to conclude and then to the operator.
Yeah. Look, again, just to, you know, thanks for joining. We really appreciate the interest and certainly, you know, to our shareholders, thank you again. There's been a lot of great engagement. Hopefully, our quarterly update has provided you a really good understanding of where our financials are and certainly where our restart study and other activities are at. We're really, you know, pleased with our quarterly. Obviously, you know, the market still remains, you know, certainly a challenge, but, you know, our balance sheet is strong. We've got a very strong focused management team and we look forward to reporting our restart study works in the coming months, so thanks for joining us.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect.