Thank you all for standing by, and welcome to the Lynas quarterly investor briefing. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question -and- answer session. To ask a question at that time, you'll need to press star one on your telephone. I'd now like to hand the conference over to Lynas. Thank you. Please go ahead.
Good morning and welcome to the Lynas Rare Earths investor briefing for the quarter ending 31 March 2022. Today's briefing will be presented by Amanda Lacaze, CEO and Managing Director. Amanda is joined by Gaudenz Sturzenegger, CFO, Pol Le Roux, VP Downstream, Daniel Havas, VP Strategy and Investor Relations, and Sarah Leonard, General Counsel and Company Secretary. Please go ahead, Amanda.
Hello, good morning, everybody. Now, I know that not everybody who is on the call is Australian and not everybody who is on the call who is Australian even follows the AFL. But in the AFL, in the grand final, the third quarter is often known as the championship quarter. This is one of the quarters when one team leaps and runs with the wind behind their back to a big win. Often as you listen to the commentators, they say, you know, "What a blinder of a quarter." I have to say, I can't think of a better way to describe our third quarter than what a blinder.
I'm tempted to just stop there and then say, "Are there any questions?" Just to pick out a few of the high points, of course, AUD 328 million in revenue, AUD 262 million received in cash. I guess, you know, the thing that will have surprised most was the 1,687 tons of NdPr as we had, you know, the plant running very well, but we've sort of indicated that for some time now. Really a lot of the tactics and strategies that we've put in place to manage our business in the face of continuing external unpredictability certainly has given us the position where we're able to, you know, sort of keep things running, you know, really on a sustainable and steady basis.
All of these results are on the shoulders of our teams in both Australia and Malaysia. The Malaysian performance is really, you know, really outstanding, when we consider that I think we're up to the fifth wave of COVID in Malaysia. We've had up to 40% of our people despite being, you know, sort of, highly vaccinated, certainly. You know, we've had up to 40% of our people with COVID during that period of time. Of course, in Australia, in Western Australia, we're still managing a very, you know, sort of, resource-intensive management of COVID with, in both locations, we've still got twice or thrice weekly testing regimes. Really the Malaysian performance was really outstanding, notwithstanding some of those challenges.
You know, I've indicated on these calls previously the addition of charter vessels to ensure that we have feedstock on hand in Malaysia so we can keep that factory running full bore. Mt Weld has kept pace with the improved performance in Malaysia. However, you know, our key focus there is on further de-bottlenecking the operation to really squeeze every last bit out because, you know, we're very alert to the fact that we need to continue to be building a stockpile for the period of time when we're feeding two cracking and leaching plants. As the results demonstrate, our projects remain in good shape with, you know, this is not new news because we reported it with our half yearly and of course, in other disclosures to the ASX. We've received key approval.
All of the approvals in W.A. and work on the Kalgoorlie facility is continuing at pace. We've included some photos for those who aren't able to get to Kalgoorlie, which I think shows you really just how significant the progress on site is, with all of the site now cleared, all of the kiln pieces there. The footings are in place. We've got a lot of tanks which are on site now. The team on the ground, you know, despite the occasional sort of absence related to COVID, is really delivering a really outstanding performance.
I think everybody would know that there's been lots of media, particularly in the past couple of weeks, about continued government support and, you know, focused on continuing development of critical mineral supply chains outside of China. I think it is really important to note that, even with, you know, sort of a perfect project execution, lead times to new supply are quite long. You know, today and for the foreseeable future, the non-Chinese supply source of separated rare earths comes from our Malaysian facility. We're very alert to the importance of that facility for outside China industries, and so very focused on continuing to develop our capability there. At the same time, as I've indicated previously, we're very focused on how do we grow faster to meet the accelerating market demand.
We're very pleased that the further deferral of our interest, our historical interest liabilities with JARE is really an indication of our continuing to develop that relationship as we look at the sorts of investments that we're going to need to make over the next couple of years. It includes significant exploration program at Mount Weld, as well as an upgrade to the facilities there and an upgrade to, you know, sort of our capacity to separate rare earths in maybe one or more locations. You know, there's also quite a lot of media associated with Minister Tehan's trade delegation to the U.S.
We had two of our senior staff join that delegation, and they had excellent engagement with the U.S. government, both as part of the mission and independently as we reviewed elements of our expansion plans into the U.S. You know, I don't really need to say I think a lot more. I'm sure that there will be questions, but you know, a really excellent quarter. I think, again, evidence of the fact that we've said for some time that when the rare earths price strengthened, when demand strengthened, that we would be in pole position. That's another reference to you know, the race on the weekend in Melbourne. Anyway, that we're in pole position to take advantage of that growth and our results indicate that.
With that, as you know, sort of introductory comments, I'm happy to take any questions.
Thank you, Amanda. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you need to cancel your request, please press the pound or hash key. Our first question comes from David Deckelbaum at Cowen. Please go ahead.
Morning, Amanda and team. Thanks for having me on.
Morning, David.
Thanks for the opportunity to refer to something as a blinder for the first time in my life. It clearly wasn't a good quarter. Yeah.
I felt I had to give some context to that because it may not be a term that everybody else knew.
It's not every day you get a cultural experience with equity research. That being said, you know, I did wanna dig in a little bit more for some color around some of the conversations with Japan and the JARE loan, where the interest sort of being deferred now. You talked about, obviously there seems to be ongoing conversations around expanding capacity outside of China. You mentioned one or two more sites. I suppose that one of these sites would be potentially expanding capacity in Malaysia. You know, and just wondering if you could provide any more clarity on how quickly something like that might come to pass.
Yeah, sure. Thanks, David. I think that any time that you're talking about a brownfields expansion, it is going to be a much shorter time to market than a greenfields development. For example, you know, and particularly as people are looking at, you know, sort of other proposed projects. When you think about our Kalgoorlie facility, you know, it's had major project status with the federal government, lead agency status with the W.A. government, really a high priority, very supported project. The simple process is that there are approvals processes and studies and all of those things that need to be complete.
You know, from go to whoa, bearing in mind that we actually really know what we're doing, the team who are building this plant have finessed the Malaysian plant and operate the Malaysian plant. We're still talking about, you know, sort of from when we as a company absolutely had clarity on what we were going to do to when we think we'll have first feed on is probably close to three years. You know, as we think about this, you know, any greenfield site is going to have, you know, sort of challenges and a longer lead time than a brownfield expansion. As we seek to keep pace with our customers' demand, certainly the opportunities to drive greater production outcomes in Malaysia is part of the mix of the projects that we're looking at.
We would expect that sometime within, you know, the next few months, that we will come back with a, you know, sort of a firmer pathway, that we'll see us being able to deliver better outcomes even than our Lynas 2025 vision. You know, our view on this is that we don't tell the market that we're gonna do something until we know exactly how we're gonna get there. We're doing that work at present.
Well, it sounds like there's sort of an imminent path ahead where we might learn something more absolute in the next few months. That's certainly encouraging.
Yeah.
My follow-up is just-
I know, I know that, you know, lots of people like to sell blue sky. We actually like to sell confirmed plans.
Yeah. Fair enough. My follow-up is just on the run rate. You all, I obviously pointed out, you know, March having running at 600 tons of separated NdPr. You know, it's among the highest levels we've seen from you all in several years. I guess as we think about the remainder of the year, and I know we're going into conversations around increasing capacity, is there enough debottlenecking work at Mt Weld right now to sort of feed that run rate, assuming everything is functioning properly, you know, kind of the rest of this fiscal year?
That's our objective. We have some additional work that we're doing at Mt Weld, because bear in mind, we're trying not only to feed the improved production rates in Malaysia, but to build a stockpile ahead of the feed on in Kalgoorlie. The team in Mt Weld is very focused on, you know, the one or two areas which really, if we can release those bottlenecks, will give us improved production there as well. Under any circumstance, we need to increase our production at Mt Weld. We have a project team of our best and brightest actually working on exactly what does that look like, and how fast can we get that done.
In the areas where we know that we really need to get a big step up in throughput, we actually have already placed some of our long lead time items because none of these things can be spun on a dime. See, that's a term you would know in the U.S. We, you know, we can't do that, so we're sort of looking to be ahead of the curve at present in terms of making sure that we've got those things that are gonna take the longest time to get on site actually ordered well ahead of time.
Appreciate the responses. Here's to many blinders ahead.
We like blinders. There's another not so very polite term that is used in Australia as well, but I'm not gonna use it on this call.
Yeah. Not fitting. Thanks, Amanda.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Paul Young at Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning, Amanda and team. Amanda, a cracking quarterly, no doubt. I like the sporting analogy, so that was enjoyable. Amanda, just the first one is around the performance of LAMP. Looking at the fact that it produced over 600 tons of NdPr in the month of March. That's a great result 'cause I thought capacity was 7,200 tons per annum. Now, probably you can't annualize it, but just I'm just wondering, just based on that performance, what do you think is the true, you know, nameplate of this refinery as it stands now?
I'm not gonna change from our guidance, which is actually 7,000, you know, sort of ±. It's certainly. You know, I know that we've talked previously about 600 tons a month. Frankly, you mostly need to have a month with 31 days in it to have a good shot at 600 tons. You know, 28-day months are a bit tough. Although I tell the team I still expect them to do it. You know, I. We have ongoing preventive maintenance, you know, sometimes with the kilns in particular, every 18 months we have an inspection of the, you know, we have to shut down for a major inspection, those sorts of things.
You know, that's why we sort of say it's approximately 7,000 tons a year, which takes into account that there are some months where it will be difficult for either, you know, sort of maintenance, inspection or the fact that they're shorter months. It will be difficult to get to the 600. The team did a really sort of outstanding result in March, and the result was, you know, actually relatively well advanced from the 600 tons. You know, can we do that every single month? Probably not, because we have to manage these other things. I think that, you know, our indication of around about that annualized number is definitely within reach, so long as we manage all of the variables as efficiently as possible.
Yeah, that's great. No, it's a great performance. The next question, Amanda, is on just the NdPr mix, which, you know, for the quarter, just simple math, you know, 34% within the product mix, you know, which is obviously a lot higher than what the resource sits at, sort of mid-20s. You know, obviously, you're going through a higher percentage NdPr part of the stockpiles. How much of it is actually the fact that you're mining through a higher assemblage of NdPr versus the fact that you might be, you know, stockpiling the lower value material and just not selling it?
Yeah, no. We prefer the production of the higher value material through the lab. One of the things that we did when I talk about you know sort of some of our COVID challenges in Malaysia, our biggest challenge through the quarter was actually with our workforce in our product finishing area. Particularly in February, I think we really had you know sort of some challenges getting enough people to man, particularly in our dry area of product finishing, but even amongst our process engineers. We have eight tunnel furnaces. Generally, we have four of those which are dedicated to NdPr production or Nd or Pr production.
In March, we brought a fifth tunnel furnace into operation to ensure that we were able to, you know, sort of move through all of the material that, you know, sort of the upstream SX and cracking and leaching had produced so that we could move that through our product finishing area. It's not a reflection of high-grading the resource. It is a reflection of, you know, sort of production choices.
That makes sense. Okay. That therefore it's actually more sustainable over the midterm, I gather.
Well, look, you know, we produced our La and Ce to meet the market. You know, I know that it's very easy to sort of dismiss them as just being, you know, sort of the lower cost items. As we look at our business and we look at our, you know, sort of cost per kilo of NdPr produced, you know, the La and Ce , and indeed the SEG become credits against that cost base. Finding ways to really improve the, you know, every extra dollar that we get in those has really sort of dropped through to the bottom line.
The sales team and the production team has been working very hard to achieve over market benchmark prices for those materials. We have seven different contracts which actually give us significantly over market benchmark prices in that area. Having said that, they don't equate to the same amount of, say, Cerium in particular that we can produce within the natural profile. We do produce to ensure that we meet the needs of those contracted customers. If that then gives us the space to be able to prioritize additional production of NdPr, then that's what we do.
Yeah, that makes sense, Amanda. Last with me is probably on the market and, you know, demand outlook, Amanda, just looks like it's, it just keeps on getting better and better, the outlook. Just an observation, and it may be a comment from you around the long run supply-demand balance, you know, considering last week we saw, you know, Iluka announce potentially 5,000 tons of NdPr production from, you know, around 2025 onwards, and you're looking at bigger expansion plans. You're comfortable that, you know, or both of you are really just feeding into a market deficit?
I'm fortunately we've got Pol on the call this morning, and Pol is our expert on the market. Having said that, he'll talk a little about the market with respect to your comment about, you know, sort of Australian production increasing. That's you know, we're pleased to see the Australian critical minerals industry continuing to develop. I think I've said previously that the market is positive and there's room for many winners. Our job is to make sure that we win more than anybody else. I'll let Pol make some comments on the market in general.
Oh, yes. Good morning. Well, I was on business trip for the last several weeks. I have confirmed that the demand remains very strong for especially electric cars and wind turbines, and knowing that the electric cars production is a bit limited by the chip semiconductors shortage that people expect to ease in the second half of this year, hopefully. Basically new supply, we don't see new supply coming up in the very short term. Meanwhile, the focus for everyone in the space is to produce more because the demand is increasing very fast, and will continue to do so for the next at least a year or several years. We have no doubt on that demand remains very strong and we will be in the tight supply situation for quite a while.
Great. Thank you. All right, Amanda, I'll handball it on.
Thanks, Pol. Let's see if the next question I can take the mark.
Our next question comes from Hayden Bairstow at Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Yeah, morning, Amanda. I'll leave the footy analogies for now. Just a couple of questions, just following up on what Pol was talking about. I mean, there's clearly some interesting demand changes, particularly in the wind market, really, what we've seen in the last few weeks. Just interesting to see what if he's seeing an accelerated sort of order book. We've seen a number of wind projects approved, particularly in Europe in the last, you know, two or three months. Just, you know, facing that versus what we've seen in the spot market on NdPr prices, just is that just an indication that China's moving towards its quota, and we're getting a bit more volume recovery from them post the Chinese New Year, and it's that sort of eased things back a little bit?
Just keen to understand the differences between what looks like a really sort of accelerating demand story in, particularly from the wind market versus the pullback in spot prices.
Once again, I might give Pol a chance to respond to that.
I think it's the other way around. I mean, the demand does not grow because there is more supply. There is more supply because we all try to produce more, including Chinese and Lynas, because the demand is increasing. Wind turbine projects increased substantially, and I guess you include the U.K. and Europe when you say new projects in Europe, which is geographically correct. I think all the West or all the world is very concerned about accelerating alternative resources for energy. I was attending a conference in Paris from the International Energy Agency, and all the focus is to secure, as fast as possible, security of supply, knowing how much gas is imported into Europe from Russia today.
That is a big boost for new energy investments, including wind turbines, not only, but including wind turbines, and that's how it reflects on these announcements.
Pol, just
The other point is that a number of these projects are offshore and definitely now the technology of choice for offshore is direct drive, and direct drive comes with a lot more magnets. It means that the magnet demand for wind turbines is picking accelerate even faster than the overall wind turbine new projects, because most of it is offshore or growing number is offshore.
Okay, great. Thanks. Just on-
Pol , sorry. Can I just, Pol , can you just maybe give Hayden a couple of comments on what we're seeing in China in terms of whether the quotas are ahead or basically playing catch up to demand?
I think China is adjusting quotas. It's a bit funny, with focus on making sure there is enough rare earths, for the growth downstream where they are actually playing the game. They look at what Lynas is doing and they say, "Well, based on this is so much more production we need to make." So that's good news for us that we are considered very seriously as a reliable supplier, and that's the reason why we push as hard as possible to increase fast. Now, I mean, the supply-demand situation and we were reviewing that again last week remains very tight because demand is accelerating as much as the quotas are increased. We are not entering into an oversupply.
We are the lucky ones living in an environment where the demand grows very fast.
Okay, great. Amanda, just a second one. I know it's hard to talk about anything with the DoD, but just interested in the options for you guys in the U.S. Is it likely that, you know, they'll push for a heavy rare earths plant first and approve all of that and you'll go and build that and then look at integrating sort of the light stream later on? Or are you still trying to do it all together?
Yeah. No, we've been fairly clear about the fact that this is a single facility, right? You don't plan for one and then have to add other stuff to it. You know, you need to have that within your overall scope and design right from day one. That's the conversation that we're having with the U.S. government. I think I can say with a great deal of confidence that the U.S. government recognizes that, you know, Lynas is the only proven non-Chinese firm in this space. We have provided all of the detailed information and are just going through the, you know, sort of appropriate processes at present.
For us, you know, there's certainly expanding into the U.S. brings with it, you know, sort of we're working on the basis that there will be further development of the industry there. While there's a degree of, you know, sort of faith in that. On the other hand, some of the inquiries that we have, particularly from magnet buyers in the U.S., either for supply or for partnership, give us a great degree of confidence.
Okay, great. I'll leave it there. Thanks, Amanda.
Thanks, Hayden.
Our next question comes from Daniel Morgan at Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Hi, Amanda and team. First question, can I just follow up on that very last thing you said, Amanda, on magnet buyers in the U.S., you know, potentially talking about supply or partnership. Is it possible that you would be considering partnering and going downstream and getting involved in magnet making or metal making? Thank you.
Anything's possible, Daniel, but we would not propose to say very simply, "Oh, let's just jump into magnet making." You know, it is a different technology. It requires a different level of expertise and your sort of manufacturing approach. It looks good on a spreadsheet. It's a bit more challenging to execute effectively. Having said that, you know, there are a number of firms which either do have expertise specifically in that area or have, you know, the sort of material science expertise on which they would be able to build. Thinking about how what that looks like and how that looks, you know, having a rare earth separation facility in the U.S. makes most sense if there is a downstream market.
We have for years worked with downstream processors to ensure that there is a robust outside China supply chain and that's the sort of conversations we're having in the U.S. as well.
Okay. Thank you. Strategy to run the plant for the rest of the year. I mean, you're close to full capacity in the quarter and very much so in March. But you can't run at that level all year without an uplift in processing permits. Was that just, you know, striking while the iron's hot, produce while the price is strong or, you know, what are your plans for the rest of the year? Do you throttle back in the December quarter and do maintenance or something? Thank you.
Our intention is to continue to operate at maximum rates. We have some carryover from the last couple of years, which is definitely helpful, and we continue to engage with our regulators in Malaysia.
Okay. If you did not consume all of your permits last year, you can carry that over. It doesn't get extinguished in a year.
We have some approved carryover, yes.
Okay. Thank you. Just the sales mix. I appreciate that you produced a lot more than I think anyone expected. The average price received per kilo was a little bit lower than I expected. Is it possible to just ask about your sales mix? Did you sell more Lanthanum and Cerium in proportion versus NdPr in the quarter or can you just comment on sales mix?
Yeah. No, it's less about the mix than it is about, you know, sort of the way that our contracts with our customers operate. We had some catch-up deliveries to make on quarter two purchases from some of our very significant customers. You know, the way that this works, we sell at the price that we contract to supply. It often means that, you know, we're sort of slower on the up, but we're also slower on the down. You know, this is just a reflection of the way that our contracts work, which is different from just looking at a spot price on a day-by-day basis.
We remain firmly of the view that having our strong contracts with our key customers is a much better thing for our business and our shareholders than selling into an uncertain spot market.
Okay. That's very clear. Thank you for your answers.
Thanks, Daniel.
Our next question comes from Reg Spencer at Canaccord. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, Amanda and team. I'm not gonna let the opportunity pass by without throwing you another football analogy, so I'm hoping you can help me tackle a couple of questions here, Amanda.
Yeah, right. Okay.
Obviously, construction activity's picked up in Kalgoorlie. I think last quarter we had a discussion around what the capital expenditure rate's going to be as we lead into commissioning. I know that. What was the expenditure in the quarter, if we could sort of back something out around the AUD 30-odd million. When does that CapEx really start to ramp up, and what does that curve look like as we move through the next year and a bit?
Well, I think AUD 30 million is a fair bit to spend, hey. We'll have a much bigger quarter this quarter. I would expect that it's gonna be well in excess of double that. As you look at where we've got to, and I think I've talked about this at the half yearly, I think that we've now committed well in excess of, we've committed to almost all of our equipment, which is around about, you know, sort of AUD 200+ million , and you know, a lot of the civils work as well. We have a very good view of, you know, sort of our pipeline and, you know, how we're going with our contracts versus our original budget.
We got some overs, we've got some unders and, you know, we're still well within the contingency, even with a couple of scope increases on the project.
Okay, great. Thank you. Just very interested in your comments as well, following some of the other guys talking about your production run rates, capacity utilizations. You mentioned that part of the plan at the moment would be to build up a stockpile ahead of commissioning at Kalgoorlie. What kind of inventory build or stockpile would you be looking for as we move into Q1, and how does that gel with how we might look at potential production and sales volumes over the next, you know, nine-12 months?
Quite a big question, Reg. The answer on how big is the stockpile is as big as we can make it. We have isolated an area in Mt Weld where we do have some product already on that stockpile. We are looking at other options for opportunities to store additional material. It's interesting to note that we probably had more on the stockpile at the end of last quarter than we do this quarter. We've had to key into some of it to continue to. Well, we've actually increased our concentrate inventory on site in Malaysia for the reasons that we've discussed previously. You know, with sort of uncertain logistics, et cetera. The fact that we had already started building that stockpile is an important part of that.
We would expect that we'll have, at a minimum, you know, sort of maybe a quarter's worth of two cracking and leaching plants operating with Kalgoorlie in ramp-up mode. It's not gonna require twice as much, but it's certainly gonna require that we've got material to feed it. You know, Mt Weld has got a lot of our love and attention at present in terms of really being able to grow our throughput. And that's how do we, you know, sort of incrementally increase the amount that we're pulling out of there, but then also how do we make a step change?
Okay. As we get closer to when Kalgoorlie commissions, you know, if we are seeing any major increase in production rates, it's not as if all of that's gonna initially be sold. You know, you need some material to for commissioning, obviously, Kalgoorlie. That makes sense. Just one last question for you, Amanda. Comments around strong demand, I think we all kind of get what's going on there. Are you able to help me, and maybe one for Pol, but trying to connect the dots between short-term pricing movements and noting that that NdPr price has rolled over, I don't know, 18%-20% over the last few weeks, versus what's happening in demand.
Is this just a short-term shift in you know customer behavior as to how they're thinking about inventory builds, and what that means for price action? Just kind of curious with your comments around that stronger demand don't necessarily gel well with pricing falling over you know 20% in the last month or so.
Yeah, I will let Pol make some comments on this as well, but I would just sort of remind you all, 'cause I know that you've had this experience, you know, you'll tear your hair out if you try to create a perfect time series analysis on the rare earths market connecting supply, demand and price. It is still significantly affected by Chinese government policy. While you know, our evidence is that greater control in the Chinese market leads to improved pricing outcomes. At the same time, you know, some of the rhetoric which has come out of the Chinese government is that they would see that a moderated price would be more beneficial to industry. I think that that's what we've seen just over the last month or so. We don't
You know, we are always alert to the fact that the Chinese government can still, you know, really influence price significantly, which is why we plan our business on the basis that we still need to be able to be successful, even if the price is skinnier than it is at present. But I'll pass to Pol if he has any further comments that he would like to make.
Oh, yeah. I mean, you are very right. Price is decided by Chinese simply because they supply most of the NdPr. Just one point to keep in mind, the fundamentals are unchanged. You have one year of continuous price increase and two weeks of price adjustment. There is no conclusion to draw from a two weeks drop after one year increase. Keep in mind that 30% of the NdPr supply comes from recycling. Recycling factories, you basically collect scrap from magnet making, mainly in China. The way to make money is to buy low and sell high. At some stage, it's all in your speculative mindset, you feel like the price might go down tomorrow, you sell or you need cash for whatever reason.
These days, probably there are some difficulties in the Chinese economy, so you sell your inventory of ex-recycling production. That is substantial. There is not so many markets that include the 30% loop of recycled product. That often explains the short-term variations and the discrepancy sometimes between supply, demand, and price trend, because simply you have this 30% that can be accumulated when people feel like the price will continue going up, and when they worry, they sell, they cash in, and then you have a short term, a bit of a supply that is not changing the fundamentals.
That makes sense. Amanda, Pol, thank you for that. That 30% recycling number is a little larger than I might have understood, but perhaps we can take the conversation offline.
People may say 25%, 30%. Doesn't change a lot. It's still a
So, so-
Okay.
Just to bear in mind, that's not from end of life products. That's from when you
Swath
...when you make a-
The waste. Yep.
When you shape it's the offcuts of the magnet, basically.
Yep.
It can be held and taken into the magnet making supply chain as those who are holding that material too. You know, like I said, Reg, you know, we're highly alert to the fact that the price is always responsive to Chinese government policy. The second thing that we see over many years, it's also, you know, highly responsive to speculation and, you know, sort of within the supply chain as well. Pol's point, the fundamentals are strong, and we expect the fundamentals will remain strong. Who would have thought that we'd be looking at a $130 a kilo price and saying, "Oh, gosh, isn't the price a bit soft?
That is true. Thanks, guys. I'll pass it on.
Our next question comes from Trent Allen at CLSA. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. Good result. Well, congratulations. Most of the good questions have been asked, so I'll just. I'm curious, I think you referred to this before, sales revenue does exceed cash receipts. Can we expect that to rebalance over the next couple of quarters, and then eventually cash receipts exceed revenue? Is that the way it works? That's my first question.
Oh, sure. We have, I think, in the history of our company, zero bad debt, so the invoice will always ultimately convert to cash. And-
Sure. How long will it take, though? Is it the current quarter or, does it arrive in a rush or does it kind of sort of smooth its way through over the next few quarters?
I'm looking at today's forecast, which has a pretty big number in for April, actually.
Sure. Okay. Thanks. Now, my second question is just out of interest around your interest payments. Of course, $11.5 million, not too much money for you guys these days, but you've deferred it. Is that just a gesture of goodwill from JARE or what's the reason for it?
Look, as we indicated in the release, we continue to talk with JARE about our you know, our partnership moving forward. As I've indicated, we've got plenty of areas where we want to continue to develop the business, all of which helps to secure supply chains for the Japanese industry. As we're looking at those and opportunities for continued development of the JARE partnership, we reached the decision that it was best to just push this out while we completed some of those discussions.
Sure, I can read between those lines. Thank you. That's all. Thanks.
Thanks, Trent.
Our next question comes from Robert Richardson at Clearview Retirement. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Amanda, and congratulations on your blinder of a quarter.
Yeah. Hi, Bob. Thanks. I felt you must be coming on to ask a question because you had, you know, another analogy to throw in, yeah?
Most of my concerns have been addressed. I'm encouraged to hear of progress with the sort of discussions in Washington that you mentioned. Would I be correct in assuming that for practical political reasons, greater U.S. independence from China?
Rare earth sources must lie with building facilities inside USA rather than here or Malaysia?
I think that politically that's definitely the choice. On the other hand, we're keen to ensure that everyone understands that any short-term demand, and I mean anything in under sort of about a three-year timeframe, has to come from the Malaysian facility. Everyone should be interested in what goes on in Malaysia.
Okay. Lastly then, does it look as though we're nearing the end of the cap that you've had for so long on production?
Pol and his team in Malaysia are absolutely delivering an outstanding ongoing performance. It's certainly our intent to continue that. In both locations in Malaysia and also in W.A., we're continuing to deal with COVID restrictions that we're not seeing quite so much of, say, for example, on the east coast of Australia. Anyway, you know this, I never give guidance. I'm loath to give guidance, but you know, the plant's running well. We've got strategies in place to deal with, you know, sort of the most difficult of the external conditions. We're very pleased with the third quarter's production performance.
Thanks very much, Amanda.
Thanks, Bob. Hope you're well.
As a reminder, it is star one to ask a question. Our next question comes from Tim Ainsworth at Telthame. Please go ahead.
Hi, Amanda. Just circling back to some comments that you and Pol made, it was over 18 months ago. Sorry, over 12 months ago. I can't remember exactly when. You noted that you weren't seeing any expansion of ex-Chinese magnet makers, which would be, that obviously included the Japanese mag makers. Has that changed? Are you seeing any signs of capacity increases in the Western magnet makers?
Hi, Tim. Nice to hear from you. Certainly Japanese magnet makers are increasing capacity. I'll let Pol once again talk to that specifically.
I'm not sure I can disclose what our customers are doing, but there is at least one magnet maker from Japan increasing substantially their production capacity, and that's the reason why our demand increased so much recently. I don't think I can mention more detail than that. Hi, Tim. Nice to talk to you.
Hi, Pol. Is there anything outside of your principal customers, the Japanese mag makers? Are you seeing anything in Europe or America or any solid plans towards initiating some NdFeB capacity?
There are some conversations that are more serious than before. There are some real projects being studied, but they are being studied. They are not building the facility yet, whereas the Japanese are. For the Japanese, it's a matter of months, whereas for others it's probably a matter of one to two years.
Yeah. Okay. Well, that's encouraging. Thank you.
Yep.
Thanks, Tim.
Thank you. We have no further questions. Amanda, I'll pass it back to you. Thank you.
Well, thank you, all. Referee's blown the whistle. Now, I promise not to subject you to this again. I'll find a different analogy. Thanks for your continued interest and support and we're looking forward to bringing it home through to the end of the financial year.
Thanks very much. Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude the call for today. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.