To the Liontown June quarterly call. Following the formal presentation, there'll be a Q&A session for investors and analysts. Participants can ask both text and live audio questions. To ask a text question, select the messaging icon, type your question in the box towards the top of the screen, and press the send button. To ask a live audio question, press the Request to Speak button at the top of the broadcast window. The broadcast will be replaced by the audio question screen. Use the dial-in number and access PIN provided to ask your question via the phone.
Alternatively, for those using a home or personal network, you can ask your question via the web by pressing Join Queue. If prompted, select Allow in the pop-up to grant access to your microphone. If you have any issues using the platform, dial-in details can be found on the homepage under Asking Audio Questions. Text questions can be submitted at any time, the audio queue is now open. I will now hand over to Mr. Tony Ottaviano, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Liontown.
We have a clear focus from a stronger position on productivity and growth in this financial year that will set us up for years to come. It's only a short 12 months ago, this call was about protecting the balance sheet and preserving cash. This quarter, we generated AUD 137 million of net cash flow and closed with AUD 561 million of cash in the bank, more than AUD 500 million . The strength of that financial position gives us the pivot that we need from preserving cash to now investing in growth. The first proof of that pivot is in the ground, you can see that with the strongest development quarter that we've had to record, up 35%.
That keeps our ramp up to 2.8 million tons per year by the end of this financial year on track and on schedule. I'll take you through the safety, the shape of that quarter, the strategy beyond the pivot, the team will walk you through the operational and financial detail in the year ahead. Then I'll come back in the end and sum us up. Let's go to the next slide, please, Ethan. I've basically summarized in my opening here, these key points, these five key points. The last point I do want to mention is the focus on growth and the Kathleen Valley expansion, which Ryan will touch on, is progressing on schedule and will be subject to FID at the end of this quarter.
If we then move to the next slide, please. I want to start the conversation, as we always do, with safety. Firstly, our TRIFR. I think we all acknowledge it is not where we want it to be, and we are applying quite a bit of focus on a day-to-day, hour-by-hour basis to improve this. We have engaged some external expertise, some former DuPont people that are the world's best in the area of safety leadership, and we have done quite an extensive survey and forensics of our safety position. We have got the confidence now to push this forward and make some improvement. On the area of environment, there were no material incidents in this quarter.
All the monitoring was completed in line with our approvals, and we secured some fairly significant groundwater lease amendments to lift our water abstraction rates as we plan for our expansion. Our hybrid power station delivered 71% of renewable penetration. It was down from the 85% that we had in the previous quarter, but that was largely driven by a lot lower wind resource over that period. I also want to acknowledge our community and heritage team who kept the genuine engagement up with our traditional owners, the Tjiwarl, in this quarter, and presenting the inaugural Tjiwarl Meet the Buyers Forum. If we can now move to the next slide, please, Ethan.
Our June quarterly results. Our production of 103,000 tons of spodumene, and we sold 108,000 tons over the quarter with five parcels. We shipped a grade of 5%. Production was up around 7% on the quarter, and we held production stable while putting record effort into development. More on that when Ryan comes to speak. Our realized price of $1,880 a ton on an SC6e basis and benchmarking pricing held through the quarter.
We had strong volumes into firm pricing, which drive our revenue to AUD 235 million, up 19% quarter-on-quarter. I just want to have a short word on realized price, because it is worth understanding how we sell. Besides the Q lag, some of our contracts are linked to the chemical pricing, which have not had the flyup that the spodumene index has had. Grant will speak about that further when he comes to talk. Our unit cost was AUD 995 a ton, up 1%. Holding unit costs essentially flat in a quarter with a volatile external backdrop is a good result. The number that matters to me most is cash. We built AUD 137 million for the quarter, and we now, as I mentioned in my opening, have AUD 561 million in the bank.
Six months ago, we were talking about protecting the balance sheet and preserving cash. Today, we are holding more than AUD 500 million in cash. We have delivered on FY 2026 guidance across every metric, and again, across a very challenging external backdrop. That discipline will now let us do what we need to do in FY 2027. If we just move to the next slide, please. I think it is important that we set the scene because the 12 months seems an eternity away.
Last year, at the same point, as I mentioned in my opening, we were preserving cash. Our net cash flow position was AUD -17. We had just finished our strategic pivot where we deferred the North West Flats ore body to FY 2031. The Street was telling us that the market would only come back into balance late calendar year 2027, early calendar year 2028. Through our business optimization, we had stripped out or deferred AUD 112 million worth of cash.
A lot of that was linked to less development. Over 30,000 m of development that over the five years we'd removed. Roll the clock forward 12 months, we've seen a significant increase in price. Therefore, our net cash flow position has improved markedly. That's given us that focus to move into growth. We still want to maintain that financial discipline. In this year, we've restarted some of the deferred spend that we had to make only less than 12 months ago, and we'll talk about that later.
We've recommenced the commissioning of North West Flats, we've started a lot of re-recruiting and equipment ahead of the production growth. I think it's important that we set the scene that this year will be a year of investment coming from a year where we had to preserve significant cash to see us through and build a strong balance sheet. Next slide, please, Ethan. I'll now turn to Ryan, who will go through the operational performance.
Yeah, thanks, Tony. On the operational highlights slide, as Tony's mentioned, development at 3,316 m, up 35% on the prior quarter, it's our strongest development quarter- to- date. This is the work that opens ore access required for the next step up, I'll talk about that in a short while. Underground ore mined was 356,000 tons at 1.4% lithium. Tons were lower than Q3, that was a deliberate trade-off as we prioritized development in the quarter. Across the second half, importantly, we averaged 1.5 million tons per annum, we did that through the two biggest development quarters that we've run to date.
In processing 647,000 tons at 1.3% head grade, producing 103,000 tons of concentrate with the plant availability at 92%. Recovery was 63%, 2 percentage points up on Q3 and our strongest quarter for the year. Moving now onto the next slide. Thanks, Ethan. Development is really the story of this quarter. As I said, just over 3,000 m in Q4. That takes FY 2026 to 9,737 m, up 33% from the prior year. This delivers additional work fronts and a more productive and flexible level design, which I'll talk about next.
Production remains on track. The 1.5 million ton per annum average through the second half with the next step up in underground mining rates coming from Q2 in FY 2027. Moving on to the next slide, I'll give a little bit more color around where some of those development meters are going. Through FY 2025 and the first half of 2026, as Tony indicated, we designed for cash preservation. Minimum meters in order to reach the ore body. We've taken the opportunity now to redesign the levels for both productivity and flexibility. Three notable changes that we've highlighted on this slide.
The first is dual access to the level, which is shown in orange. This separates the trucks in and out of the level out of the decline. Dual crosscuts, shown in blue, allow stope cycle activities to run concurrently. Things like loading into trucks and drilling and charging stopes can be done in parallel right next to each other, which the previous design did not allow for. Thirdly, the truck loading bays, which are shown in green, are off the main traffic route, and they maximize traffic flows through the level. Every extra meter here is deliberate. It lifts what a level can produce, making each level more productive and increasing operational flexibility.
Moving now to the plant on the next slide. Thank you. As has been the case through the year, feed mix has been a significant driver of plant performance. Underground in this quarter increased to 55% of mill feed, up from 48% in Q3. With a focus on developing the mine, we took the opportunity to bring forward the processing of lower quality open pit stockpiles. With prices where they are now, converting that material into cash is much more valuable than holding onto the stocks, and it clears the way for a cleaner future blend. ROM stocks closed at 239,000 tons, down from 550, as we continue to draw down on the last of the open pit stockpile.
The balance is processed by the end of the quarter with some unsorted contaminated ultra fines available when opportune through the year. From there, feed will be underground and the processing rate lifts from Q2 FY 2027 in line with the mining ramp-up. On to the recovery. Next slide, thanks. On one chart, we outline the single biggest driver of plant performance, which is contamination. While lithium grade and grind size both play an important role, the reason why we've spoken about the value of clean underground ore and feed mix is evident in this chart.
As the lower quality open pit share of the blend comes down, recovery goes up. Q4 was our strongest of the year, as I mentioned, at 63% on a 55/45 underground open pit blend. When we run higher portions of clean underground ore, as we did for most of April, which we spoke about in the Q3 update, the plant reliably delivers 70%. The plant is performing as designed. What moves recovery is what we put into it.
That said, we're always going to focus on optimization, and we'll do that through minor debottlenecking, trialing new reagents, refinement of control loops and the like. Turning onto the early expansion works. Just as a recap, we have a number of elements in the early works ahead of FID. The first is the ball mill. Second is the development of the Northwest Flats, which Tony has spoken about, and particularly developing that out of the Kathleen's Corner pit. Stage I of the permanent mine services area, as well as some other minor works. All up, we've committed to up to AUD 77 million ahead of FID, and we expended [AUD 14 million] in FY 2026.
In this quarter, we ramped up the project team, progressed detailed engineering on the ball mill, started earthworks and construction at the mine services area, and at Northwest Flats, we completed grade control drilling, recommissioned the portal that was put into care and maintenance in 2024, and began infrastructure works to support the new portals. As you might have seen from the video we just played before the formal presentation, there are numerous activities underway. Kathleen Valley is an exciting place to be, and we're putting the call out to continue to build the team that underpins the expansion. Notably, the FID remains on track for the end of this quarter, as Tony had mentioned. With that, I'll hand over to Greg.
Thank you, Ryan. Moving to slide 14, please. We set a record in quarter three with operational cash flow of AUD 55 million. We just increased that by over 200% to AUD 180 million for quarter four. You can see we had a bumper quarter in terms of customer receipts with over AUD 300 million. That was an 83% increase quarter-over-quarter and reflects both the sustained market pricing and the strong tons shipped out of Kathleen Valley. Production and other operating cash costs increased to AUD 126 million. This reflects both the increase in tons processed and produced, all planned maintenance activities during the quarter.
We also had higher royalties paid, noting that there's a quarter lag between the quarter measured and the quarter paid. In quarter four, we paid for the royalties from quarter three, and that had a substantial step up in realized price compared to quarter two. AUD 10 million of sustaining CapEx. That was AUD 6 million higher than quarter three. AUD 4 million of that increase is associated with underground capital development for Mount Mann, where a portion of that is now classified as sustaining since commercial production was declared at the start of April.
AUD 29 million of growth CapEx. This is a step up from Q3, overlaps with what Ryan described a moment ago in terms of the expansion projects, including ball mill ramp up and underground development, including the commencement of Northwest Flats in quarter four. All of that adds up to a net cash flow of AUD 137 million. As Tony has said, we closed with AUD 561 million of cash at bank, net cash of AUD 190 million and 21,000 tons of sellable product and inventory. We are in a very strong position for the continued ramp up and further expansion as we look towards FID at the end of this quarter.
Next slide, please, Ethan. Looking at some of the other financial metrics, we had record revenue in Q4, 19% increase to AUD 235 million. Of course, that was also driven by the sales tons and sustained pricing. Realized pricing on a USD SC6 basis was 2% higher, and we were 4% lower on an Aussie dollar basis per ton sold, which was a combination of the appreciation of the Aussie dollar and a slight decrease in the average lithium grade of tons shipped. Unit cost of sales went up AUD 14, small increase from Q3.
There is a number of ups and downs in that, simplistically, the higher diesel costs we incurred account for that change, and the all-in sustaining cost went up AUD 63 a ton. The higher unit cost of sales flowed into that, but was almost entirely offset by dilution of lease payments because we had more tons during the quarter, which means that the increase is driven by sustaining capital. AUD 37 of that was associated with the underground capitalized mine development costs, with a portion now going into sustaining, and we also had some other mining infrastructure CapEx across some projects, including the paste fill, return air ventilation, electrical substations, underground columns.
Can you please go to the next slide, please, Ethan? Which is a summary of our guidance for the year. We have delivered across all the metrics, production, unit costs, all in sustaining and CapEx, AUD 114 million across the whole year for CapEx. That excludes the AUD 14 million that we have incurred already as part of the AUD 77 million for early works ahead of an FID coming late this quarter. I will now pass over to Grant, who will take you through the market outlook.
Thanks, Greg. Despite, I think, what the share prices in the industry would tell you, the market remains pretty robust. We are still seeing very strong lithium demand across the sector, I think the top right-hand chart here demonstrates very clearly that we have seen an unseasonal drawdown here on carbonate inventories, which is now at a point where you have got about 89,000 tons of carbonate, which is just around 20 days of inventory.
This is a multi-month low, you can see a very different trajectory to last year. You will also understand in the market that while there is a lot of talk about brownfield restarts, most of those decisions have already been taken, but it takes time to actually see the product come back into the market. We have also seen some large-scale expansions decisions taken and also some expected in the near term.
I think most of those have very large 24+ month build times, then a ramp up to follow. If you look at the chart on the right-hand side at the bottom, you can see the expected deficit. This is a Fastmarkets chart out to well into the middle of next decade. That really starts this year, where they expect to see around 50,000 tons of deficit for the overall carbonate market. New greenfield projects have an even longer timeframe, typically three to five years.
That requires a more robust pricing outlook than this kind of volatility that we see makes it very hard to make long-term decisions, particularly for small juniors who need funding. The fundamental demand pathway for lithium remains positive. The Middle East instabilities accelerated the economic case for EVs and for energy storage. June posted another record for EV sales with over 2 million units sold globally.
AI infrastructure build-out, coupled with broader energy security concerns, are driving a long-term build-out of lithium battery storage capacity globally, and we've seen the first half of the year grow 27% year-over-year, which is pretty robust, and that's a benchmark number. With that, I would say the key message is the physical market remains tight. The trajectory remains very positive for the outlook, not only for this year, but into many years ahead. As a result, the investment that we're making to try and grow the business to be able to supply into that is a very sensible decision. With that, I'll hand back.
Thanks, Grant. Ethan, on the next slide. As we move into FY 2027, I think this is probably one of the more important points to make, given particularly how coupled our ramp up is to the underlying ramp up within the mine. I wanted to provide a little bit of color and a little bit of context around the work we're doing underground, and particularly where all those development meters are going. This is obviously a fairly simplistic view as we go from our current run rate of 1.5- 2.8. We've distilled it broadly down into two key themes. One is the work areas that are open to us, because that dictates the daily production rate, which then translates into annual production rate.
The second is the equipment to then access those work areas to produce. As we have a look at the number of work areas, through the course of FY 2027, we're unlocking seven new mine levels through the mine. Bearing in mind, as we've discussed many times over the past 12 months or so, those lower levels are around 3 million-5 million tons of ore per level. Highly productive levels. Each of those levels have multiple work areas attached to them, which is underpinned by the level design that I went through in the earlier section. By the end of FY 2027, we're up to 14 active work areas compared to four at the end of FY 2026. Again, that's a key enabler of going from 1.5 million- 2.8 million tons.
With those work areas, we obviously need more equipment. Jumbos going from four to seven, which again, allows us to continue to expand out the mine, and particularly as we access the Northwest Flats. Production drills going from four to seven, loaders from six to 12, and trucks from seven to 15. With those initiatives, more mine levels and more equipment, we're very confident in the 2.8 run rate by the end of FY 2027. Moving on to the next slide. Giving you a pictorial here around the mine and particularly some of the activities around the path of open pit access.
We've shown in purple Mount Mann, and you can see the shape of that ore body on the right-hand side of the image, access from the Mount Mann box cut. In blue is the Northwest Flats. You can hopefully now see in this image the reason why we're expending the effort to access that ore body from the open pit, given its location and geometry. That said, in quarter four, we have reentered the portals in the Mount Mann box cut that access the southwest portion of the Northwest Flats. We've started doing some early development and some grade control drilling in that area.
The focus in Q2 FY 2027 will be to access the remainder of that ore body from the open pit. We've already started early works to put in power, water, and air infrastructure in that location. That is clearly a key focus for us in FY 2027. Importantly, as I said on the last quarterly update, we will get some small number of development tons out of the Northwest Flats as we continue to develop it out. With that, I'll hand over to Greg.
Hey, thank you. I'll start with the guidance for unit cost in 2027. We came off AUD 987 per ton for the whole of FY 2026, we're guiding to a range of AUD 1,050- AUD 1,250 per ton sold. This reflects the investment we're making to unlock production growth from FY 2028 onwards. There's three main drivers behind this increase. The increased mining activity is the largest driver. As we've described, we're now mining both Northwest Flats and Mount Mann, we're 100% underground in FY 2027, while we still had some open pit activities in 2026. The additional labor and equipment that Ryan spoke of supports both capital and production activities, this has a flow-on impact to unit cost of sales.
The mining method for Northwest Flats during the ramp-up period involves jumbo development and stripping, this has a higher unit cost than Mount Mann that's got a combination of mining, importantly includes the production stoping. This contributes to a higher overall average cost as well. Secondly, the early mobilization. We've brought people and equipment on early to de-risk the ramp-up, which gives us the confidence in delivering the plan. These additional costs will be diluted on a per ton basis as production ramps up. Finally, we've got economic factors or macroeconomic factors, the inflation in key inputs such as cement for paste fill, reagents, and labor. Next slide, please, Ethan.
Do you want to mention about the total movement? The increase in total productive movement? If we can just bring back that slide, Ethan, if you may. I think a key point here, just to underpin Greg's point around the mining activity, is the increase in material move from 2026- 2027. Almost 100% increase, which demonstrates the increased activity that we are going to do this year, and which is a pre-investment for unlocking the tons in 2028.
Yep. Next slide, please, Ethan. This is the CapEx slide. We're guiding to AUD 320 million- AUD 370 million of total CapEx. Includes the balance of the early works for KV expansion of the AUD 77 that was announced at the end of April, of which AUD 14 fell into 2026. The balance falls into 2027. It excludes any further KV expansion CapEx that will be announced subsequent to the FID scheduled for September. We've divided the CapEx into four categories. About AUD 90 million- AUD 110 million for sustaining capital to keep the operation producing at its current rate, and includes tailings dam lifts, underground development at a steady state rate, and of course, capitalized plant maintenance.
We've isolated out AUD 90 million- AUD 100 million of underground capital development to ramp up to 2.8 million tons per annum. This work is planned and will deliver that target by the end of June 2027. The distinction between the development in each of the categories is what does it take to get to 2.8 million tons and what does it take to sustain 2.8 million tons? Third category is AUD 80 million- AUD 90 million of mine infrastructure and optimization.
This is capital that's deferred through the period of low pricing to preserve cash. That covers infrastructure and optimization work across both the mine and the plant, such as the mine services area, an upgrade to the base plant, and expansion of the camp. The last category is the balance of the AUD 77 million for early works on the expansion. Really key point about all of this links back to our balance sheet strength. AUD 561 million at June 30, which means this entire program is funded from existing cash reserves. We're investing in growth from a position of strength and don't require external funding to do all of this. I hand back to Tony.
Thanks, Greg. Just to wrap this up, the market guidance for 2027 is concentrate production 390,000 tons-440,000 tons. Again, this is in keeping with our profile for the underground mine ramp up and get to 2.8 million tons by 2027. It also includes, this is a key point, we're entering into our expansion, and in order to enable our expansion, we're going to be doing a number of tie-ins to our plant. This figure also includes additional shutdown time of our plant in order to finish the tie-ins from the expansion. There is a material allowance there for downtime associated with that tie-in, in addition to the normal shutdown maintenance that we have planned in the course of the year.
The unit cost of sales, Greg's already spoken about, and so that's the range we're predicting or targeting. On the total capital expenditure, the AUD 320 million-AUD 370 million, Greg's already detailed that. We wanted to give the market that detailed breakdown in order to because we often get asked questions around, "What is your steady state sustaining capital?" I think we've given you an indication there. Also, "How is this capital apportioned?"
Rather than giving you this one figure, we've given you that breakdown. That's our guidance for 2027. It's really, just to emphasize, a period of investment that we're putting in after a year of fairly lean and focus and discipline on balance sheet. If we go to the last slide, please, Ethan, just to wrap it up. I want to thank the team and for their presentation today, and let me bring it back to these five key themes. Cash is building.
Again, AUD 137 million of net cash flow. Just to put that in perspective, that's already covered the AUD 77 million that we have for early works and has some left over. It's a strong position to be in with a realized price of $ 1,880. This pricing supports this cash generation. We've had record development in this quarter, and again, as Ryan pointed out, we've made some significant changes to give us that flexibility and resilience so we can deliver the 2.8 with confidence, but also set ourselves up for the expansion, which is why we've brought North West Flats into production on the time we have. We will continue to execute our operating discipline to ramp up that 2.8 million.
You can see that through the sort of targeted increase in work fronts, but also bringing in the equipment before we actually need it so that we can bed it down and put it to work. Most importantly, get the people to operate it. Finally, we're progressing our growth at Kathleen Valley through the FID and expansion study, which will be delivered at the quarter one of this financial year. Also, we're working, as we said in our quarterly activities, on where we're going with Buldania. We've finished an initial scoping study, and the team are going to be doing a bit of work on that in this financial year. More to come on that. With that end, I'll now open it up to Q&A.
Thanks, Tony. If you have not yet submitted your text question or joined the live audio queue, please do so now. I will introduce each caller by name and ask you to go ahead. You will then hear a beep indicating your microphone is live. Our first question comes from Hugo Nicolaci from Goldman Sachs. Hugo, please go ahead.
Morning, Tony and team. Obviously, congrats on another ramp-up year and things progressing well. Look, firstly, on the underground development, you've previously given that sort of ramp-up outlook profile. Maybe can you just give us some comments on the magnitude of ore step up you flagged in the second quarter? The 2.8 million run rate target by the end of 2027, how much of that is from Mount Mann versus some of the North West Flats development material?
That's a good question, Hugo. I'll hand it over to Ryan.
Yeah. Thanks, Hugo. I think the simplest way to think about this, and consistent with what we said in Q3, is that Q1 of FY 2027 will be at around about that 1.5 million ton run rate. From the end of Q1 to the end of Q4, if you draw a straight line, that's kind of the, broadly speaking, the ramp up through the course of the year. In terms of your question around North West Flats, it's pretty minor in the scheme of things. It's kind of less than or 5% of the overall total. As I said, it's pretty much incidental to the development that we're doing to build out the North West Flats. That answer the question?
Yeah. That's helpful. Maybe just turning to recovery. Good to see the clean ore recovery sort of averaging 70%, which I think is what you guys targeted sort of 15, 18 months ago. If I go back, can you just talk us through what you assumed in your FY 2027 guidance in terms of ore mix and recovery? Is 70% now the right number given that you're basically down to sort of mined material?
I think probably a couple points there, Hugo. The first is that through Q1 FY 2027, we're still processing an amount of open pit, which is what I flagged there. Broadly speaking, you'd say that that's going to have a similar recovery outcome. It's the same broad feed mix, if you like, in Q1. As we get into Q2 and beyond, we do have obviously clean underground ore, and we would still target in that order of the 70%.
What I'd say is that recovery is an outcome of a whole range of other decisions. At the end of the day, what we're going to target is producing on-spec material and maximizing that, and recovery would be an outcome of that. I think what we're targeting, as I said, is still to maximize that recovery when we can. Q1, as I said, will be pretty much a follow on of Q4 of this year.
Our next question comes from Austin Yun from Macquarie. Austin, please go ahead.
Thank you. Thank you, Tony and the team. I was looking at the presentation. I just noted that the full million ton number hasn't been referenced at all. I'm just keen to understand if there has been any changes on your thinking. I know that earlier this year you talked about staged expansion, just, yeah, keen to understand how to listen about the growth plan beyond the 2.8. Thank you.
It's a good question, Austin. I get told by my company secretary that I'm not allowed to mention the number until we publish a DFS. I wouldn't worry about that number too much, Austin. It's broadly in line with where we previously have mentioned.
Okay, cool. Understood. Just one quick follow-up-
Look, it's not exclusively-
I understand the company. Sorry, just a quick follow-up, if okay. I can see that the company is pivoting in terms of thinking on development meters. What is the right level of sort of a steady state development meters that are going to fit into your sustaining CapEx? Thank you.
Yeah. Austin, from a total dollar number point of view, as Greg called out there, the AUD 90-AUD 110 is the kind of the dollar number. Obviously, some of that is associated with plant and infrastructure. A bulk of that is going to be development meters. You can probably back calculate from that the kind of rough number of development meters. It's obviously substantially lower than the total meters we're doing over this year, which is very much around an investment in opening Northwest Flats and continuing to open up Mount Mann.
Our next question comes from Jacob Li from Barrenjoey. Jacob, please go ahead.
Hi, Tony and team. Thanks for the questions. Just a follow-up on a previous question on recovery, if I can push you a bit further. Just going to the next couple of years, what sort of level of recovery do you think you can achieve with full underground ore? The previous DFS was a couple of years ago, was targeting mid to high 70s. Do you still think that's the internal target? What sort of levers can you sort of pull going forward? Thanks.
Okay. Just to break that down. The DFS that we published six years ago said life of mine average was 78%. For the next couple of years, clearly, we're going to target above 70%, which is the target we've had previously. That's how we're planning it.
Thanks, Tony. The second one would be on your cost guidance. FY 2027 unit cost guidance sort of suggest that your operating cost base will be around AUD 480 million. Is that the right level of cost base to sustain 2.8 million tons on a rate going into the long term? Also, is the higher year-on-year unit cost mostly reflective of higher diesel cost assumption? Thank you.
You're a bit hard to hear, if I'm honest. I think your first question is the AUD 400- odd million that we are planning to spend this year indicative of a steady state 2.8? The answer is clearly no there. As we've mentioned, there is a lot of front-ending that we've done in this year in terms of investment that will unwind once we reach the 2.8 steady state. On a unit cost basis, we will get the scale benefits of reaching 2.8 and amortizing all those fixed costs that we have implemented this year.
Our next question comes from Stuart Howe from Bell Potter Securities. Stuart, please go ahead.
Hi, Tony and team. Just on FY 2027 guidance, you talked to the tie-ins that will occur. Just wondering if you can somehow quantify I guess what impact that might have had on guidance, given, I guess, what sort of time the plant might be out for over the next quarters. Also which quarters it's likely to impact the most?
Sorry, didn't catch the last bit, Stu.
Which quarters will be impacted the most?
Just which quarters it will impact the most.
Just to answer the last bit, we're still working that through with some definitive detail because we haven't finished the study. We'll know a bit more on that in the coming weeks and months before the FID. We've made an allowance over the course of the year. That allowance is about 10- 12 days, but that will be firmed up, whether we can utilize some of the existing plant shutdowns, but that will come out in the study.
Broadly speaking, it's back-end loaded because the early works need time to be delivered, ball mill being probably a good example for us. It's very much more back-end loaded.
Great. Then just on the expansion itself and when you come out with the numbers at the end of September, will you be in a position to talk off-take contracts around the extra production? How are you thinking about selling the extra tons?
I'll take that one, Stu. Our view is that we're going to maintain that volume for spot. We already have three long-term offtakes with Tesla and Ford and LG, albeit that the Ford one's being redirected to Chengxin until the end of this year, calendar year. Then from the beginning of next year, that will go to Canmax, under spodumene index. Our view is we want to have more material available for spot, that at this point will be maintained for spot.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Andrew Harrington. Andrew, please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, gents. Can we talk about operating costs? You're very clear in terms of displaying them, is it SC6 basis that those numbers that are displayed?
No, the unit cost is on a ton sold basis.
Sold-
Ship
at 5.5, do we assume or less?
No, it's down around-
5.2
5.1.
5.1, 5.2.
Okay, thank you. If I may, another, in terms of realized pricing, the best way to look at it looks going forward now that you're essentially selling regularly, is that average of the quarter or average of the previous quarter? Is there a sort of rule of thumb that we should look at in terms of how you get to a rough average price?
The average price is really based on our contract mix. As we have disclosed, we have got one contract on a relativity to hydroxide, one contract on a relativity to carbonate, which as I just mentioned, that rolls off at the end of this calendar year and moves to another contract which is on spodumene index. Our last contract with Tesla is on spodumene index. If you look at this period that just passed, we had a significant outperformance of spodumene indices versus chemicals, or the average Fastmarkets SC6 price for the quarter was AUD 2,500.
In that same period, carbonate has averaged about AUD 22,000 and hydroxide just under AUD 21,000. That puts the relativity for spodumene in this quarter about 11% or 12%. That is typically historically traded in the range of 7%-9%. That is why it is important to try and move more of our book towards spodumene index because that is ultimately reflective of the product we sell, which has embedded optionality to make carbonate or hydroxide depending on the customer's desire.
There are no further questions today. I will now hand back to Tony.
Thanks very much, Ethan. Thank you very much for the listeners and the good questions. As I said, without repeating it too much, we are in a strong position. We have got a very solid balance sheet. Our focus is now around value accretive growth, and the best option we have is a brownfields expansion of Kathleen Valley, which we are very focused on. We are setting the operations up in order to meet that opportunity, and it will provide us the quickest tons in the market. That is why there is so much effort being put into that. Without too much more, thank you everyone.
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