Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Iluka Resources full year results 2022 conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen only mode. After the speakers' presentations, there'll be a question and answer session. To ask a question at that time, please press star one one on your phone. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Tom O'Leary, Managing Director. Please go ahead.
Thank you, good morning. With me are Adele Stratton, Matthew Blackwell, and Luke Woodgate. Thank you for joining us. It's been an extraordinary year for Iluka, that's reflected in the materials we've released today as part of our full year results. I'd like to acknowledge at the outset the substantial trust invested in our company. Whether it's at Eneabba in Western Australia for our rare earths refinery, at Balranald in New South Wales to implement our remote underground mining technology, or working with the Far West Coast peoples on the potential Atacama development in South Australia, or in the Wimmera region of Western Victoria to open up a significant rare earths and zircon precinct. We're undertaking work that is significant for us and for our stakeholders.
Central to the trust necessary to do this are our sustainability credentials and approach, which we've drawn out on slide three of the presentation. The award we refer to on slide four provides a strong example. In 2022, Iluka was recognized by the Government of Western Australia for environmental excellence. We received a prestigious Golden Gecko Award for our rehabilitation at Eneabba, specifically for the development of the bespoke seeding machine, Flora Restorer. This machine was developed internally by Iluka's rehabilitation and environment team, has more than doubled the annual area rehabilitated to native vegetation, improving plant growth and diversity in Eneabba's Kwongan ecosystem. Our receipt of the Golden Gecko is important recognition for what is an important achievement.
While it's a demonstration of our commitment to deliver sustainable value, it's also an expression of our long-standing focus on research and technical development right across the company. That's a theme I'll return to in a moment because it relates to other announcements we've made this morning. First, I'll hand to Adele to take us through the financial results.
Thanks, Tom. Good morning. Building on Tom's comments, sustainable financial performance is fundamental to trust in any company. We've been very focused over the past six years on ensuring a sustainable approach to the markets in which we operate. Examples of this include putting in place underpinning take-or-pay offtake contracts for the development of Cataby back in 2017, which we're very pleased to extend it this year. Production discipline in the markets, including removing 10% of global zircon supply in 2020 when the COVID pandemic first hit, along with our sustainable approach to pricing more generally. You'll see on slide 10 that our average operating cash flows over the past five years have been AUD 400 million per annum. This provides a strong platform from which to pursue our growth opportunities.
Turning to our results this year, today, we've reported record revenue of AUD 1.7 billion. Net profit after tax of AUD 589 million. Robust operating cash flows of AUD 711 million, free cash flow generation of AUD 444 million after our investment, along with excellent margins of 53%. As I said at the half year, the latter is significant in the context of our management in an inflationary environment and rising costs, which you'll see impact our outlook in 2023 for our cash cost of production. Our customers are cognizant of the fact that we need to generate returns on the capital we deploy in order to deliver the security of supply that they increasingly require. From a balance sheet perspective, we ended 2022 in a net cash position of AUD 489 million.
We have significant funding capacity on both sides of our portfolio. At Eneabba, via our AUD 1.25 billion strategic partnership with the Australian Government, we've also completed the refinancing of our multi-option facility agreements, giving us undrawn commercial bank facilities of AUD 570 million, which are committed for the next five years through to 2027. Iluka's financial strength is further enhanced by our 20% stake in Deterra Royalties, which contributed AUD 36 million of cash over the past year, all of which was passed through to shareholders directly as contemplated in our dividend framework. We've declared a final dividend of AUD 0.20 per share, bringing full year dividends to AUD 0.45 per share, fully franked. In all, a very positive end to the year. With that, back to you, Tom.
Thanks, Adele. Just before we go to questions, I'd further highlight three key takeaways from our results in 2022. Iluka's rare earth diversification is a company defining transformation. The first call-out relates to feedstocks for the refinery. Iluka is going to have a unique offering of separated rare earth oxides produced in Australia. This includes the highly sought-after heavy rare earths dysprosium and terbium, which will be an area of specific competitive advantage. Currently, dysprosium and terbium are produced almost exclusively in China and Myanmar. As you know, Iluka has access to some heavy rare earths from our Eneabba stockpile. We also have the concentrate supply agreement with Northern Minerals in respect of its Browns Range development. That deposit is uncommon globally in that it has an assemblage dominant in heavy rare earths. Today, we've made announcements on two further sources.
We've gated Balranald, and I'll return to that, but for the moment, I'll just note that it'll be a material supplier of rare earth concentrate to the Eneabba Refinery. More significantly for our rare earths business, we've declared a reserve at our Wimmera deposit. In doing so, we've doubled Iluka's total ore reserves. The economic viability of the Wimmera development is on the basis of the value of the refined rare earth oxide that will be produced from the Wimmera's rare earth minerals. This is significant for a couple of reasons. First, the economic viability assessment ignores the zircon. Demonstrating the efficacy of our zircon purification process is less as upside. Second, it brings greater certainty of a multi-decade feedstock for Eneabba a step closer.
On the Eneabba Refinery, more generally, it'll provide a tremendous foundation for further steps along the rare earths value chain in future. As you'd expect, we're very focused on delivering the Eneabba Refinery in the most cost-effective manner. We are currently progressing through front-end engineering design with Fluor and expect that to be completed later this year. The second call-out is that the mineral sands markets have remained resilient in the face of global macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty. Supply remains tight and inventories low, following what I've described as a disciplined downstream industry response in 2022. This occurred against the backdrop that featured the European energy crisis, COVID restrictions in China, and inflationary pressures in the U.S.. We've also observed continuing production outages at some industry facilities. This all underscores the resilience of the cash flow generation capability of Iluka's mineral sands business.
Scarcity, security, and reliability of supply are increasingly prominent considerations for downstream customers. Demands for high-grade and high-quality products produced by Iluka in Australia is clear. Evidencing this are the offtake agreements we announced last month for our synthetic rutile, with customer commitments increasing to around 200,000 tons per year. As a result, production from our SR2 kiln, which delivered a record performance in 2022, is effectively contracted for the next four years. The restart of our SR1 kiln occurred in December, with production from that facility available for spot sales as planned. The third call-out, the Balranald FID, makes way for a long-awaited development which will enhance our portfolio offering of high-grade and high-quality products produced in Australia. It is an important source of zircon, rutile, ilmenite for synthetic rutile feed, and for rare earths.
The underground mining technology solution that we've developed for Balranald will see these products produced with considerable sustainability benefits, including a lower disturbance footprint and reduced carbon intensity. This is another example of Iluka's focus on research and development, in this case, to unlock Australian resources previously regarded as uneconomic. As I alluded to earlier, Balranald also demonstrates the complementary nature of Iluka's mineral sands and rare earths businesses. With that, we look forward to your questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one one. Again, to ask a question, please press star one one. One moment, please. Our first question comes from the line of Paul Young of Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Again, Paul Young, your line is open.
Oh, thank you. Yes. Good morning, Tom and Adele. Good set of results and fantastic to see some, you know, really good study outcomes on some key projects. Tom, the first question is on the zircon market. I guess the first point is, you know, supply is still pretty constrained. You mentioned so many competitors. I mean, we know that, you know, Rare Element Resources and particularly China's having issues at the moment. Your guidance for zircon production for the year is pretty positive. I guess it indicates a good step up at ore production at Ambrosia for the year. The question I have is actually your inventories are low. Your competitors are having some problems on supply.
What are you seeing in the market at the moment, from a demand perspective and also, from a price perspective, if you look forward, say, into the June quarter?
Yeah. Thanks, Paul. Look, I'll hand over to Matt to talk a little bit about the outlook for zircon in a moment. You're right. The inventories are low in the system. With issues elsewhere, the market remains tight. You know, there was talk in the middle to the latter part of last year of prices declining, but I think that overlooked what many realized that with mining depletion and the intermittency of a number of our competitors, particularly in Africa, there is it remains a pretty tight market for zircon. Matt, about the outlook and the market generally.
Sure. Thanks, Tom. Hi, Paul. Look, from our perspective, and if I think about our order book, we've got limited inventory, as you point out. I think we're sitting with 1,500 tons in our warehouses in Europe, which is a historic low for us. All of our customers that are part of our rewards program have signed up again this year, and customers are signing up for or asking for volumes equal to last year or greater where they can. We've highlighted in the quarterly, we expected some cautious buying in Q1, as people sort of came out of Christmas and Chinese New Year being early this year. We've also struck some sales for the Q1 or all of our sales at Q1 at the same price as last year.
We've held prices flat, like we said we would. Our customers expect demand to pick up in Q2, Q3. Let's see how that plays out.
Okay. Thank you, Matt. Good day. Thanks for that color. Maybe the next question, Tom, is just moving on to the projects, and digging a little deeper, into some of the study outcomes, firstly on Balranald. You know, certainly I guess the first point is that, you know, the IRR is pretty attractive. Just want to bed down, when you expect first production and, you know, what the ramp-up profile might look like on this project.
Yeah, sure. Again, I'll hand to Matt to talk about Balranald. It's been his baby for a while. We're really pleased as you kind of indicated, it's a really pleasing milestone to get the Balranald project approved by the board and set off to build what is a, you know, a world first in terms of delivering high quality critical minerals from Australia in a deposit which was once regarded as uneconomic. It's a really important development for both the Balranald region, for Iluka and for Australia, I think. Matt, why don't I hand to you to talk a bit more about it?
Yeah, Paul, the current execution schedule shows us with first production of HMC from Balranald in Q1 of 2025.
I think, and then a ramp up should be pretty quick, you're able to put?
Yeah. Yeah. Mining will commence actually in 2024, late 2024, we'll be ramping up the mining operations during that period of time in the last quarter to then feed the concentrator plant, which we expect a fairly quick ramp up. The ramp up, notionally six months.
Okay. Thanks. I'll just move on to last question on Wimmera. Tom, again, a lot of information here to digest to myself, and I'm sure everyone. The first question, just on the DFS completion 2025, I'm presuming that the permitting is, you know, driving that timeline and then commissioning potentially in 2028. Is that just indication you've got a lot of flexibility, you know, around the Eneabba stockpile, you know, some monazite from Balranald, potentially third-party feed and just sort of managing, I guess, the CapEx profile of the overall group?
Yeah. That's a fair assessment, I think, Paul. You know, it's a really pleasing development. Again, I'll hand over to Adele in a moment to talk a little bit about timing. Again, it's a really pleasing development. The fact that we've declared a reserve there, doubling Iluka's overall ore reserve. Declaring that reserve on the basis that of the value of the refined rare earth oxides that are gonna come from the xenotime and monazite at Wimmera is really a first for us. The other piece there that you'll see when you have a chance to read this more deeply is that we are foreshadowing a demonstration plant for zircon purification, and that demonstration plant development will provide details of later in the year.
We're imagining that will be developed alongside the definitive feasibility study. With that, Adele, do you wanna touch on timing at all?
Yeah, sure. Paul, in terms of, you know, the length of that definitive feasibility study, exactly as you say, a lot of that is driven by the approval timeline approach in Victoria. You know, that's really dictating how quick we can go there. I think, you know, some of the points to note in terms of the reserve is, you know, as Tom just alluded to, you know, this has been declared on the rare earth oxides only. The zircon component, you know, is potential upside and that's to come. As we say, you know, that links into the demonstration plant ascribed to that. As you note, we have a lot of flexibility with the refinery as a result of the Eneabba stockpile.
You know, that certainly comes into our thinking when we're looking at what time to execute and commission this project.
Great. That's fantastic. That's my first pass round of questions. I'll leave it there.
Thanks. Thank you.
Thank you. One moment, please. Okay, our next question comes from the line of Levi Spry of UBS. Your line is open.
G'day, good morning, team Iluka. Thanks for the call. Yongie's done a good job of covering off on most of our questions. Maybe just back to Eneabba. Can you run us through, I guess, the update on the CapEx that's to come? Do we take from this that it's kind of full and, you know, how much room is left for further third-party materials? Thanks. Tom.
Thanks, Levi. Look, the development at Eneabba is really the beginning of a, you know, a substantial new business for the company. It's gonna be one of few facilities globally that'll produce light and heavy separated rare earth oxides. You know, in terms of the development, we are working with Fluor on the Front-End Engineering Design. Those works we expect to be concluding later in 2023, and that's when I'll be providing an update more generally on project progress and the like. From a market perspective, you know, in terms of the refinery development, you know, we continue to be really delighted with the engagement we're having with end users.
You know, they realize that what we're going to be producing has a number of features that are very attractive to them, in terms of reliability and reputation of us as a supplier. You know, the fact that we're funded, we're certain, and we have that unique, among Western suppliers, mix of heavies as well as lights. Really delighted with how that project and how that business will shape up over coming years.
Just on the feedstock, Levi, you know, there's a couple of points in today's results. One, Balranald adds to the feedstock. You know, as we've always said, the rare earth business and the mineral sands business are very complementary. Contained within the Balranald investment, there's an extra 4,000 tons of rare earth concentrate that will go into the refinery. That's one source. As you know, we're progressing Wimmera. You know, it's a significant source of feedstock. We've obviously got feedstock coming from both Jacinth and Cataby, as well as the stockpile.
You know, just to refresh people's memories, we've done the deal with Northern Minerals, and as Tom, you know, noted, that's quite a unique deposit because it's very focused on heavy rare earths, which is, you know, a really positive in terms of a competitive position for Iluka. So yeah, you know, it's looking promising in terms of that longevity of feedstock.
Just I'd forgotten you asked about feedstock there, Levi. I'd just add that we wouldn't regard ourselves as being full, and we will continue to explore avenues for feedstock. You know, quite obviously, we want this refinery to be going for many, many decades to come. Lining up feedstock for that period is, it is remained, you know, a pretty core objective.
Yep. Thank you. Just in terms of the CapEx, the CapEx you've got budgeted for, calendar year 2023 there. What is that? Of the AUD 1 million-AUD 1.2 million that was in the original FEED, what's the AUD 270 million or whatever the number was, for this year on?
What's it gonna be spent on, do you mean, Levi? Is that what?
Yep. Yep.
Yeah. That was a combination of factors. Obviously, you know, we've noted that the groundworks will be concluded at the tail end of this year. You know, that's one component. There'll be some long lead items that we're placing orders for. Obviously, there's the EPCM contract for the engineering, the progression of the FEED. Accommodation camps, you know, there's quite a broad range of items that we're spending that money on, Levi. As you noted in the guidance, we've said AUD 270 million that will be spent in 2023.
Cool. Okay. Thank you. Last one, just on Wimmera, like, it's kind of unusual to come out with a reserve excluding one of the key economic sort of revenue drivers. What is the sensitivity to the project? It's already big and long, what happens if you include some revenue from zircon?
As I kind of indicated, yeah, and as you picked up, the zircon potential is excluded. That is really upside for the development. You know, we've demonstrated the that it's a reserve, it's economically recoverable, ignoring the zircon revenues. Clearly it'll be even more economically recoverable, you know, once we have that zircon purification process demonstrated via the demonstration plant.
Okay, thank you. Thanks very much.
Adele.
Thank you. One moment, please. Our next question comes from the line of Rahul Anand of Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.
Hi, Tom and team. Thanks for the opportunity. Look, two from me. Perhaps first, if we start with Balranald, just wanted to get a bit more color in terms of some of the metrics around the project. I mean, is this estimate or the estimates you provided today for one mining unit? You know, what is the scalability of the project? That's the first part. Secondly, how should we think about, you know, the contingency in the estimates in terms of, you know, CapEx, given the environment? That's the first one. I'll come back with a second.
Okay.
Okay.
Look, I'll hand over to Matt. I mean, just on the metrics, that is, it's not just one mining unit, it's two. Matt, do you wanna...
We probably refer back to some earlier discussions. Over the course of the DFS, we've become or gained confidence in the technology that we're deploying. The work that we've done with our third-party technology providers and in-house gives us a lot more confidence to move forward in starting the two mining units. We'll have two, what we call, development units and two production units. That, that annualized production is what the concentrator will be designed for. The method of mining is scalable, but in this case, you'd have to upgrade the concentrator, so we're not planning to do that with these capital numbers.
The capital estimate has been developed to what I would call a type Class 2, t ype Class 3 estimate. Over 40% of the capital in the estimate is at a Class 2, so that's, you know, quotes from market. We're pretty comfortable, and we've got comfortable with the cost estimate that's been done in the current environment. It's been done alert to the challenges that we have in the environment today. There's not really anything else to say on that. As we've noted previously, the opportunity with Balranald is these mining units give us a high degree of flexibility of how we mine and when and how, and look forward to commercializing with Balranald and potentially taking them to other deposits.
Yeah. Okay. Look, I did see some of the notes, and obviously you provided that accuracy range of -1 5% to +30% and the cost estimates to the 1st of January. I guess, what I wanted to clarify was whether there is any contingency in the number that you provided or is this thin in terms of some, you know, contingency look like?
Yeah, well, it'd be pretty foolish to go forward without including some contingency in your capital estimate, so you should assume that we have. What we do is we undertake a quantitative risk assessment on our contingencies, and I'm not gonna go through the details of that, but we look at every one of the 9,000 line items, and we assign a probability to that and work out what the contingency will be based on that. We've done it in a very, I think, disciplined and prudent manner.
I mean, in terms of your total estimate, are you able to provide a ballpark of how much contingency we should assume exists within that?
No.
Okay. No worries. Thanks for that. Look, the second question, perhaps one for Tom, is around sort of, you know, labor market conditions in WA and how you're seeing them. Obviously, a small ramp-up in the cost for the next year, and that might be related to mining areas, et cetera. How are you seeing some of the, you know, ground conditions in terms of inflation? Perhaps if you can provide a bit of guide around beyond calendar year 2023, how should we expect some of the JA grades to progress? Do they get closer to reserve grade or is there, you know, perhaps a bit of a longer period in terms of the higher grades that you're currently seeing? Thanks.
Yeah. Look, I'll ask Adele to talk a little bit about JA . We've provided some guidance in the past there, and not much has changed. I'll hand it to Adele in a moment. The on labor conditions in Western Australia, they have been obviously very tight and that's reflected in our cost guidance. It's pretty well-publicized in the marketplace. In recent times, there's been some talk of some redundancies throughout the industry, there may be a softening of that tightness to come. You know, we'll see a little bit more on that score as the year progresses.
You know, it has been tight and it's a real focus for us that is attracting and retaining, the very best people to operate our l ines and run our business more generally. Adele, do you wanna talk a little bit about Wimmera?
Yeah, no, definitely. Rahul, just to recall, we obviously moved from the Jacinth North deposit in August this year, which was the fully depleted. you know, Jacinth-Ambrosia's now fully depleted, and we're back into Ambrosia. you'll see that uptick from where we were, you know, early on this year on the grade, and hence, you know, that's driving the production. we're expecting this mine run through to 2028, and the next couple of years are pretty consistent.
Okay. That's perfect. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Rahul.
Thank you. One moment, please. Our next question comes from the line of Al Harvey of JPMorgan. Your line is open.
Good morning, team. Let's start trying to get my head around the process that you're using at Balranald a little better. There's a schematic on slide 21. Just the ore morphology, is it pod-like like that, or is it more of a seam type, I guess, configuration? I guess what I'm trying to think through is, you know, with the 9.5 year life, what's the resource upside further along the belt? Yeah, I guess, is it quite poddy, generally here?
Yeah. Hi, Al. It's Matt here. It's not poddy. You're gonna have a mechanical engineer here describe the geology and lithology, so bear with me. The strand, as identified, is 29 km long. It varies from 160 meters-300 meters wide, and the depth is between 3 meters-6 meters high, with a 5-meter average. That's at a 3% cutoff grade. The strand itself is quite a distinctive lens or a strand line, locating what's called the Loxton-Parilla Sands . You've got this, which is a well-sorted sedimentary sands from this repeated transgression and transgressive-regressive events over time. It's overlaid by the Shepparton Formation , which is basically clays, et cetera, and some gravels. It is a very consistent ore body and very high grade for a mineral sand.
That's what makes it. Well, the depth and being under the water table makes it difficult to mine, but the consistency of the deposit makes it attractive to the new technology that we've developed. We're quite comfortable that it's quite consistent. In the production target, we have not included mining any ore below 2.5 meters, and we haven't included mining any ore above 4 meters. As I said, the average is 5 meters. Yeah, I think I have to be cautious about going into upsides. We've talked about the production target, of course, in terms of JA.
The other thing that we've highlighted is that as we move forward in commercial operations and we prove up the technology, prove up the resource and go to a reserve, you might draw a view that over time, that will allow us to pull more material into the ore body.
Yeah. I think, Al, just the other thing to add, and it is disclosed. I appreciate we've put a lot of material into the market this morning. Just on the resource information, so that's our Reynold SRD, pages three and four, give a little bit of information with regards to the resource, but also the sonic drilling that Matt and the team undertook during the DFS. That sonic drilling compared to the air core drilling actually gave about a 25% uplift. You know, there's some potential upside, but as Matt said, you know, as we get into that, we'll be able to give you a bit more indication once we're operating.
Yeah.
Yeah. Thanks, guys. Matt, I think you did a very good job of the geology there. A few terms I haven't heard since, second year geology. Can you just confirm that the strand is 29 km long? I would've thought, is it just that variation in width that you mentioned that's the key, I guess to, for it potentially to convert to reserves? Is, is that how we think of it? Like 29 km sounds like a huge stretch.
No.
Try and get my head around that.
I guess there's a couple things. One is Adele alluded to this, during the DFS. Reynold was originally drilled with air core. What we have found is that the air core drilling can understate the grade or the amount of heavy mineral in the ore body. We found that in our deposits in the Murray Basin. We undertook a 173 sonic drill holes, of which 103 were in the, what we call the DFS area or. Some of those were twins, some of them were additional holes. In that particular area using the sonic, which is, you can think of a sonic as akin to diamond core drilling in hard rock.
You get a very distinctive and better indication of the basement of the deposit and the thickness of it. What that led to was a 16% increase in the grade and a 14% about 20%-25% increase in the HM, heavy mineral. We haven't done that sonic drilling outside what we call the DFS area. We wouldn't normally go and drill on the spacing that we've done in the DFS area, you know, which covers the first four years of mining over the remaining six years. We wouldn't do that in our other deposits either. That's drilling that we'll do in due course. It is a very consistent ore body. Does that make sense?
Yeah. Maybe. Yeah, yeah. No, that's really helpful. I guess just one more before I line up again. Just thinking about the application of this tech more broadly. I know you guys obviously have, a lot of IP, locked into the process, but just thinking, you know, if others try to replicate it, how do you think about, you know, potentially opening up, some of these other sort of deeper mineral sands belts and the potential impact that it have on the markets?
I guess there's a couple of points there. One is that, well, our patents will actually be published probably in February or March of this year. We've been working on this technology for over, well, probably eight, nine years now. We've held it as a pretty closely guarded secret and we're now protecting it through a patent process. We see it as an opportunity to open up more deposits within the Northern Murray Basin area of similar types, and it has potential application beyond the mineral sands. Not that we may or may not go there ourselves, but in due course, once it's commercialized, we think it's gonna be something that others will be interested in as well.
No, I think.
If you wanna see how-
Okay.
You know, there's a little link in the release that takes you to an animation, which probably people haven't had a chance to look at, which gives you a bit more indication of how you can think about it.
Thanks, Al. Are there any more questions, operator?
Thank you. Again, ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone. Again, to ask a question, please press star one one. One moment. Our next question comes from the line of Matthew Hope of Credit Suisse. Your line is open.
Hi. Yeah, thanks very much. I just wanted to talk about what your thoughts about dividends were. Obviously, CapEx is stepping up with a lot of these developments. You've got AUD 550 million next year, and then obviously a lot more in 2024, AUD 500 million for Balranald alone. That should put a big knock on the free cash flow. What's your thoughts about the sustainability of the dividend? Are you gonna have to sort of drop it back next couple of years?
Matt, I'll hand to Adele in a moment to talk a little bit about dividend generally. You know, our dividend framework is pretty crystal clear. You know, it's not to maintain a particular dividend. It's to, you know, deliver specifically what we say we'll deliver. It's, you know, based on Deterra earnings specifically flowing through as well as, you know, free cash flows. You know, we will adhere rigorously to our dividend framework going forward as you've seen us do in the past. Adele, do you wanna touch base on it?
Yeah. No, Matt, you know, a couple of things. One, in terms of as Tom's alluded to, our dividend framework allows for that investment in future growth, you know, at the minimum of the 40% of free cash flow. I think some important things to note is the significant capital that we've guided for 2023, a lot of that relates to the Eneabba refinery. You know, as everybody knows, we'll be funding that through a debt. You know, that's certainly something to contemplate when we're looking forward on the dividends and the available free cash flow. The dividend also, you know, distributes all of the Deterra cash that we receive, so that will be an ongoing focus. You know, you know, the framework is exactly intended to ebb and flow with the investment in the business.
Okay. Thanks very much. That's pretty helpful. Just on, you know, jump over to Wimmera. You've talked about the reserve just on the rare earth elements, obviously studying zircon. What about those other elements? You obviously got some rutile, you got some leucoxene, and then you're referring to some other valuable heavy rare earth minerals and the ilmenite. Is there any sort of thoughts about it? Is there any contemplation of making use of these other very fine-grained minerals? Have you guys had any thoughts about how you might make them saleable?
Yeah. Matt, just in terms of. You know, as I said, we've released a lot of material to the market this morning. Some of those other mineral sands components are included in that reserve. Yeah, you know, there will be utilization. It's specifically the zircon that we've currently excluded in that assessment.
Right. Okay. Thank you. Just a final question at this stage is just on Balranald, obviously you've spoken about the big, long strand that you're looking at, and I assume you're referring to West Balranald here. Is there any contemplation about mining the Nepean and Endeavor, the other resources out there? Is that just kind of too far out, and you haven't really thought about it yet?
We've highlighted that there are other deposits proximate to Balranald that share similar characteristics. I think what's appropriate is that we focus on demonstrating the commerciality and the commercial viability and the technology at Balranald, which is the first place. You're correct, it is West Balranald. There are a number of other deposits that are amenable to this type and of mining.
All right, thanks very much.
Thanks, Matt.
Thank you.
That's conclude our Q&A for today. I'd like to turn the call back over to Tom O'Leary for any closing remarks.
Okay. Really, thank you for joining the call today and for your support. The, the materials are out a bit late, really as a consequence of our timing this morning in, doing the call from Melbourne. Thanks for bearing with us, and let us know if you have any, queries about the materials as you read them more. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect. Have a great day.