Good morning and welcome to the Element 25 Investor Webinar. All attendees are in a listen-only mode. If you would like to ask a question to the company, please enter it into the chat function. I'll now hand over to Element 25 Managing Director, Justin Brown. Thank you, Justin.
Thanks, Nathan. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for taking the time out of your busy day to join us today for a quick update on Element 25's current and forward plan. I'll run you through a quick slide deck, which captures most of the main themes of our activities, and we look forward to a Q&A session at the end, which Nathan will moderate. Without further ado, I'll just run you through the slide deck, and please hold your questions for the end of the presentation. Element 25 is, in essence, a manganese company. Manganese is number 25 on the periodic table, and hence the name of the company is indicative of that.
We're looking to build a long-term vertically integrated supply chain for manganese, both for ore to serve the steel industry, but also the downstream markets in EV batteries through the development of our refining capacity to produce high-purity manganese sulfate from our Butcherbird ore. Most of you who have been with us for a while will know that the activities focus on the project about 130 km south of Newman called the Butcherbird Project. At Butcherbird, we followed a pretty traditional discovery process where we, through reconnaissance mapping, then drilling, and then ultimately resource evaluation, we've developed a large regional-scale manganese resource, which is currently the focus of our plans to develop a large-scale production facility to export manganese ore out through Port Hedland to the north. We basically are doing that for two purposes.
One is to feed into the steel supply chains where the ore is perfectly suited to produce silico-manganese alloys, which is an important input into steel, but we're also doing it to supply our planned refining capacity to produce high-purity manganese sulfate. And we've got some great partnerships in both those ventures, most notably being offtake and financing arrangements with General Motors and Stellantis to support the downstream plans. To that end, Stellantis is our largest single shareholder, having taken an equity position in the company at the corporate level. The team is backed by a broad depth of experienced operators with a range of skill sets from geology through to finance, chemistry, and engineering, as you might expect. You can see a small selection of the team on the screen before you now.
We are well served by their depth of experience in their respective disciplines, and we favor a fairly sort of hands-on development approach to all of our activities, including both the mining operations and the downstream flowsheet development and implementation activities that we've been working on. The project itself is notable for its scale. Firstly, it's a very, very large-scale resource with over 270 million tons in the current global resource. Out of that 270 million tons, we have drilled out about 100 million tons to form the basis for an 18-year reserve at our proposed 1.1 million-ton per annum production rate for what we call our expansion project at Butcherbird. That 18-year reserve is really just the beginning, where beyond that, obviously, we've got another 170 million tons or so in resource.
Outside the resource, we have further upside potential, which we know from reconnaissance drilling outside the resource boundaries. The ore that Butcherbird produces is a medium-grade high-silica oxide ore. It is very clean metallurgically, and that makes it ideal for both steel and battery applications. Those are the two products that we intend to deliver into the respective supply chains. Just in tabular form, you can review this at your leisure, but obviously, we have a range of satellite deposits outside the main resource area at Yanneri Ridge, where the reserve is based. We are in good shape to have long-term supply well beyond that initial 18-year reserve. The project itself, this is the granted mining lease that we have in place. It is fully permitted. We have all our native title and pastoral agreements in place.
We've got all of the requisite DEMIRS' and DWER's approvals in place for the expansion plan. The project is spoilt for logistical access with the Great Northern Highway coming straight through the reserve. We also have the Goldfields Gas Pipeline that cuts through the project as well. We don't use the gas pipeline at this point. It's a future opportunity, but certainly the [bitumen] h ighway that is the main arterial route through Western Australia is the way that we take our ore to market to the Utah Point facility at Port Hedland. That's what you can see before you outlines the measured indicated resources, which form the basis of the mining reserve and the production center. The production plant will be built basically in that dark blue area or just south of it where the measured resources are situated. Geologically, very quickly, it's a laterite deposit. It's flat-lying.
It's regionally extensive. We only intend to mine down to about 40 m, which is effectively the supergene cap on a much larger regional geological feature, which is a manganophorus shale. That laterite cap is the part of the resource which is suited for the beneficiation process that we will implement in our processing facility for the expansion plan. It's a really simple mine. It basically is a free dig operation with conventional truck and shovel, low strip ratio. In terms of processing, it's quite straightforward as well with just effectively a crush, screen, and wash plant with a dense media separation drum at the back end to optimize the beneficiation of the ore. We have an in-ground resource of 10%-11%, but we can upgrade that to 30%-35% in the processing facility.
That's a grade which is sort of the middle of the band in terms of what global manganese ores are sold at. Because of its high silica and low impurity nature, it's quite well received in the market and is very well suited for the downstream processing that I discussed previously. In terms of plans, our plan is pretty straightforward. We want to, over the next 12 months, implement the expansion plan for which we released the feasibility study in January. We've just announced a financing package with the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility.
On the back of that mining operation, which will export 1.1 million tons of ore into the global markets and generate significant cash flow, we want to build the first of our planned refineries in Louisiana, U.S.A., to convert that ore into high-purity manganese sulfate for use in the electric vehicle battery manufacturing industry. That is where the partnership with Stellantis and GM becomes pivotal. Obviously, beyond that, we also want to build additional refining capacity over time. We have announced some progress on our plans in Tokyo Bay in partnership with Nissan Chemical. We have also got some good discussions going on in Europe as well for a potential refinery there in time. First came off the ranks Louisiana and then global expansion beyond that.
Coming back to the mine briefly, for those of you who followed us through our stage one pilot plant, you can see a plan view there of the existing plant and the planned location of the expanded facility to the right of the stage one pilot plant. That's effectively a brand new facility. One of the questions is, are we going to utilize any of the stage one plant? Obviously, we're going up three times in scale. There's limited utility for the existing capital equipment, and we'll build a new facility alongside the current one. The main flowsheet changes are to switch to a rolls crusher on the front end, which will be better suited to handling the clay-rich nature of the laterites.
We are putting a DMS drum at the back end, which will replace the previous optical ore sorters that we utilized in stage one. Not wildly different in terms of the flowsheet, but we have made some important improvements in terms of dealing with the now known quantities of the Butcherbird resource now that we have run that pilot plant for a couple of years, and we have a wealth of data to guide that design process. The feasibility study published in January shows the potential of this project to deliver significant cash flows to the company over its 18-year reserve life. As I have talked about, beyond that, as we drill out additional resources, we have a very strong IRR and NPV to underpin the development decision around the project.
That sort of has been, I guess, underscored by NAIF's commitment to provide AUD 50 million in project financing for the expansion project. That is after an extended due diligence process where they have basically put the microscope on the work that has been done, both from a resource reserve engineering and marketing perspective, and they have underpinned the project to the tune of AUD 50 million. I think that is a testament to the potential of this project to really be a game changer for the company and its growth ambitions. The purpose of scaling up the project is to basically push down the cost curve. Manganese ore pricing is typically quite cyclical.
You can see on the slide in front of you now that over the last 10 years or so, you can see that the price cycles through highs of sort of $8 and $9 a dmtu down to lows of $4 a dmtu. You can see the red line where we will position ourselves on the cost curve. On the right-hand side, Project Blue's assessment of the global cost curve is on display. You can see that we'll be targeting somewhere around the top of the bottom third of the global cost curve. That actually puts us in a really good spot in terms of being price competitive or cost competitive through all parts of the price cycle. That profitability will be improved with that economies of scale that comes through with the expanded facility and the additional unit cost reduction.
The longer-term plan, or to some extent, the plan that will run in parallel with the expansion, is the development of downstream capacity. We've been developing the flowsheet for processing our ore into high-purity manganese sulfate monohydrate, which is the critical battery raw material that electric vehicle makers need to manufacture the batteries for their EVs. We've been developing that flowsheet for about eight or nine years now, started back in 2017, and has been through multiple refinement programs in terms of R&D and then pilot testing. It's now ready for commercialization. The plan is to build the first of its kind facility in Louisiana to take Butcherbird ore and convert it into high-purity manganese sulfate.
We have the partnerships with Stellantis and GM to support that project, both of whom are committed to offtake of the product, but also to substantial financial support for the capital cost of developing that refinery. The expansion plan, just to make a point clear, is not dependent on the downstream. Those economics that I talked about previously are just sort of developed around selling the ore into the traditional steel supply chain. Obviously, the downstream vertically integrated nature of our longer-term plan is a more robust economic outcome for the company and obviously allows us to really add value to the ore out of Butcherbird before it gets transferred to customers. A really important part of our development. Basically, the philosophy is what we call a hub-and-spoke model.
Butcherbird will be the hub from which the ore will be supplied to ultimately a number of refineries, the first one being Louisiana. The idea is to kind of develop the Louisiana facility, then copy and paste into Japan, Europe, and potentially Korea. We've got obviously the most advanced project in Louisiana, but shortly behind there, we've got great developments happening in our planned Tokyo Bay site in partnership with Nissan Chemical. We shouldn't forget to mention the excellent discussions we're having in Europe as well. There's a big push in all these regions to domesticate critical raw material supply. As you'll see in slides in a moment, the importance of manganese in these battery raw material supply chains is getting much, much more significant with the evolution of battery chemistries that we're seeing play out in the market at the moment.
Just to be clear, Butcherbird, at its planned production rate of 1.1 million tons, has ample supply to feed a number of these refineries. Each train consumes about 70,000 tons of manganese ore from Butcherbird, to produce about 65,000 tons of manganese sulfate for battery applications. That gives you a sense of the number of refineries. What we offer, I guess, that is not available generally, is long-term secure, single-source ethical supply of manganese to these carmakers. That has been well received by certainly Stellantis and GM , but also discussions in the background with a range of other OEMs as well. I think the business case is robust. One of the reasons why the carmakers like our plan or our process is that the flowsheet that we have developed is different to what is currently used in China.
It is probably worth pointing out that currently OEMs need to source about 98% of their HPMSM or high-purity manganese supply from Chinese suppliers. That sort of lack of supply chain diversity is a big challenge for OEMs in terms of ensuring they have supply for their ambitions to expand their EV manufacturing capacity. The E25 process makes some significant improvements on what is currently done in China by eliminating some key polluting steps, including roast reduction, but also fluoridation, which are commonly used in China. It is a dramatic improvement on those two fronts. Also, through a couple of innovative steps that we have under patent application, we can reduce reagent consumption and carbon emissions and also virtually eliminate waste by using a circular economy approach where we repurpose the solid residues into parallel industries, which is a massive improvement on what is currently done in China.
In doing all that, we still maintain strong cost competitiveness with Chinese supply. That is how we have been able to develop these partnerships with OEMs. We will continue to develop and enhance the process to further improve on those benefits as we go forward. It is probably time to just point out the importance and, probably more importantly, the growing importance of manganese in battery chemistries. The evolution of batteries over the last five years as electric vehicles have really taken off has been one that has transitioned from nickel manganese cobalt chemistries, which were broadly using equal amounts of those metals. The next phase of evolution was a transition to high nickel chemistries. That was largely to eliminate the supply chain challenges around cobalt, which is the most difficult battery metal to source.
The next development is now one which actually moves to a very high manganese content at the expense of nickel and cobalt because equally, nickel is challenging for battery makers to source at the scale they need to feed into their growing EV ambitions. There is a big push at the moment to move to high manganese chemistries and eliminate cobalt if possible and certainly reduce reliance on nickel. You are seeing that through a few avenues. I have just got a couple of snapshots here around some of the R&D work that is going on at Yokohama University in Japan, but also Umicore in Finland has announced their high lithium manganese plans. Just on the right there, you can see a couple of sort of data points on why people are doing this.
Obviously, cost has improved, safety has improved, and in some cases, performance has actually improved or at least approaches that of the high nickel battery chemistries. To that end, moving on from the R&D, which has sort of been happening for a few years, we've just had some pivotal announcements from Ford and General Motors, both of whom have announced a formal shift to what they call their LMR battery chemistry or lithium manganese- rich. I can't understate the significance of this in terms of forward-facing manganese demand. These battery chemistry changes that have been discussed or have been actually announced are talking about a 5x-10x increase in manganese demand compared to what would have otherwise been the case for high nickel dominant chemistries.
If you put this in a context, even if you take a slightly pessimistic view about EV uptake with some of the geopolitical changes that have been happening, this change to high manganese chemistries will basically swamp that. We are going to see a strong uptick in manganese demand. We are actually starting to see those numbers flowing through, irrespective in many ways of what the ultimate rate of EV uptake is. Even in saying that, we are starting to see some really strong EV sales numbers coming through both in Europe and the U.S. as well. We see good news on both fronts. We see great EV sales numbers coming through, but we also see this shift to high manganese battery chemistries being a really pivotal moment in forward manganese sulfate demand. We intend to be well positioned to capitalize on that.
Just a quick couple of slides on Louisiana. Most of you probably know that we were selected for award for a DoE grant in support of the project in Louisiana alongside Stellantis and GM's financial commitments. We had a big change in Washington earlier in the year with the shift to the Trump presidency. That has initiated some review of some of these federal grants that have come through. It's something we have to go through, but basically, the grant is in place. It's $166 million of a planned construction capital of just over $300 million. It's 50% of the capital requirement for the project. That sits alongside $115 million of funding commitment from GM and Stellantis. That basically speaks for the bulk of the financing requirement for the Louisiana facility.
The reason the DoE has been so supportive is we're looking at onshoring supply of a critical raw material for batteries. We're going to create local jobs. We're going to bring innovative technology to the U.S. We are going to source most of our reagents other than the manganese ore from local suppliers. We're going to work strongly with local partners in the U.S. to construct and operate the project. That $166 million grant from the DoE is obviously a testament to their belief in the project and also sits alongside, as I said, the commitments from GM and Stellantis. Whilst there's a small capital piece required still to complete the funding stack for Louisiana, the bulk of that is spoken for through those mechanisms.
We have advanced discussions with various financing institutions to close the gap on that capital stack once that DoE review is complete. I think we will have some questions on this afterwards. I saw come through the Q&A. I think we align beautifully with what we can see, at least publicly, of the Trump administration's priorities around critical minerals onshore manufacturing. We are optimistic this project is in good shape once that financing process is completed. Just in summary, I think we offer some pretty attractive investment credentials to the market. I think the long mine life is unparalleled. I do not think anyone else outside possibly South Africa can offer that. We are construction ready for stage two. We have a very strong ESG sort of profile, particularly on the downstream HPMSM flowsheet.
The financials look fantastic for both the expansion project, but also the high-purity manganese sulfate project in Louisiana. I think one thing that is just worth underlining is that we offer manganese supply from a tier one jurisdiction, which is something that is not currently available in terms of the downstream. I think having a virtual monopoly in China is not in the interests of OEMs. They are quite supportive of non-Chinese supply. I think we are one of the leading candidates to provide that. Obviously, we are partnering with tier one project customers and partners through Stellantis, General Motors, and Nissan Chemical. We will continue to develop those relationships going forward. I think it is a strong rap sheet. We look forward to delivering on those plans in the coming months and years as we move through.
Just, I guess, an answer in addition quickly to finish on the Louisiana facility, just to kind of set the scene for our ultimate global sort of planning. Yeah, I'll hand it back to Nathan now for a quick Q&A. Thanks for taking the time to listen.
Thanks, Justin. We've had a series of questions come through. We'll just work through these. Yeah, I think you covered this in the presentation, but we'll run through it again. There is a shift towards lithium manganese- rich or LMR battery technology. How could this change the outlook for Element 25 if adopted?
Yeah, I think we did touch on this in the present. I'll just reiterate, really. Ford and GM and POSCO have all announced their shift to LMR. Umicore has announced their version of LMR, which they call HLM in Finland.
We're seeing also shifts in Korea to what they call min-nickel, which is effectively another name for higher manganese chemistries. That is kind of almost a global trend now. The multiples in terms of volumes are significant. We're talking 5x-10x demand multiples for manganese in those high manganese chemistries versus the high nickel chemistries that were previously being implemented. It is a massive change. It is really going to turbocharge demand for these high-purity manganese products. Obviously, Element 25 is seeking to position itself as being a key supplier of these through its development plans for downstream capacity.
Thank you. Your next question. How are the relationships with GM and Stellantis progressing given the process has taken longer than expected?
Yeah, no, I think they're strong is the answer. We've got great relationships with both those companies.
In fact, I can't name necessarily the others, but we've got good discussions going on with other OEMs as well. Stellantis and GM remain strong partners in the project. I think they're all trying to reconfigure their supply chains around HLM. I guess that's pushing demand up, not down, if that makes sense, for the reasons I discussed earlier. I think those relationships should continue to strengthen. Once we get through this DoE review process, I think we look forward to bringing more concrete development plans for the Louisiana facility to investors.
Thank you. There's been a series of questions about doing business in the U.S. right now following the election and also questions regarding an update on the DoE grant. If you could cover those things in summary, that'd be good.
Yeah, I think it's no secret that the change from the Biden administration to the Trump administration did create some waves in terms of policy shifts. I think that has meant that people are reassessing their strategic plans in various ways. I think, though, if you get past the headlines, when you look at the fundamental principles driving the Trump administration's policy decision-making, what they're looking for is onshoring of domestic supply. We're a big tick for that through our Louisiana development plans. They're looking for onshore jobs, bringing technology home to the U.S., and also non-China secure diversified supply so that they don't necessarily have to just rely on China for some of these key raw materials. There are some obviously notable examples around rare earths, graphite, et cetera, where those dependencies on China have been painful for them. They're looking to diversify away.
In many ways, although, yes, the headlines have changed in terms of the policy settings, underlying it, there's a lot of commonality. I think the Element 25 plan fits really nicely into what we see in terms of the Trump administration's priorities. I think once we get past the noise, it'll be in good shape.
Thank you. How will transport to port be affected by the expansion?
Yeah, this is a pretty straightforward one. We haul our ore with quad road trains. We did that for stage one. We'll also do that for stage two. In essence, it just means more trucks. To give you a sense of that scale, we'll have about one truck every hour to transport the 1.1 million tons of product that'll come out of stage two.
The Utah Point facility at Port Hedland is more than capable of handling that level of volume. Yeah, no major headaches other than just more trucks on the road. That Great Northern Highway is there for that purpose.
Thank you. How do you plan to raise the additional capital required for, A, upgrade of the mining process in WA and building the U.S. plant?
Yeah, we've just announced a financing package from NAIF for the expansion. Obviously, that's the bulk of the financing. We're in discussions with a range of other potential financing partners for the balance. That includes offtake prepayment. That includes things like subordinated debt and potentially royalties as well. Obviously, we're cognizant of minimizing dilution of existing shareholders. We've always done that, testament to the fact that we've been around since 2006 and still only have about 230 million shares in issue.
I mean, we're not going to change that philosophy. We're not going to exclude equity from the picture, but we'll certainly look to minimize it. And that's kind of the way that'll stack up. In terms of the U.S. project, we've highlighted in the presentation that we've got the DoE grant for half the capital cost. We've got General Motors and Stellantis for about another $115 million. And we're in discussions with private lenders and other potential financiers to close out the financing for the Louisiana project. So we don't anticipate needing to inject further equity from the parent at this point in time. I think we have other avenues available to us in the U.S. So both plans are well advanced and looking good.
Thank you. Have any of the critical lead items for the mine expansion been ordered already?
Yes, we've ordered the log washer, which is one of three critical processing steps. We have advanced discussions on ordering for the crushing circuit and also the dense media drum. The balance of items are sort of less critical in terms of conveyor belts and the like. Yes, we have commenced the procurement process.
Thank you. Does the company 100% own all of the engineering, design, et cetera for Louisiana so that you can amend it slightly to potentially fit a different site?
Yes. Yep, indeed, we do. The proprietary steps are 100% owned by Element 25. The Australian parent company will license that to subsidiaries in each of the refining plants that we look to build.
Thank you. Have there been any discussions with end users outside of GM and Stellantis?
I think it'd be fair to say yes. You could probably list most counterparties that you're aware of. We would have spoken to them and have ongoing discussions with a number of them. Obviously, there's a point at which those names can be announced publicly. We're not there yet. Certainly, the discussions are quite robust and becoming more proactive now that we've got this shift to LMR chemistries happening as well. Yes, I think you should look forward to news in that space in coming months.
Thank you. There's no further questions. I'll now hand back to Justin for closing remarks.
I think we've covered most things, Nathan. Thanks to everyone for your time today. I hope I've covered most of the gaps and answered most of your questions.
I look forward to doing these types of events more frequently going forward to keep you guys up to date as we move through our strategic plan. Thanks again.