Good morning and welcome to the Lotus Resources Investor Webinar. Please note all attendees are in a listen-only mode. There will be a Q&A session at the end of today's webinar. If you would like to ask a question, please enter it in the Q&A panel within Zoom. I will now hand over to Lotus Resources Managing Director Greg Bittar, who will provide an update for listeners.
Thanks, Ben, and thank you all for joining to hear that Lotus has produced its first yellowcake from the Kayelekera uranium mine as it positions to join the global uranium producer ranks. It was less than 12 months ago that we detailed and started implementing the accelerated restart plan at the Kayelekera uranium project in Malawi. Over the past 10 or so months of incredibly hard work by a large team of employees and contractors, as well as, I have to say, strongly supported by the government of Malawi and local communities, we've now achieved the first yellowcake production. Despite all of the challenges inherent in a restart, and with the safety of our workforce, the community, and the environment absolutely paramount, we have delivered the restart comfortably on schedule, third quarter of 2025, as we've consistently said, and on budget.
Given the supply issues and the restart and ramp-up issues this industry has witnessed, this is a terrific milestone. We've got a lot more work to do, but full credit to the team in country and with the support of the Perth office, we've achieved this milestone. At our planned steady-state production level of 2.4 million pounds per annum, Kayelekera will be a significant producer and appears to be the only new meaningful supply coming on before the end of the decade or even into the next decade. Not only is new supply challenging, we are seeing production downgrades, supply uncertainty across both major and smaller uranium producers, all of which enhance the strategic window for Lotus entering production. From here, we're focused on a number of key milestones that we will achieve over the next three-to-six months.
We expect shortly to have representative product samples, uranium product samples, to be sent to each of the three Western converters for testing. This will be the final step in the account reopening and requalification process before we then can dispatch our first cargo of product from the Kayelekera site, and that will trigger or commence the deliveries to customers. During this time, we will continue to optimize and ramp up production, creating uranium inventory until the first account is opened and until we can dispatch our first cargo from site. We expect that this dispatch will occur before the end of this calendar year. Beyond that, we expect then to ramp up to a monthly run rate production level of about $200,000 per month in the first quarter of 2026 calendar year.
By March 2026, ideally before that, the intention is to be at our annualized steady-state production level of 2.4 million pounds per annum. During this time, we also expect to commission the acid plant, which is being rebuilt on site. While there were some delays earlier this year associated with the wet season and the civil works of that rebuild, momentum has picked up and the rebuild is progressing well, with the expectation that that will be commissioned also in early calendar 2026, first quarter 2026. Excitingly, we're also about to start work on the project to construct the grid connection, the connection to the power grid. The fully refurbished on-site diesel power station is working very well, but the grid connection is essential to optimizing the operating and cost structure of Kayelekera. All of the planning requirements have been met.
All of the necessary equipment and construction orders have been finalized and placed. Permits, etc., final surveying activity to mark out the precise tower locations is actually happening now, and we expect that grid connection to be commissioned by the end of calendar 2026. Both the acid plant and grid connection will deliver substantial cost savings per pound, as well as considerable environmental benefits. From a uranium sales and product marketing perspective, you'll recall we moved early on to secure meaningful offtakes with a number of tier one counterparties, three of the four being very well-known North American power companies. We saw these contractors validating the project, validating our restart plans, and importantly locked in an attractive margin over what we see our estimated steady-state all-in sustaining cost profile to be.
By virtue of that margin, these contracts also lock in meaningful overall C1 cost coverage for the first four years, so these contracts are only 2026 to 2029. We still have circa 65% of planned production in those years and 100% of planned production from 2030 of uncontracted pounds, add in the opportunity from Letlhakane, our second project in Botswana, so we have terrific leverage to a very strong long-term outlook for uranium. Importantly, and I think it's worth continuing to state, we are not currently pursuing further fixed price, base escalated price contracts while the term price remains at the current levels, and we actually haven't been for some time now. We would need to see a material increase in the long-term price before we contemplated additional base price, base escalated fixed price contracts as the main mechanic.
We do expect to see additional offtake contracts which contain market-linked pricing, reference to, but not sold into the spot market. We want to capture the potential upside, but we don't want to be exposed to selling into the spot market. The industry is seeing signs of increasing contracting efforts, the growth in demand, the levels of inventory depletion, contracting at significantly less than replacement levels, plus the supply constraints, all factors which set the scene for a very healthy ongoing commercial environment for very healthy commercial discussions, particularly set the scene for the discussions here in London this week for the World Nuclear Symposium, which myself and quite a few Lotus colleagues are attending. So on that note, with the summary of the highlights of today's announcements, Ben, happy to address any questions.
Great. Thank you, Greg, and congratulations on that milestone as well. It's a great achievement for the company. As mentioned, we will now move on to a Q&A session following the update from Greg. If you do have any questions, please enter them into the Q&A panel within Zoom. And we have received a series of questions, which I can start off with, Greg, if you're ready to go. Can you please just explain what is the road infrastructure like for the deliveries from the mine site to port?
Yeah, Malawi is a developing country, so the road infrastructure is challenging at times. We will be going out through Dar es Salaam, so through Tanzania. It's a 950-kilometer road haul from the mine site to Dar es Salaam. Importantly, most of that's in Tanzania. So we're just south of the Tanzanian border. So it'll be a road haul. These come out in shipping containers. So we're not talking bulk commodity logistics. We expect to send four to six sea containers out each month in steady state, and it will go by road through to Dar es Salaam and then the shipping logistics beyond that.
Sure. And will there be any more necessary catch-ups outside of the mine site in that regard as a second part to that question?
No. No. From a logistics perspective, no.
Yeah. Okay. The next question. So what pricing is Lotus receiving for the uranium sales that have already been contracted? And I guess the second part to that one is what percentage of the production has already been contracted?
Yeah. So look, as mentioned, 35% or thereabouts from 2026 to 2029 of our steady-state production. We've been quite explicit in our announcements to the stock exchange or the ASX. We've said a non-material discount to the long-term price, which we've referenced as $80 in those announcements. So we've referenced the long-term price as $80, and we've said a non-material discount to that, and then those prices escalate each year.
Sure. Okay. And will the election next month and the possible election of a new president of Malawi affect the mining agreement that Lotus has?
No, we don't believe it will. The mine development agreement was an important fiscal stability agreement that was locked in middle of last year. You've got to keep in mind that this project receives terrific support from across the country, and particularly the traditional owners, indigenous leaders in the north. The employment and benefits that it brings ensures that we will ensure that it has bipartisan or multipartisan support across Malawi, and this is going to be a very important source of foreign income for the Malawi government.
Sure. And if there was a change of president, the other candidate also pro-mining as well?
There are more than one candidates, and they're all very supportive of the development that's required for Malawi across agriculture, mining, tourism, and manufacturing. They're the four pillars of stated growth.
Yeah. And in terms of the qualification, can you give a timeline of that process?
Look, we want that to happen as quickly as possible. We've done a lot of the desktop due diligence and aspects of those processes with each of the three Western converters, the French, the Canadians, and the US. We need to be confident in the representative samples that we dispatch to each of them. These are small samples. They go out in small drums, will be air freighted, less than five kilograms to each converter. We're well advanced in all of the aspects of those accounts being reopened, except for the testing of this product. The quicker we can get that process underway, but the testing will take time. Now, we think as a minimum, the quickest one will deliver the test results within about eight weeks of receiving the samples.
Then between the other two converters, I won't name which is the quickest, but the other two could take several weeks or one to two months longer.
Okay. Thanks. And the next question is around the converters. What are the converters checking for in the qualification during the process?
Yeah. They check for the elemental and chemical compliance, so any impurities, just compliance with the specification that we sign up to. It's a master agreement under our contracts. It has a yellowcake uranium specification. And the converter is essentially the clearing house. So once we're qualified, we get very quick credit, as all customers with these converters do, get very quick credit for a large percentage of the uranium simply by virtue of being qualified. So then there'll be a testing of each batch, and then there's a true-up that occurs. So it's very important. It allows us to start making deliveries very quickly.
Okay. We've got a few more questions coming in. The next one is, what is the all-in sustaining cost at this point in time, and what do you, I'm going to say, expect for 2026 and beyond?
Yeah. Look, we're in ramp-up, so we're not going to give running commentary around the steady state or sorry, we're not in steady state at the moment, so we don't have a steady state cost. But we are very confident around our steady state aspirations of the mid-40s, $45-$46 a pound through steady state, all-in sustaining costs.
Yeah. Okay. And do we have a question now? When do you expect Lotus to achieve nameplate capacity production?
Yeah. So, definitely within the first quarter of calendar 2026. So, January, February, March, somewhere in that time, we're very confident that we'll be at 200,000 lbs per month.
Okay. Great. That's a great target. And could you also discuss the stockpile grades and the quality which you've been observing?
Yep. Look, these were mined ore stockpiles from the previous operations, so very confident around them. We've done as much testing and as checking as we think we need to do given the issues in the sector, and we made a comment in one of our update announcements a couple of weeks ago that they comfortably exceed our expectations, and that continues to be the case.
Okay. The next question, how is preparation for the mining phase progressing? And in terms of the fleet arrival and the ramp-up and also local mining recruitment activities, how is timing going in regards to those aspects?
Yeah. We'll have first ore from the mining pit in the coming months as we'd scheduled. And all of the equipment, we have visibility on its arrival, either because it's about to be offloaded in Dar es Salaam or has been offloaded at the Dar es Salaam port and is en route to site. So from an equipment perspective, the team did a terrific job with the Northern Europeans for the drill rigs and with the Chinese, SANY, for the heavy equipment. And recruiting is proceeding very well. So very comfortable with our decision to become an owner-operator.
Okay. We have received a question just around the stock price. So just in terms of the stock price, how would you compare it to your peers in the uranium sector at the minute and with the way that they're traveling as well?
Oh, look, I think everybody will have their own view on it. I think we're in this cozy world of developer to producer. We've had issues in the sector. We've had volatility in the uranium price. And we've got, yeah, and we'd obviously like to see it higher. And we think that production and our steps towards production will provide an opportunity to re-rate. I think the opportunity longer term and our exposure to the longer-term outlook remains a strong factor. And then ultimately bringing in post-steady-state production, bringing in news flow and development work on our second project, Letlhakane, which is an important long-term value driver for us.
Okay. Thanks for that, Greg. The next question looks like a two-part question. Do you expect to sell into the spot market at all, or will you only deliver into your contracts? And the second part of that question, if you do expect first dispatch before the end of the year, what will this be fulfilling, noting that the first contract deliveries begin in CY26?
Yeah. So we're going to avoid the spot market. We've seen what happens in the vagaries of the spot market, the illiquidity, the players in that market. We will have spot price-linked contracts, but we will be avoiding the spot market. That's the intention. Deliveries in calendar 2026, the contracts are for 2026, but the individual delivery schedules mean that it will be quite lumpy for those deliveries. And we're already seeing some of the notices come through for the delivery windows. So the first thing, the important thing for us is to build up inventory at the converters. That gives us flexibility where we continue to develop the relationships with a whole range of utilities, both North American, European, and Asian. And part of why we're here in London is to continue to do that.
And we see opportunities once we're in production to fill the contracting gaps that are out there and to opportunistically move with these utilities to help them supplement their inventory. So there's a whole mixing pot around the marketing and sales strategy.
Okay. So we've got time for a couple more questions, which have come in. Actually, that one just disappeared, that question. Sorry. I can move on to the next one. With so many uranium producers globally at the moment having production issues, what strategy do you have to mitigate any production issues for Lotus?
We've built caution and pragmatism into our schedule, and we've guided the market as to timing third quarter production. We're here at the very start of September. We did factor in a lot of what we were seeing in the industry. We factored in a lot of the learnings from the previous operation, and we bought ourselves some flex, so we remained very confident.
Sure. Okay. We have time for one more question, which has just come in. Actually, a second one has come in now as well. We'll go through both of those. An observation from this listener is that ASX miners have struggled to manage operational costs effectively. With high inflation in Malawi at the moment, how confident are you in the company's ability to control these expenses, which could potentially impact the project's revenue?
Yeah. Look, a significant proportion of our costs are U.S. dollar costs: expat labor, reagents, diesel, U.S. dollar costs. So inflation to the extent that it impacts Kwacha, the local currency, and costs, there's been a series of devaluations in country. Local labor is a relatively small component of the overall cost structure, and importantly, the most significant aspect of the local cost structure will be our power purchase agreement with the local utility that's set in Quattro, and so we've locked that in, so we've gone across the organization, across the operation, and we've got good visibility on costs. We know what expat labor costs. We're buying diesel on a forward basis. We're buying reagents on a forward basis. And we understand the local workforce costs. So again, good visibility and remain confident on the cost target objectives.
You just spoke about human resources briefly there. And the final question is just around recruitment. Are you comfortable with the recruitment of labor that the company has achieved?
Yeah. Very pleasing. I think we're comfortably over 90% of the 550 people on site at the moment are Malawian. It's in everybody's interest for that to increase higher, but we do need to rely on and use expat technical talent and technical knowledge. But we're very comfortable with it. Yes.
Great. Thanks, Greg. So that was the final question, which we have received for today. I'll now hand back to you, Greg, for any closing remarks that you do have.
Thanks. Thanks, Ben. And thanks, everybody, for listening, and look forward to continuing to update the market as we move forward in the next few months. Thank you all.
Thanks, Greg.