Asking two questions at a time, and to ask further questions, to please rejoin the queue. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Ivan Vella, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning. Welcome. Thanks for joining us, everyone. Kath Bozanic is joining me with, on this session again today. I'm gonna try and run through the, the highlights quite quickly and just leave more time for the Q&A. There's a couple of slides we'll, we'll step through. First of all, on, on safety. Look, the last quarter, we've seen a continued improvement in performance, which is encouraging. There's still plenty to do. I guess I feel the momentum and the direction of improvement's good when we look back over the last financial year, but still at a TRIR of 10.4 is still not where we need to be, and it's great to see the focus across the team, across the business on safety.
Our leading indicators in regards to safety interactions and leadership engagement, the general focus across the business is continuing to lift, and that gives me a lot of encouragement and a sense that we're on the right track, but need to keep working at it. We've also been focusing heavily on the psychosocial safety of our people, and I'll talk more to the changes in our corporate structure and exploration later in the call. But as you can appreciate, a period of a lot of change, a lot of uncertainty within the business and also within the broader market, that thinking about the wellness and the psychosocial safety of our people is very important.
Before I dive into to Greenbushes, I thought I'd just share a few reflections on the market, which probably isn't gonna add a whole lot across the call. I think that we would all agree there's a lot of uncertainty, a lot of things we don't know about the world of lithium. It's still very volatile, and obviously prices are quite subdued at the moment. There's a you know, fairly high level of pessimism across the market. Both on the demand side, we see lots of media and commentary around EVs. My observation is that in China, there's still pretty solid momentum and progress and strong take-up. There's obviously quite a lot of focus on that from the government in the way it's been incentivized.
Equally, there's a great product being offered to consumers there in the EVs and a great price point. You then contrast that with the Western markets, where there's a lot more uncertainty and more questions, and obviously, the political situation in different environments is playing into that as well. So, you know, not much signal, real tight signals for direction on demand, overall, and I guess we see that on the supply side as well. There's a mixed set of stories coming through around projects that are progressing, some that aren't, and overall, still a fairly high degree of uncertainty. Our view continues to be that over the medium term, supply will be more challenged than a lot would hold out.
And of course, we wanna continue to focus on our asset, Greenbushes, which is right at the bottom of the cost curve, and continue to, I guess, get the very best from it, help it with its performance. Let's talk through Greenbushes briefly. I think some real highlights from the quarter. Clearly, it's great to see it back to full production. The 200,000 tonnes sale that we talked about in the last quarter's a good outcome, and I think removed any constraints there from production. It's nice to see the challenges of Q1 and the uncertainty there unraveled and put us back on a path of full production.
The EBITDA margins for the June quarter were just shy of 68%, which is fabulous in this kind of market, and 85% across the full financial year. It just shows you the incredible strength of this asset. That translated to some good cash generation and dividends that flowed through to IGO, totaling AUD 760 million over the full financial year, AUD 159 million for the quarter. Looking into FY 2025, you know, we've got a new CEO for Talison coming, Rob Telford, who some of you, I'm sure, will know, ex-BHP. So, you know, stunning career. Very, very strong technical background. He has a pedigree around operating excellence and, you know, improving mines across that business in his career. He's got, you know, extensive experience.
He was the global head of safety, health and safety for BHP at one point as well. He comes, you know, very motivated to make this shift and to, I guess, bring all of his experience to bear as he helps to optimize and lift the performance of Greenbushes. We're also continuing our construction of CGP3, which is the next step of growth for Greenbushes. We've had, as you know, some early delays on the piling, which added some time and cost, and beyond that, we're still progressing towards or expecting our commissioning to commence in the third quarter of next year. From a guidance point of view, we're expecting the Greenbushes to continue to run unconstrained through FY 2025.
The midpoint of our production guidance is just a little bit higher than where we finished in FY 2024, and costs are guided between 320 to 380 per tonne. On Kwinana, look, a good quarter, better quarter. Maybe not good, a better quarter. Certainly some improvement. The team's focusing very hard on operational stability and control and doing their best to manage the asset as it is until the shutdown in the last quarter of this year. That's where we will expect to make some more material changes to the way that the asset's configured and lift performance again. The production of the battery grade material progresses and, you know, I think that's very stable and, you know, something that we can depend on now. And the sales have started to flow as well, which is good.
We need to work through some of the backlog of inventory there, but it's nice to see our customers taking that product. A couple of comments on Nova, which had a really strong finish to the year. They had a tough last quarter or quarter prior. This quarter they really came home well and finished the year just a little below guidance on tonnes, pulled in their cost guidance. And, you know, overall, this is a mine that's obviously delivered very well for IGO over the years. It is getting towards its end of life, and the optionality in that mine is certainly, well, less and more constrained now. We don't have the open pathways and schedule that we've had in the past.
So very conscious of that, and our guidance for the financial year 25 reflects that. We think that we need to be quite attentive to that schedule and make sure that we get the very best out of the asset. Equally, we're working hard on our costs across Nova to make sure that they're trended and managed in alignment with our production. This team at site are doing a fabulous job. I was there last week, spent a few days with them, went underground, went through the mill again, and performing well, doing a fabulous job. And I have a lot of confidence that they'll manage this much more complex phase of the mine through to closure in a couple of years time. Forrestania, so we see, you know, that's obviously much closer now.
It's got a matter of months to go. Effectively, we expect that we'll move that into care and maintenance by the end of the year. And we just recently had another seismic event. This is, you know, not unusual for a mine of that depth and that age, and that's definitely affected some of our planned schedule on the stopes and the tonnes that we can pull out. These are the, I guess the normal challenges that you get when you're nearing the end of life of a mine. We'll manage that closely. The cash position's still strong given the hedge that we have in place, and we continue to focus on our South Ironc ap lithium exploration.
There's some good potential there and something that makes a lot of sense given the infrastructure base that we've got in place. On exploration, we've been working through that broader business review that I signposted last quarter. That's progressing at pace. Suzanne, our GM Exploration, has done a fabulous job working through an end-to-end rethink of how we approach our exploration. We've got, as I've said before, fantastic ingredients in terms of our tenement land holding, belt scale positions in very prospective ground, fantastic capability in our team. Just deep, deep technical capability across all the disciplines that we need.
Access to, you know, incredible range of data that underpins our work, and we're now just rationalizing that program of work, the portfolio that we focus on, and directing our, our attention onto the areas that are most prospective, to generate value. Where our guidance for the FY 2025 takes that budget down to AUD 50-60 million. But ultimately, that's gonna trend down towards, a target run rate for the following year of, of less than AUD 50 million. And that's really about making sure we manage all of the commitments across that tenement, those tenements and our position, and make sure that we've gone and tested each of those as we, as we unwind some of that portfolio.
I'll also note the impairment that we announced a few weeks ago, AUD 275 million-AUD 295 million, against our exploration portfolio, and that's part of this rationalization and review that's going on. That focused predominantly on Silver Knight, Mount Goode, and a range of other largely nickel-related assets in our portfolio. I won't go through the guidance slide, which I've sort of touched on much of this as I've gone through it, but we can come back to that in Q&A, as you need to. Maybe just to sum up, and I wanted to sort of take us back to the five priorities that I've talked about. I'm now just over six months into the role, and these five priorities, I think, really stand well, and we're making good progress against them.
Firstly, on safety and sustainability, we continue that focus on safety, and I think, of course, it's a journey, but there's a good momentum and direction of improvement there. Through this period, and I'll talk more to the changes, we're also very focused on our culture, and that's something that IGO has been well regarded and recognized for. We're going through a lot of change affecting our people, and that's very difficult. It's so hard hearing from people in our business, where they're leaving our business, that they're deeply connected with IGO, and they're not necessarily worried about finding another job, they're worried about not being part of IGO.
And that's, that's heartbreaking to hear, but equally, it speaks to the culture that we've built and what we need to reinforce and not lose sight of, through this period of change. And of course, that has a very strong link to safety performance across the business. Secondly, on Greenbushes, I've talked about our focus there, working closely with our joint venture partners. We're very aligned on that future for Greenbushes. Everyone's equally committed to the success and performance of that asset, driving efficiencies, productivity, and very careful allocation of our growth capital. It is clearly the best place we can allocate capital, by a long shot. There is a lot of potential there, and we believe that the new management under Rob's leadership will absolutely make a standout difference.
He'll bring fresh eyes, fresh experience, that deep pedigree from his time in BHP, and help us lift the business to the next level. Kwinana, look, the big focus is on that shutdown. The team's preparing well for that, getting all of the materials and equipment in place. That will be a significant milestone for Kwinana and will tell us the potential of that asset. It is good to see in the intervening period that they're managed very closely on their day-to-day operating performance. Nickel, I've talked about really the priority there is managing our cash and our performance from safe production at Nova, and then taking Forrestania through to care and maintenance as quickly as possible. And then lastly, I talked about preparing for growth, and that really is about reviewing our business top to tail.
You know, I've sort of signposted some of this in my prior calls. The focus on getting the right capability, the right strategy, and the right focus across our business is key. We are finalizing the exploration business review. That's progressed well. We've gone through a significant corporate review, looking at our operating model and our org structure. That's well progressed as well. We've been working through the impairments of different assets across our balance sheet in exploration as we rationalize our portfolio. And as you know, we're working through and well progressed on a significant strategy refresh as well, which has taken a very deep dive into the commodities that we're focused on in the battery metals sector. So all of this, you know, is significant work all in parallel, which has been tough on the team.
They've done a great job to steer through that, and I feel very confident with where we're getting to. We've got new ELT members joining. Brett just started last week, and it's great to have him on board. Marie comes in a few weeks' time. She's, she's excited about that as well, and I think both will bring fantastic, fresh, new energy and experience to the team. And with that new strategy, allow us to look forward with a lot of confidence, where we take IGO in its next chapter.
The last point I wanted to note was that our quarterly reporting, in the spirit of simplifying our business, which we're doing from top to tail, we're also gonna simplify that, and you'll see next quarter, a recut and reshaped and much simplified quarterly report, really focused on our operations and our operating performance and, separating that from more of the detailed financial results that we've tended to put in the past. With that, I'm going to... How did I go? 15 minutes. Probably a bit longer than I'd hoped, but anyway, let's throw it open to Q&A and tackle the questions you've got.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question via the phone, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two, and if you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Again, we ask that participants limit themselves to asking two questions at a time, and to ask further questions, to please rejoin the queue. Your first question comes from Rahul Anand from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Oh, hi. Good morning, team. Thanks for the call. Two questions from me. First one, perhaps, on Nova. Seems to be a bit of a drop-off in production into next year, at least, versus our forecast and consensus, which I think were informed by some of the site presentations in the past. I just wanted to check in on a few things. I mean, is this a bit of a change in the plan to preserve mine life? Are you still expecting mine life to be around that FY27 mark, and how are you thinking about grades till the end of mine life? That's the first one on Nova. I'll come back with a second on Greenbushes. Thanks.
Rahul, yep, look, thank you. Great question. I'm sure it's on everyone's mind. Look, I haven't, you know, been here to sort of be part of the calls and the conversations in the past. This is. There is no change in the plan from my point of view. The teams basically run the stope sequence and schedule, and this is what, you know, basically pops out in terms of production. Grades are reasonably flat. There's nothing material that we're expecting in terms of change on that. So ultimately, this is really about just that sequence and making sure that we've got a reliable and predictable production plan through this year. So yeah, I don't know.
Got it.
I don't know if that helps you much, but-
Basically, flattish production up till FY 2027 is
Yeah, it will continue. It'll dip off at the end, naturally, right? The tail of any mine, as you run down to the end, will start to dip. But, yeah, that timeframe is still the plan. We can see the stope sequence right to the end and, you know, subject to seismicity or other issues that come up, which can happen, we have pretty good confidence in our production plan right through to the end now.
Got it. Okay. Look, my question on Greenbushes then, around the CapEx, obviously, the 900 number for next year. Just wanted to understand, I mean, has there been inflation in the CGP3 related CapEx, or we're talking about pre-strip requirements? Seems to be quite sizable. I mean, is this the point where we start to have a bit of congruence between the mine plan that was put out by Albemarle versus what was put out by Tianqi? I mean, if you can help me square the circle on the CapEx for next year, please.
Yeah, look, I... Let me make a few comments, and Kath can add to it as needed. The CapEx, you know, if we're talking about the big bites, obviously, CGP3 is a key piece in there. There's work on tailings as well, so new tailings facility that we're expanding there. Water as well, and pre-strip, which you've already mentioned. The other piece that's probably not on your mind is some land purchases, when we think about our waste management, waste dumps across the site. So there's some in there which are one-offs, of course, and growth, through-growth CapEx, and there's some which, like tailings and stripping, which are part of the business. Now, they will go up and down.
You know that with Kapanga coming, we've obviously got some elevated stripping in parts of the mine life, but you know, I don't see this as something that says, well, you draw a straight line across our CapEx going forward at that level.
Okay, so, I mean, has there been an increase in the cost for CGP3? I guess because I wouldn't go back to the acquisition presentation because that AUD 500-AUD 550 number was probably ignoring the inflation that was gonna come through the years. But, I mean, how much has CGP3 ended up costing in the end? If you can provide us a ballpark on that.
Yeah, look, I can't share that. I mean, our joint venture partners are all party to this, and we're not open to sharing all that detail at this point for each individual projects. But I mean, clearly there has been cost inflation. WA has seen that across the board, and I also called out the initial impacts of the piling challenges they had at the start of the project, which both affected the schedule to some degree and the costs. So there's, you know, growth in rates, but there's also been some change in scope as well due to that.
Understood. Okay, thank you very much. I'll pass it on.
Cheers, Rohan.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Jon Bishop from Jarden Group. Please go ahead.
Morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Just on your guidance for Greenbushes, you've given sort of a broader range than what you've done in previous years. Can I get some context as to the drivers there?
Okay. Thanks, Jon. Look, you know, the midpoint's just above where we're at now. There's certainly an opportunity as we optimize and stabilize CGP2 and the tailings repurposing treatment and retreatment facilities to drive more production. We've got a plan from Talison. That's what we sort of used to drive our guidance, but there's certainly upside opportunity on that. So I wanted to broaden that range until we get a better sense. As we know more information from them, we can always tighten that.
Okay, and possibly interrelated, you talked about China versus rest of world signals. I mean, just using rudimentary math of a 7.5-to-1 conversion at current chemical prices at the moment, looks like conversion costs would need to be sort of below $4,000 a ton to make a margin at current prices. Are you seeing any changes in joint venture behaviors, particularly from an offtake perspective?
That's so on your math, that's assuming that you don't count the margin you make on the spodumene then. So if you roll it at $7,000 for your spot as a cost and then, you know, $4,000, that gets you, you know, into the territory. Is that what you mean, Jon?
Yes. Yep.
Yeah. So sure, yeah, look, I mean, I think that's, that's the whole world seeing, converters are under pressure, right? There's, there's plenty of people who are finding it difficult to make a lot of money at this price point. Even the people who are converting at industry standard, which what we would see is 3,000 to 3.5 00, is probably the leading practice in the industry, and maybe 4,000 to 5,000 for, for those that are still refining their processes. In that range with, with spodumene at the level it is, there's not too many people, making money. Of course, what-
So just-
What you then call out is, of course, at that point, we're still making EBITDA margin in the mid-60s.
Yeah. I guess where I'm getting to is, are you seeing any change in your partners, particularly given their vertical integration around offtake behavior?
Um, no.
Not yet. No.
No.
Okay. All right, thank you very much.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Kate McCutcheon from Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, Ivan and Kath. You announced that cash sweep out of TLEA in June. How much cash sits in that JV at the end of June? I think from the last disclosures, it would imply there's over, like, over AUD 200 million in there, so just want to check my math there. And how do we think about timing on when that sweep might normalize, i.e., that cash consistently gets swept across? And maybe that ties into a Train 2 FID decision. If you can talk through that, please.
Yeah, the cash balance has come down considerably with the dividends that have been paid, but also there was quite a large tax bill that was paid out of Greenbushes. So it's normalized to a fair level, which we're confident with is a sustainable level going forward. When Kate, when we put out our annual report, we'll do the summary that we've done in the past, in the next two or three weeks, which will give you a little bit more detail. Across the two businesses, it's in the order of about AUD 200 million cash being held. So that probably gives you a bit of an indication around where that balance is at the moment. It will be a bit lumpy going forward based on where our CapEx is in, and what we need to retain from that perspective.
In respect of Train 2, it's in FID process at the moment. That would be coming out or being provided to the shareholders and joint venture partners late this year, and FID will follow that. And we will do a very robust review of that in terms of timing and approvals.
Maybe just to add to that, Kath, it's a good summary. You know, clearly we're going to stress test that economically, very thoughtfully, one, on the performance and the economics of Train 1. Two, albeit that half of Train 2 is built, that still doesn't mean to say it's a free kick. It does give us some optionality, but it does need to pass the hurdles and the test for capital allocation, and it's a very, very difficult industry. It's highly competitive. There's a lot of capacity that's been built in China. Those refiners, converters are making very limited margins. So, you know, we're very close to that. We're aware of it.
We will stress test that very thoughtfully and make sure it, as we look at the feed, we have a very clear view of the economics and the potential of it, in the market.
Okay, got it. And then a quick one, your nickel guidance, what by-product pricing have you assumed? Maybe for copper.
Sorry, what by-product?
Yeah, correct. What copper pricing have you assumed in your guidance for Nova, for your cash costs?
As we always do, Kate, it's consensus. I don't have the exact figures on me at this present moment, but consensus is what we utilize.
Okay, cool. Thank you, and then when you're recutting your quarterly, if we can put back in the cash flow waterfalls, that would be excellent. Thank you.
Okay, thanks for the feedback. The problem is, I guess, copper consensus seems to be changing, doesn't it?
Sorry, the cash flow waterfall charts.
No, I know, I know.
Yeah.
Just having-
All right
... a laugh at the copper consensus, that's all.
Yeah.
It's pretty hard to keep up with all the AI.
I hear you. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Hugo Nicolaci from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Oh, morning, Ivan and Kath. Thanks for the update this morning. One, on Greenbushes. You've noted that maximizing the value of Greenbushes is gonna be part of the strategic review, and appreciate we'll get more color on that one in August. But at a higher level, if I look at it, the JV is already looking to implement ore sorting across a number of sort of the plants and at site level. I mean, do you think that you know, extending the TRP with some of those optimizations could potentially push out the need to do CGP4, and you could potentially get the same volume out of that optimization? And then I'll come back with a second. Thanks.
Yeah, I mean, great question, Hugo. Absolutely. The, the, the asset we have at the TRP, obviously, absent the grinding capacity you would need, is a part of the plant and, you know, how we repurpose and rethink that's got to be part of the broader optimization. The other point which you're calling out is, you know, how do you get more out of the existing assets? We've got two significant processing assets there with CGP 1 and 2, and then soon with 3. The recoveries are still not where they need to be, we know that. The throughput improvements and potential's another area of focus. So from me, and I guess the wiring I have is get the very, very best out of your existing assets before you sign up a bunch of capital for new assets.
That's certainly gonna be my bias as I look at those investment decisions with the other joint venture partners. I suspect they'll be of the same mind, but what we've got to do is bring in the best thinking to help us make sure we've got that that potential being realized step by step. I think Rob Telford's gonna be a huge part of that with his background and, you know, making sure that we've squeezed every drip we can out of those existing processing facilities before we just jump to a new investment decision. That's not to say that that CGP4 in itself doesn't have value. We need to think about that in light of the broader market as well, though. As I've called out at the top of the call, there's so much uncertainty and unknowns.
We just need to be really thoughtful and careful about those kind of big capital decisions.
Great. Thanks a lot. Then just one on Kwinana, also called out AUD 80 million-AUD 100 million spend on those Train 1 improvements. Can you maybe give a bit more color on, you know, what those improvements to the December quarter are and what level of performance you expect them to deliver at this stage?
Yeah, look, Hugo, I won't... I mean, I'm not gonna give you a number, unfortunately. I know you'd love it, to give you specifics. I won't set the team up on that basis, but they're in the back end of the plant, in the hydromet phase or section of the plant. I'll give you an example, a portable centrifuge or an extra centrifuge separating the lithium crystals as they start to form. So there's some new pieces of equipment, there's modifications as well. There's also a gas treatment facility that we're putting in, that'll go in post the shut, but just, you know, a separate standalone piece of work, which is happening in Q1. So that capital that we've guided on covers the full financial year.
It's not all being consumed in that shut in, in Q4 this year. Some of that will run, in fact, a fair chunk of it will also run into the second half of this financial year.
And then just to clarify then, I mean, is that kind of most of what you expect to have left in terms of Train 1 rectifications, or is this, you know, another step and, and maybe there'll be, you know, another significant like of rectifications in FY 2026?
Well, yeah, great question. Don't know. It's still too early to tell. I'm asking that question as well. So the team's got a clear view of what they need to do for this shut and the modifications and improvements they're expecting. We've got the gas treatment facility to finalize, that the foundations are done. We're waiting on some of the equipment to come through, and then that'll be installed. There are then things we need to do beyond that, which they're anticipating and planning for, hence the guidance. But, can I give you a runway beyond that in FY 2026? No, not yet. That is certainly something I'm eagerly awaiting.
Great for that. I'll pass it on. Thanks.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Tim Hoff from Canaccord. Please go ahead.
Hi, Ivan. Thanks for the call. I was just wondering if we'd get an idea of what care and maintenance costs might be for Cosmos and Forrestania over the course of the next year?
Okay. Yeah, sure, Tim. I think 12 to 15 is what we've guided for Cosmos. And have we given a number on Forrestania yet?
No, we haven't given a number, but it will be less than the Cosmos.
Yeah.
'Cause we'll be actually flooding the mines, which saves on quite a bit on energy.
Energy. Yeah. Yeah, it's quite... I mean, Tim, I guess probably the context that's helpful is it's a very different approach, with care and maintenance is I guess about keeping our assets in a healthy position at Cosmos, and we're continuing the work on the study and looking at the mineralization. There's some some brownfield exploration there going on across that that property. For Forrestania, it's a very different context where those mines will will ultimately close and we don't have to maintain them.
Yep. And just around Forrestania, are there any options on that for monetizing the asset? Realizing there's a few gold bits and pieces around the area, has there been any approaches on that one? No worries. Thank you. Perhaps with the debt at Greenbushes, was that AUD 1.55 drawn in the end, or is that still undrawn? Excellent. Thanks. Brilliant. Thank you very much for that.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Daniel Morgan, from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks, Ivan and Tim. Just on the Kwinana asset, were there any net realizable value changes embedded in the Kwinana result? And, also, if you could just touch on the sales outlook at that, you know, when will we have, sales roughly aligned with production? Thank you.
...thank you. Thank you. And second question, just relates to the relationships with JV partners and also the, the beefing up of your, your executive team. Just wanted to... wondered, Ivan, if you could touch on, you know, you-- when you started, you, you wanted to, you know, improve the relationships with JV partners, and you've also beefed up the ex- the executive team. Just wondering how that's gonna—how those two might relate and how embedded you might be in helping to optimize these assets for the JV partners.
... A preeminent, fantastic player in the lithium industry, and they don't know mining in depth. You know, I'm sitting on the board of Winfield now, and you know, much more involved in Greenbushes. It's great seeing the three, the three different shareholders or joint venture partners there working together, each bringing their strengths to try and build and optimize that business. And I think this is where IGO can bring more and more value to the table with our mining depth. You talked about our new ELT members, so Brett clearly brings real depth in sales and marketing, in commodities, a number of commodities across Asia and China. He knows China very well, having lived and worked there several times through his career. And he's got that broader commercial and corporate development background.
And then Marie brings, you know, real operating pedigree and will get very involved with the work at Greenbushes and Talison, supporting the team, supporting Rob as he ramps up. They know each other well from their past, and again, doing what we can to bring more mining pedigree and support to the optimization of Greenbushes.
Thanks so much for your perspectives.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Kaan Peker, from RBC. Please go ahead.
Hi, Ivan and Kath. Two questions from me. The first one is on the nickel assets. There's comments around nickel concentrate for domestic delivery being directed for exports. Can you give a bit more detail around that?
Yeah, well, yes, I can. We deliver to Nickel West in Kambalda, but we were asked to do a delivery, export delivery during this process, or during the last couple of months, and so we delivered down to Esperance for a shipment, which is, I think, imminently going, if it didn't go away, in the last day or so.
Sure. So I assume that's got to do with take or pay commitments with Nickel West?
I wouldn't say take or pay, but under our contractual arrangements, they can ask us to deliver to a different location.
Sure. And how much of your product is that? And I assume that's the same payabilities for Nova?
Yeah. We don't really talk to commercial arrangements, but it is the same payables as what we had in the Kambalda deliveries.
Sure, and the percentage of your product that can be asked to be redirected?
Well, they can redirect all of it, should they choose, and under the new arrangements, we will be exporting.
Sure. And who pays for the transportation difference?
Oh, it's your standard. There's a freight differential that is in the contract that gets dealt with.
So that's IGO or BHP?
It's BHP, because the freight differential-
Right
... is at their risk.
Sure. Thank you. And maybe just a second one on the TLA cash sweep. If Winfield hadn't restructured its JV debt, so i.e. got more debt on the books to pay for CapEx, would that dividend been as large?
Oh, look, I think you can't take a point in time to assess that. We'd accrued quite a lot of cash. Well, Winfield Talison accrued quite a lot of cash in the lead up to that dividend payment, and it was a within a judgment of: what do we need to look forward for our CapEx requirements? What do we need in terms of buffer with a view on the market and the price realization for the production that we're producing? And taking a perspective on that, we then released the cash that we could. So there's a number of factors that came into that, including the 200,000 tonnes sale, to clear that and open production fully and equally pull those receipts in. So, yeah, it's not as simple as saying, "Well, the debt equals the dividend.
Yeah, yeah. Understood. Understood. Well, thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Lyndon Fagan, from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Oh, good morning. Just with the CapEx guidance for Greenbushes, I'm wondering if you're able to separate sustaining and growth for me. I'm just a bit unclear on how to think about sustaining CapEx going forward, considering how big that number is. Thanks.
Yeah. Look, great question. I understand the driver behind it. It's not something that we can share, given our JV there, to separate that. We don't guide on that split out of CapEx, unfortunately.
Has the... is there something within the kind of scope of the operations that may have affected the sustaining piece? If you can't talk to numbers, just to try and understand-
Well, I think-
... a bit more about what's happening on the ground.
So stripping will obviously vary, and particularly when we've got new parts of the pit we're opening. We are, I mentioned purchasing land to give us more access for waste dumps. So that's not a, you know, so you can... Is that growth or is that sustaining? It's, you know, probably hard to judge how you want to assess that. So there's, you know, there's a few things in there that are not normal. As I mentioned earlier, when I went through the CapEx, obviously CGP3 is playing growth, and that runs through our tailings facility. So, you know, that's in flight at the moment and some of our water management as well.
I think some of these things you can, you can argue they're growth because they underpin the growth, and without them, you don't, you don't have the basis to continue to grow and deliver CGP3 and CGP4, and so on. So I know I'm not giving you clear, specific, direct answers on sustaining CapEx, but it's also an asset where, probably the other point I'd make is, you know, we've now ramped up CGP1 and 2. They're running at full rate, and we've got a much bigger mining function across the business that, you know, we still need to get to a place where that's optimized and stabilized. So we're far from a place of being able to point to a long run or stable sustaining CapEx requirement for the business.
I guess how many more years are these lumpy items continuing for? Like, when would the sustaining CapEx start to look a bit more normalized?
Well, can I maybe answer the question a different way? I'm really eager for the business to go through that full life and mine optimization. I think that's what tells you the best pathway, the best NPV from it, and obviously will give you a clear view of how you balance your CapEx over time and optimize the cash. So I don't have that yet, so I think to jump to it, it'd just be guesswork at this point. I mean, we have a point of view from the plan, but I think there's still so many things to work through, so many upside options to look at before we try and put a stake in the ground on that.
Okay, thanks for that. Then I guess the last one's also on Greenbushes. I'm just trying to reconcile the EBITDA with the implied net profit that feeds into your underlying EBITDA. I'm wondering if you can help us understand some of the items there. Like, what's the depreciation running at these days? Maybe what sort of interest bills coming through that's affecting that? Just to kind of set some parameters going forward. Thanks.
So one thing I'll comment on there is when you actually look at our net profit and the depreciation, we've also got the purchase price allocation depreciation going through there. So when you look at IGO, there's another layer of depreciation. Depreciation is at a standard rate that you'd expect for, for mines in terms of their life. In terms of interest, it is, you know, it's at commercial rates. They achieved a really good interest rate there. So I think that there'll be a little bit more detail on that in the annual report.
Is there any other items we need to think about, or is it really just those?
I think it's those two. I can't think of anything else out of unusual in there.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Hugo Nicolaci from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity for a follow-up. I just wanted to come back to the comments around preparing for growth. Noting in the slides, reshaping the business and improving your capability, what areas do you feel you need to improve your capability? And I guess, what are some of those growth focus areas that you're looking to? Thanks.
Hugo, you want an early cut of the strategy. Look, I think. I'll give you a couple of examples. Brett's a great example. Bringing in someone with a much deeper set of sales and marketing commercial expertise. His experience in China I think is very important as we look forward. Those are capabilities that we've really not had any focus on as a nickel business, selling to one customer for a long time in a very stable model. We produce contracts and manage contracts. So thinking about how lithium grows as an industry and as a market, and how we want to best position that, there's a lot to do. I think all of the industry players are looking at that. You probably saw the announcement around Ganfeng and their positioning just the other day.
You know, there's it's a very mature commodity and market, and I think a lot of upside. So there's one example. Our depth around lithium is obviously in focus more broadly, in terms of the understanding. We've developed and we've grown that in the last, you know, year or so. I think there's still plenty more to do there as we learn and understand that industry, both in terms of the raw material supply, understanding our competitors in brines, but also then the processing and the value chain as well. Beyond that, exploration, I think we've got a fantastic team and capability.
We are reshaping and rethinking that and looking to drive a lot more from our investments in exploration looking forward, and there's key areas there that I know Suzanne's focusing on lifting and changing as well. There's a couple of examples. I'm sort of giving you a couple of headlines, but we will certainly talk more to that in depth in the strategy refresh when we present that.
Thanks a lot for that extra color. I look forward to that strategy refresh. And then just, another one for Kath. Appreciate, a few different ways of asking this question so far, but I guess from a Greenbushes perspective, would you categorize the deferred stripping for FY 2025 as a material part of that CapEx guidance?
... Yeah, as we've directed in the past, stripping has gone up, and I think Ivan's touched base on that. Yes, it is a reasonable portion of that, of that CapEx.
Great. Thanks a lot, guys. I'll pass it on.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Rob Stein from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Thanks for the update. Just in terms of the immaturity of the market, how you think about your position in the market. When you look towards growth, how are you using, I guess, the collective experience of the team, you know, in iron ore in the like, to really think about value over volume and production targets and growth? You know, as you look to bring on CGPs, you know, potentially I said to you before, repurpose your tailings treatment plant. How are you sort of thinking about signaling in that? How are you thinking about bringing that on? Because we've seen some of your competitors quite aggressive in talking about volumes. And I've got a follow-up. Thanks.
Thanks, Rob. Yeah, big question. There's a lot in that. I'll probably—I won't try and cover it all now. It's, you know, sort of thing we can talk through more as we get into the strategy. But, you know, I think we're very unique in the part of Greenbushes that we hold, and then, I guess, that overall asset in its cost position. It's just so strong, it gives you a very different outlook. That said, of course, the offtake is then shipped to two major players in the industry and how they manage it. There's still a level of uncertainty around that forward demand and how that plays out with all of the other political pressures on it.
So we've got to be thoughtful about that forward market, but I guess, as you all know, you know, the tons that we produce out of Greenbushes are always gonna win on a like for like basis against spodumene from anywhere else in the world. Even some of the best deposits out there that are being considered for development just don't have the same cost potential. So, you know, if you look at the forward market and you said you need to roughly double the number of producing lithium assets in the world over the next, you know, eight to 10 years to meet demand, give or take, and that's gonna take a significant amount of capital flow to do it, Greenbushes should be at the forefront there.
It's, it's got the best margins and the best positioning to, to keep up with that, that new demand. I, I think I might leave it there, and, you know, I don't want to be cryptic, but it's probably a broader conversation we have as part of the strategy, talk through our perspectives. We're also really, humble about that. We've done a lot of work under trying to understand this lithium market. First principles, ground up, a lot of direct information, a lot of analysis, and as I know, you, you're all doing, it's difficult. There's, there's a number of factors there or things that no one can really know for sure, and that's what creates this, degree of uncertainty in the market of lithium.
What I point to, though, is the rate of growth that's still ahead of us on any scenario and how that supply comes online. You know, mining is harder than probably people realize. Bringing on new mines and growing mines and keeping up with all of that in a responsible, sustainable, and thoughtful manner is actually quite challenging. So there's a lot to think about.
Well, maybe just a quick follow on then. Yeah, how do you think about buy versus build in that, in that, in that context? You've obviously, you're sort of faced with the future in this quarterly, with one of your operations shutting down the next, you know, is a few years away. Do you look at buy versus build, you know, with an immediate sort of one to two year sort of outlook to say, "Hey, look, we've got some capabilities here. We can actually help deploy them into emerging operations. We don't need to necessarily add volume growth to Greenbushes. We can go and acquire something when the market's suppressing that value that way." Is that something that you're considering as part of the strategy update?
Look, we're looking at what's gonna give us the best capital returns, and as I said, Greenbushes is pretty hard to beat. You go through any scenario and any list, and it's just such an attractive asset. There's so much upside as it grows. There's a lot of prospectivity in the area as well, which our exploration team are working on to get access and to better understand. You know, of course, that's the question of the moment, Rob, buy versus build, and everyone's gonna look through that with different eyes, depending on where they're starting from. And as I said, we're in a very privileged place with an asset that at the bottom of the cycle is generating a mid-60s% EBITDA margin.
Yeah, no problems. Thanks for that, Ivan. Really appreciate the opportunity.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Vella.
All right. Look, thank you. Great questions. Good list. Look, overall, it was a good quarter. It was nice to see Nova finish well. They, they had some challenges in the prior quarter, and they turned that around, so all credit to the team. The other highlight, I guess, is seeing Greenbushes back at full rate and really starting to move. There is a lot more we can do there, but we've got to also celebrate the work that Greenbushes is doing. It's a big, complex operation now. There's a lot to it, and they're going through some change, obviously, with leadership. I do want to recognize Laurie, who's been the CEO there for nine years, and I think over 20 in tenure.
He's done a lot as that business has built up from being a very, very modest little lithium mine now to being the, you know, preeminent global example of a spodumene mine in the world. The other call-out I wanted to make was just to our team. They're going through quite a lot of change with the corporate review, the exploration business review, and broader changes. And the strategy, you know, is not just hotly awaited by you, but equally by our team within IGO. Everyone's wanting that sense of direction. Of course, there's no silver bullet there or, you know, it's not that easy, but a lot of things underway at the moment, and the team's been really constructive and caring through this whole process.
I look forward to, you know, by the end of this next quarter, having that clear picture of where we're headed, being able to share that more broadly, and start to get some momentum up to deliver on those outcomes. With that, I'll leave it there. Hope you all have a good day. Thank you.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.