Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the IGO Limited 2023 March quarter webcast. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question via the phones, you'll need to press the star key followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to ask a question via the webcast, please type your question into the ask a question box. I'll now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Matt Dusci, Acting CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone, thank you for joining the call this morning as we present our operating and financial results for the March quarter. Joining me on the call today is Kath Bozanic, our CFO.
Slide two highlights our cautionary statements and disclaimer. Of note, all currency amounts are in Australian dollars unless otherwise noted. Turning to slide three. To commence this morning's presentation, I would like to draw attention to our ongoing efforts towards enhancing safety, well-being, and the engagement of our people. Our people are our priority. As highlighted in previous quarters, our recent safety record has been disappointing. Over the last year, we have amplified our focus on critical risk identification and management. It's pleasing to see improved safety lag metric outcomes over the last few quarters. We acknowledge there's still work to do as we improve our safety performance.
We have a fantastic group of people and a unique culture. An important measure that we track at IGO is our employee engagement. It's an annual pulse of the organization to understand the strengths and weaknesses of our culture, and most importantly, identify where we can improve. Our 2023 survey, the first survey conducted since we welcomed in the Western Areas team into the business, was completed in April. Initial results indicate a strong employee engagement across the business, underpinning the strength of the IGO culture.
Turning to slide four. Our key highlights for the quarter again demonstrate the strength of our business. These highlights include record quarterly earnings and net profit after tax and repayment of our revolving credit facility, leaving our balance sheet in an excellent position. Our lithium business had another great quarter, with Greenbushes delivering consistent production and cost performance, while higher lithium prices helped drive strong margins and free cash flow to IGO by way of another strong quarterly dividend from TLEA. In our nickel business, we have seen the rapid recovery from the power station fire at Nova last quarter. We also secured a strategic parcel of land at Kwinana for our proposed integrated battery material facility, a key part of our downstream strategy.
Finally, we're also pleased that our commitment to sustainability continues to receive third-party endorsement with recognition from S&P and Sustainalytics that IGO is a sector leader in sustainability. I'd also note that we advised in the quarterly of an anticipated impairment on the nickel assets acquired through the Western Areas transaction. Provide some detail on this later in the presentation.
Turning to slide five, where I'll provide an overview of our March quarter financial results. Of note, group sales revenue of AUD 236 million, which excludes contributions from our lithium business, was marginally lower due to lower sales from Forrestania. IGO's share of net profit of TLEA, our lithium joint venture, rose to 30% quarter-on-quarter to AUD 450 million. Quarterly EBITDA of AUD 533 million and Net Profit After Tax of AUD 412 million were both quarterly records. Strong underlying free cash flow of AUD 284 million enabled the repayment of our AUD 240 million revolving debt facility and thereby reducing our net debt position to just AUD 9 million.
Turning to slide six, where we lay out the quarter-on-quarter movements in Net Profit After Tax. The key contributor to the excellent result was a strong increase in our share of profit from TLEA, driven predominantly by higher revenues from Greenbushes. Other factors include lower tax and a lower contribution from Forrestania, offset by marginal movement in mark-to-mark value of our listed investments. Turning to slide seven, where we reconcile cash. As shown here, we had some large movements in cash over the quarter, including inflows of AUD 321 million dividend received from TLEA and AUD 92 million free cash flow from Nova. Key outflows included AUD 240 million in debt repayments, as mentioned earlier, a record interim dividend payment of AUD 106 million to shareholders and AUD 93 million in development expenditure at Cosmos.
As at the end of the quarter, IGO's cash at bank was AUD 441 million, with a total debt of AUD 450 million. Turning to slide eight and onto a discussion of the lithium business, which is held by a joint venture interest in Tianqi Lithium Energy Australia, referred to as TLEA. Turning to slide nine. TLEA recorded another outstanding quarter, driven primarily by 45% higher quarter-on-quarter lithium prices. This delivered a 30% increase in IGO's share of TLEA net profit to AUD 450 million, and a quarterly dividend to IGO of AUD 321 million. This brings total annual dividends received from TLEA to AUD 761 million. I'd also like to note TLEA's proposed scheme of arrangement to acquire Essential Metals, which was originally announced in early January.
As has been reported, the proposed scheme did not receive sufficient shareholder vote to be passed at the scheme meeting held last week. TLEA has terminated the Scheme Implementation Agreement with Essential Metals. TLEA will continue to assess opportunities to grow its lithium business through M&A, but will only execute transactions which can deliver value to its shareholders. Turning to slide 10, we will discuss performance at the Greenbushes lithium mine. Production was marginally lower quarter-on-quarter to 356,000 tons due to lower run times on CGP1 and CGP2, offset by higher fee grades. Despite spodumene sales being 13% lower quarter-on-quarter, the higher spodumene prices noted earlier drove sales revenue and EBITDA to AUD 2.8 billion and AUD 2.6 billion respectively on a 100% basis.
This represents an EBITDA margin exceeding 90% for the quarter. Unit costs, excluding royalties of AUD 290 per ton, were also higher quarter-on-quarter as a result of cost escalation and inflationary pressures. The overall realized spodumene price was $5,783 per ton for the quarter. Turning to slide 11. The graph to the left shows results from Greenbushes, illustrating a strong production and cost profile over the last 18 months. Expanding production and processing capacity is a key part of the Greenbushes growth strategy, which involves the addition of two new concentrators, CGP3 and, in the future, CGP4. During the quarter, the team progressed several of these key projects and related infrastructure, including advancing construction on CGP3, with the first ore t argeted for mid-calendar year 2025.
Progress on the mine services area, which is advancing well and remains on track to enable the commencement of the new contract with Macmahon in the coming months. The new power supply from Bridgetown has been completed and is currently awaiting energization. Earthworks for accommodation village have commenced, with formal construction to begin next quarter.
Turning to slide 12. Looking ahead, we expect the strong performance at Greenbushes to continue. Of note, quarterly sales were lower during the quarter due to storage capacity constraints at Bunbury Port. However, we've seen the issue resolved and expect sales to rebound in June quarter to help offset this. The chemical grade spodumene price has reset to $5,444 per ton for the June quarter, which will continue to underpin strong margins at Greenbushes.
We expect full production and cost to be at marginally above guidance, reflecting a strong production expectation for the June quarter. From a capital perspective, third quarter 2023 was $122 million, which is behind schedule with a slower rate of spend over a number of projects. CGP3 CapEx, from previously guided at around $500 million-$550 million, is under review following some challenges related to earthworks and geotechnical piling. While a review is underway, which is planned to be completed next quarter, IGO expects costs could exceed the contingency provided in our guidance range. We'll be in a position to provide an update on the completion of this review at the end of the quarter.
Turning to slide 13 and onto an update of the Kwinana refinery. The Kwinana team has continued to progress rectification works on Train 1, as noted in the prior quarter. Production rates have progressively improved, with total production of 963 tons of lithium hydroxide for the quarter. Sales have also continued to potential customers as part of the ongoing product qualification process during the quarter. The ramp-up team is preparing for a major shut commencing at the start of May. This will focus on the lithium hydroxide material handling circuit at the back end of the processing plant. At the completion of this shut, we're expecting to see an improvement in production as we work towards achieving 60%-70% of nameplate production by the end of this calendar year.
Turning to slide 14, where we'll move to the discussion of our nickel business. Turning to slide 15, we'll start with Nova. It's pleasing to report a solid recovery of our Nova operation following the production disruption caused by the fire in December last year. Quarter production of all metals improved approximately 30%, while cash costs reduced 28% to AUD 3.79 per pound. While operations have recovered well, the quarterly result was impacted by intermittent power supply issues that have persisted as well as a result of the temporary power station. This is coupled with some constraints to PACE production during the quarter. Issues at the PACE plant have been resolved, and the site power supply reliability is expected to improve from the commissioning of new battery energy storage system in connection with Nova's solar farm during the June quarter. Sales revenue and EBITDA for Nova rose quarter-on-quarter due to higher sales offset by a 6% decrease in realized nickel price.
Turning to slide 16. At Forrestania, quarterly performance was challenged by lower ore availability from both Flying Fox and Spotted Quoll mines, resulting in 5% lower nickel production quarter on quarter. Ongoing sites with issues at Spotted Quoll have necessitated greater rehabilitation work and long re-entry times after blasting, while poor ground conditions at Flying Fox deferred access to some high-grade stopes to later quarters. Nickel sales of AUD 58 million for the quarter were 36% lower than the prior quarter, impacted by trucking availability and road closure due to poor weather. Trucking availability is expected to improve during the June quarter, with additional haulage contractors deployed to help draw down on the large concentrate stockpiles that have materialized at Forrestania.
Cash costs of AUD 10.27 per pound were lower quarter-on-quarter, benefit from savings generated by the Nova blending agreement, including unlocking payable co-cobalt credits that were otherwise not realized, and saving on on-site cost, with no export sales under the new agreement. Underlying free cash flow remains strong at AUD 32 million for the quarter. Turning to slide 17. Development out of the Cosmos project is continuing at PACE. During the quarter, shaft and headframe constructions proceeded to plan, including the first leg of the shaft and PACE plant completed. Construction was completed at the new aerodrome, with the first flight celebrated last weekend. Total CapEx for the quarter was AUD 97 million, with FY 2023 year-to-date CapEx at AUD 214 million. This is below forecast due to some work being completed later than planned.
The project delivery time remains on schedule and on budget. Turning to slide 18, where I briefly discuss progress on our downstream nickel strategy. Earlier this month, IGO and our partner, Wyloo Metals, announced the allocation of a strategic piece of industrial land at Kwinana for a proposed integrated battery materials facility. This is an important milestone in our capability to produce battery-grade chemical cathode precursor in an integrated facility here in Western Australia. While any investment decision will be subject to securing a pre-CAM partner and a positive outcome for feasibility study, IGO and Wyloo share a vision to produce low cost, low carbon, responsible produced battery chemistries from what would be the first integrated facility of its kind in Australia. We look forward to keeping the market updated as we progress discussions with respect to potential partners and as the feasibility study progresses.
Turning to slide 19, on a brief outlook of the nickel business. Production and cost guidance at Nova and Forrestania remain unchanged. We've made some minor changes to CapEx outlooks, with some Nova CapEx being deferred into FY 2024, while a slower rate of spend at Cosmos to date means we expect full-year spend to be under where we had previously expected of between AUD 330 million and AUD 360 million. We have also advised in today's result that we anticipate recording an impairment against the assets acquired from Western Areas. The impairment reflects several changes compared to our expectations when we acquired the Western Areas assets last year. These changes include cost escalation, which have been widely reported across the industry, higher CapEx costs at Cosmos, as referred to in our September 2022 quarterly report.
Mine scheduling changes and delays in the mining of AN5 and AN6, and the general underperformance of Forrestania. As we're currently working on our first annual life of mine and budgeting process with the new sites, and the fact that any impairment will be dependent on the processes together with macroeconomic inputs at the time of testing, we're presently not in a position to provide the market with a probable impairment value or a range of values with any sufficient detail or certainty. We're currently, however, confident that an impairment charge will need to be recognized in respect to the Western Areas assets acquired in our 30th June 2023 financial statements, and as such, have elected to advise the expectation in advance while we continue to work through the budget and impairment testing process.
We are working to complete this process as soon as possible and expect to be in a position to update the market further during the June quarter. The impairment will be non-cash and will not impact underlying full-year EBITDA. Turning to slide 20, where I'll provide just a few comments on our exploration activities for the quarter. Moving to slide 21. Exploration during the quarter focused on the southern parts of Australia, specifically the Fraser Range, Forrestania, Western Gawler Copper Coast, Broken Hill, and Greenbushes Bridge Arms projects.
One program of note is a detailed review and sampling of lithium-bearing pegmatite intrusions encountered in previous drilling at the Forrestania project. This work is showing some interesting results. We expect to commence drilling this quarter. We also continue to test nickel sulfide targets around surrounding Silver Knight prospects, with further drilling expected in the current quarter.
Turning to slide 22. Before wrapping up with summary, I'd also like to provide some commentary on behalf of the Board on the CEO search process. Shortlisted candidates have been interviewed by the search committee. Final interviews before the whole board will take place in the coming weeks, with a decision expected to be announced in the coming quarter. As you may have noticed in the quarterly, I've made the personal decision not to participate in the process. I look forward to leading the company as acting CEO through this transition. To summarize for the quarter, our business has continued to deliver outstanding financial performance with another quarterly record, EBITDA and NPAT result. Free cash we are generating has enabled the rapid down payment of our revolving credit facility, putting IGO in a strong balance sheet position with just AUD 9 million net debt.
This has largely been underpinned by Greenbushes, which is generating strong margins and driving dividend flow through TLEA to IGO, while at the same time supporting the production ramp up at Kwinana. In our nickel business, Nova has recovered incredibly well from the fire last year, and we continue to improve performance at Forrestania. The Cosmos development project remains on track and we have made the first steps towards our downstream nickel strategies with the recent announcement of securing strategic land at Kwinana. As noted, we have also advised of an expected impairment on the ex-Western Areas assets as we'll update the market on this in the June quarter. Thank you for joining us on the call this morning, I'll now hand back to the Operator for questions.
Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question via the phone, you'll need to press the star key followed by the one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to ask a question via the webcast, please type your question into the ask a question box. We will be addressing questions by the teleconference first. If time allows, we will address some of the questions followed up received on the webcast. For the sake of time, please limit your questions to one per person. If you'd like to ask more questions, feel free to join the queue again. Your first question comes from Rahul Anand from Morgan Stanley Australia. Please go ahead.
Well, hi team. Thanks for the call. Look, my question, and I know you're only allowing one, is around CGP3. Just looking for a bit more visibility around, I guess the challenge ahead of you, some timelines, how we should think about those cost estimates. Perhaps a bit more color, would be much appreciated. Thanks.
Yeah. Hi, Rahul. Yeah, I can give a little bit of cover, color on that. With CGP3, you know, what we're doing is building part of the wet plant on its tailings. We've done all the design on the tailings dam. As part of the detailed work, we're looking at the geotech and the earthworks and the piling. The team there is just looking through final design on those pilings and then re-feeding that through to a capital cost estimate. At the moment it's pretty preliminary, so essentially we don't have a good understanding of what that cost would be. We're just flagging to the market that there is a potential that we could actually exceed our contingency.
When we provided a range on that contingency, we talked to AUD 500 million to AUD 550 million. We had around about AUD 50 million of additional in that guidance. We're not sure whether that will exceed that at this point, but we'll have clarity during the quarter.
Okay. Understood. Okay. Perhaps just one follow-up then in terms of projects still, you know, the downstream project ramping up year 60%-70% throughput expectations by the end of the year. Has there been any update in terms of product quality, et cetera? You did achieve battery-grade production. I mean, I wanted to understand the product quality going forward after these changes that you're expecting, and then also whether you still envision getting to 100% of capacity for the project there?
Yeah. Okay. In terms of product quality, so we did 963 tons of lithium hydroxide for the quarter. That conversion to battery grade was around about 80%-85%. We're getting good conversion to battery grade as part of that quality. We're in the process of doing qualification. We know that producing battery grade qualification processes, that testing required, as you get integrated into the battery supply chain. Once we have that qualification period or qualification through, then we'll be in a position to sell more product out of Kwinana. We're, today we're not having any sort of challenges on quality. The key challenge on Kwinana is all about ramp up and debottlenecking.
We'll have a shut coming up, and we'll see if an improvement on that production rate coming out of that shut in May, so back end of next quarter.
Okay. That's all for me. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Matt Greene, from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, Matt and Cath. Hope you're well. Look, I'll just follow on from the Kwinana question, Matt. You know, with this, these modifications in May, h ow should we be thinking about, I guess, the profile of this ramp up? Because, I mean, I recall part of this qualification process is TLEA getting comfortable that you can supply the not only the quality of that, but also the volume.
Will these modifications allow for a bit of a step-up change, and could these changes in May push you up to that, you know, that 60% level? Should we be thinking of, I don't know, perhaps 40% with another step change with the next shutdown later in the year? How should we just, I guess, should we be thinking more linear ramp up here or, you know, more for an incremental step up?
Yeah. No, no problems with that. Yeah. We are well. Just give you a bit of guidance on that, how that profile looks over the calendar year. We remain confident that we'll achieve between 60%-70% of nameplate capacity at the end of this calendar year. We have two major shuts planned during the calendar year. We're coming into the first shut in May. What that shut does is it really focuses on the lithium hydroxide handling system at the back end of the plant from the, basically from the centrifuge or the dryers through to the from the crystallizers into the dryer. That has been a real constraint to production.
There's an expectation once we finish that shut, change out screw feeders, change out bins and liners and chutes, we'll see a step up. We will not get to the 60% - 70% from this May shut. We'll have to continue to drive improvements through the calendar year to get to that 60% - 70%. It would be fair to say that you, at the back end of June, we would anticipate to see closer to the 40% range.
Okay. Thank you.
All right.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Lyndon Fagan, from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much. I was hoping to talk a bit about the Greenbushes mine plan, where we're still pulling out really elevated grades, around 2.6%, which is fantastic. Can you give a little bit of a sense as to how sustainable those high grades are and when we kind of see it get back down to the 2% level? I guess related, when do we actually see the ore mine pick up, which is, I guess, in line with some of the Tianqi guidance that was originally out there? Thanks.
Hey, Lyndon. Yeah. At the moment, we are seeing higher grades, and we will continue to have that ability to feed higher grades through that Greenbushes. When you'll start to see grades normalize to two and 2% out of the mine is once we start to do significant material movements with Macmahon's contract coming in. We'll see a ramp up in material movements so that over the back end of this calendar year and then into, majorly into next calendar year. That's timed with Macmahon's change of mining contract demands coming into Greenbushes and ramp up of waste movement as well, which will open up more of the ore body as per the mining plan.
Just to clarify, once that material movement does ramp up, is it right to think that 2% is the sort of grade at that point?
Right. Each of the processing plants have a different head grade that they're designed to treat. When you look at each of the processing plants, they'll have a different feed grade. The whole life or the reserve of Greenbushes is the 2%. It will normalize around about the 2%, but it may vary different head grades into different plants.
Thanks. Just a quick clarification, if I may. Appendix 6, the CapEx for Greenbushes, does that include everything? I guess if it does, it looks like you're running behind guidance. That's sustaining an improvement and deferred waste. Is that the entire CapEx for the site?
Yeah, that is the entire CapEx for the site. You are correct in terms of forecasting capital over quarters and for the periods. We are running a bit behind, and we saw that also with Cosmos and Nova. It's got to do with forecasting of capital spend.
Great. Thanks. I'll pass it on.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Jon Bishop from Jarden Group Australia. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. You make a comment in the release. You talk about no change to guidance for the lithium business outlook in terms of production. That relates to some price disparities for lithium product streams. Can you sort of bury down a little bit more detail there on what that actually means? Is that referencing the technical grade portion of your production?
Yeah. Hey, hey, Jon. It's always a pleasure to take a question. Yeah. We got, we got some commentary in there just talking a little bit about market. As we've seen in the market, what we're seeing is a volatile market with lithium. Maybe that volatility is largely driven by a disconnect between lithium carbonate hydroxide versus raw material inputs. You mean that there's always. At the moment, there is that conversation, so we're just working through all that market that having an integrated business provides a little bit more certainty about that variability that we do see in the market. Some of that you'd expect to see some form of impact at some point, unless the market doesn't correct itself where carbonate prices and hydroxide prices rebound.
Can I just clarify then, the comment there in that text. It talks about changes to production guidance. Is that a reflection of the joint venture considering whether it withholds some material for better pricing environment, or is it the change in product mix? If you just sort of clarify that for me.
Yeah. There's always that sort of options that the joint venture can do depending on where the pricing goes. Having integrated businesses ensures some form of protection on that. We just wanted to provide clarity as part of that uncertainty that we remain on track to deliver to FY23.
Okay. That's great. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Levi Spry from UBS. Please go ahead.
Good day. Thanks for the call. Maybe, sorry, you can just explain to me what you're seeing in the market a little bit again. I missed some of that, but, you know, we've just got off the Pilbara call. They've got their views on the market, maybe, you know, better improvement in the second half. What are you seeing post this quarter?
Yeah. Look, I mean, what we see is volatility, in the market, we talk volatility. That volatility is largely driven by how the market is necessary, but that decision at the moment, how it's pricing all the lithium products, across the market. Effectively, it shows the value of having an integrated business, when you build out these complicated markets and integration because you never get balance across all these markets. Carbonate pricing compared to raw material supply, if you're just a carbonate producer, you'll be challenged in this sort of market.
Okay. Thanks, mate. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Kate McCutcheon from Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi, Kate.
Hi. Hi. Good morning, Matt. A question on Greenbushes. From your realized pricing, it seems like the technical-grade product sold at a discount. If that's correct, is the JV considering it or if it's worthwhile continuing doing that product given the added complexity to the mining operations that it brings?
Yeah. Okay. The technical-grade pricing is largely driven by longer term contracts. I can't really get into a lot of that detail of how that pricing mechanism works. Effectively, to the cost of Greenbushes is you'd expect to see technical-grade pricing to increase and be aligned to chemical-grade pricing with it once contract periods align. In terms of cost to Greenbushes, with the new mining fleets, with the ability to open up more areas, et cetera, probably, you know, originally we thought it might have been a bigger cost structure than it probably is. We still have the flexibility to mine some of those technical-grade units without being an impost to the operation.
Okay. Your thinking's progressed a bit then since, I think, the last time, the last cycle.
Yeah. Thinking has progressed a little bit, and that's largely because you're turning over so many benches and you're opening up so many new mining fronts that you'll actually be exposing the higher grade, technical-grade part of the ore body quicker anyway. You can, you might as well... If you've got the opportunity to, then you might as well take it and stockpile it separately.
Okay. Thanks for that. You expect that pricing to converge moving forward, so it won't be as much of a headwind?
Correct.
Cool.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Hayden Bairstow from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Morning, Matt. Just a quick one on the Western Areas assets. I mean, I presume most of the internal value would have been on Cosmos anyway. Is there something that's potentially shifting there in terms of the development timing or the ultimate production rates you're thinking about that's driven this? Is it more just a sort of auditing nickel price assumption and hence you have to bring the valuation back?
I think it'll be a little bit more than just nickel price assumptions. You know, we've seen the capital costs. You know, we're also seeing escalation in operating costs across the market. The other potential impact is when we can get AN5 and AN6 into the schedule. We're really working through all of that at the moment to provide that clarity when we look at coupled with macro testing, et cetera.
Yeah. Okay. Thanks.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Kaan Peker from RBC. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Matt and Cath. Just a quick question on the nickel business. On the quarterly, you mentioned that payability for blending Nova and Aristonia product. Both concentrates already get good payabilities. Is it made a minor impact on the penalties? I think you mentioned cobalt credits there. Can you just expand on that a bit?
Okay. I'll let Cath answer that one.
Yeah, it is. You are correct. It is an impact on penalties and payability as well as the cobalt credit. As we anticipated last quarter, the blending strategy does generate a reasonable amount of value for us. You know, we get lesser arsenic penalties through the paper blending. The benefit of having Nova in there against the Forrestania product and also achieving the cobalt credits out of Forrestania in respect of the fact that we can blend it with Nova. The other, the benefit we've got is actually a reduction in costs and everything because of the fact that as you put it through the plant at Forrestania, you need to clean it less in order to get rid of more of the arsenic. There's multiple benefits of going into a blending strategy.
Sure. Just maybe following on with that. I think when acquiring Western Areas, that blending strategy was considered a key synergy. How are those blending synergies tracking to what your expectations were? If I remember correctly, that blending would allow you to possibly target deeper mining at Forrestania. Is that still the case?
At the point of bid, we knew it was a synergy, but. We quantified part of it. It, you know, was pretty hard to quantify a hell of a lot into the bid model at that stage. We're tracking well. We're actually achieving a lot better outcomes from that than we would have ever anticipated at the time of the bid.
The targeting of deeper mining at Forrestania?
I actually can't hear you properly.
Yeah. The targeting, so will it make a big impact to additional material coming into the resource and reserves? Unlikely. It will drive an incremental improvement in cut-off grades, but it won't drive a fundamental shift. What we do have is ability to have more flexibility of mining, different areas which won't constrain the mine plans versus bringing additional resources, significant additional resources to the count.
Cool. Thank you. I'll pass it on.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Mitch Ryan from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Matt and Kath. There was a comment in the quarterly that sales at Greenbushes benefited from higher grade spod in the quarter. I just thought all Greenbushes sales were at an SC6 range. Can you sort of provide some more metrics of the grade over the last two quarters?
It will be an SC6. It is a SC6 range for all chemical grade.
Is it the technical grade, spod grade that drove that then?
Yeah. technical grade.
Okay.
It's all chemical grades at SC6 spec.
I think what you might be referring to is the mix between technical and chemical grade, and that shifts from a quarter-to-quarter quarter perspective.
Okay.
Thank you. The next question comes from Hugo Nicolaci from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi, Matt and team. Thanks for the update. Just one around mining contractors for me. I think Greenbushes switched over to Macmahon at the start of the year. You know, we're seeing issues on mining at, you know, Wodgina and a couple of other assets. I just wanted to ask how that contractor transition to Greenbushes is going and, if you can provide sort of any updates around that'd be great. Thanks.
Perfect. That contractor transition has actually started now, so we're expecting to have that transition is mid-calendar year. Macmahon's are on site. Macmahon's are preparing for the transition. Got a dedicated team looking at that transition, and they're working through all of that at the moment, ready for change as of mid-calendar year. It'll transition over a three-month period so that the back end of the calendar year, we'll start to see ramped ups from Macmahon's productions.
Brilliant. Thanks. That's all from me.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Matthew Frydman from MST Financial. Please go ahead.
Sure. Thanks. Morning, Matt and team. I'm interested in your comments around the CapEx spend at Cosmos and some of the delays that you've incurred. I guess firstly, thank you for providing the tracking on the incurred spending to date. That's always very helpful. Yeah, interested in the works packages that have been delayed and really why you're, you know, how you're confident in the view that those packages haven't necessarily impacted your expected timing. You know, are they not critical path elements? Then also, you're not expecting those delays to result in additional costs. Just wondering what gives you the confidence around that view.
Good question. It's one of the challenges of actually estimating capital, and we're actually going to be in this, one of the steepest part of our capital expenditure. We're talking about capital expenditure over a couple of months as part of this forecast change. In terms of critical path, remain on track with completion of processing plant by GR ES in September with first ore. The second part to that will be the shaft hauling system and middle size are underground for December. All programs of work, although with, from a capital expenditure over the financial year versus, remain on track. For that program. We don't see any variances there.
Got it. Thanks, Matt. Maybe just a very quick one while we're talking about, capital budgets and CGP3 and the adjustments you're making there. Can you remind me of the location of CGP4? Is that expansion subject to similar potential ground issues in terms of old tailings?
Yeah. Good question. CGP 4, you know, we're looking at alternate sites basically for CGP4 so that we don't have the same sort of challenges with CGP3. There's a couple of options. You'd actually have CGP4 next to CGP3, or essentially take it to a different site within the Greenbushes mining tenement to ensure that we don't have geotechnical constraints associated with building plants on tailing stems.
Got it. Thanks for the insights, Matt.
Thank you. Once again, if you'd like to ask a question via the phones, please press star one and wait for your name to be announced. Your next question comes from Daniel Morgan from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Hi, Matt. I just wanted to follow up on the spodumene price and potential volume risk this quarter. The spodumene price is now fixed for the June 2023 quarter, which reflected the market conditions in the March 2023 quarter. The hydroxide prices downstream have been in free fall, and this might mean that either your JV partners downstream or third parties that you might be selling to might make losses and therefore don't want the product. Is that a risk to your volume from Greenbushes? Is that what you're potentially highlighting or, you know, is this price mechanism still fit for purpose if the market is in, you know, somewhat of disarray between the two? Thank you.
Yeah. That's a good question too. I mean, ultimately, if market, you know, ultimately, as a lithium producer in all lithium market, we'll be looking at effective pricing mechanisms between all products. What we're seeing is in an environment where we actually don't have an effective pricing mechanism across all the products, will that have an impact, you know, question, does that have an impact on Greenbushes? Look, you know, having integrated businesses protects you from some of that sort of variances. Ultimately, if the market is imbalanced and continues to remain imbalanced, then things.
There's gotta be pinch points along the way. We don't expect to see any challenges through this calendar year that you'd expect this financial year. If you expect to see continuation of these sort of imbalances, then there could be changes.
Just on that, I mean, your JV partners have integrated businesses, but you're net long spodumene, excuse me, because Kwinana hasn't, you know, ramped up completely. Is that a problem for you? Is there JV pushback might they say, "Look, let's not have the volume," or might they say, "Well, this is not fit for purpose, and mid-quarter, we might have a change to the price mechanism?
Yeah. I wouldn't expect that. You know, I would expect to have conversations with shareholders to understand where their pinch points are. I mean, ultimately, we feel that being the lowest cost producer of Greenbushes, then it's likely that production profiles would always continue.
Thank you, Matt.
Thank you. Your next question is a follow-up from Matth Greene from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the follow-up. Matt, I'll ask one on the battery materials facility. Congratulations on in the land of Kwinana. A couple of parts to the question. What scale operation do you think this site could support? You're still doing the studies, but I mean ultimately, in terms of nickel feed, what sort of scale could you see there? I guess, enough real estate to add an active cathode facility there in the future. Just lastly, on the precursor partner, when do you think you'll be in a position to announce this to the market? I guess, what are the current, what are you working through with these partners? You know, what do they need to see from IGO?
Is this more a case, you know, concerns around the technology or is it more, you know, supply security of upstream nickel units? How should we be sort of thinking about that?
Yeah. Okay. We've always said there's three key catalysts associated with the project. First one being securing land, which we've done with support of WA government. It was a very strategic piece of land. There's very little land available in Kwinana, so it was a great to see that we had to secure that and the WA government supporting us on this battery integrated facility. Second catalyst there is pre-CAM partner. We've always very clearly said that we don't have the technology, and we'd be looking at bringing a pre-CAM partner in to help us realize this, and that would be an equity position in the project, bringing technology as well.
And then the third is really about the feasibility and study, and permitting, et cetera, to make sure that we have all the detail before we make any sort of capital decision. In terms of scale, the land is sufficient to meet most scale, so we're not constrained by the land. So we've got the exact scale that we're working towards as part of that feasibility study.
That's great. Thanks, Matt.
Thank you. As there are no further questions at this time, I'll now hand back to Mr. Dusci for any closing remarks.
Thank you, Operator, and thank you everyone for joining the call today.
Thank you. That does conclude our webcast for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.