Today, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Lynas Rare Earths quarterly results briefing. At this time, all participants are in the listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question, and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one on your telephone. I'll now like to hand the call over to Lynas Rare Earths. Please go ahead.
Good morning and welcome to the Lynas Rare Earths quarterly investor briefing for the quarter ending 30 June 2022. Today's briefing will be presented by Amanda Lacaze, CEO and Managing Director. Joining Amanda, Gaudenz Sturzenegger, CFO, and Sarah Leonard, General Counsel and Company Secretary. I'll now hand over to Amanda.
Thanks, Jen. Good morning, everybody. I have the benefit of seeing how many people are on the call, and we've just about cracked a ton again. Clearly people are interested in on a Monday morning in what's going on at Lynas. Of course, what a great year. You know, this is the last quarter of what's been an excellent year. As you look at the report and see the, you know, sort of the evolution from the Q1 through to the fourth quarter, you can see that. About AUD 950 million in sales, and of course, just for everybody, I want you to know that these are unaudited sales results. We will put those through when we put out the full year results.
Nonetheless, about AUD 950 million in sales and finished the year with AUD 965 million in cash, while, you know, sort of spending quite a bit of money on our growth projects through the quarter. This does set us up excellently for ongoing growth projects as we seek to ensure that we grow at a minimum with the market in the years to come. Of course, during the quarter, we had the, you know, small triumph of the U.S. project, the award for the phase II to phase IV of the HRE funding, the first heavy rare earth separation plant outside of China that has been built in many years. As the report states, we were a little disappointed with our production outcomes.
We started the quarter really with the wind behind us and with a great deal of confidence. Water, which, you know, pun intended, has been bubbling away in the background as an issue in Malaysia for several years, really created a lot of challenges for us this quarter. The team there has really demonstrated their very best can-do attitude as far as water is concerned. Those who've been with us for a while will remember about three or four years ago, we built another process water pond, so we have the ability to have a lot of storage on site. We also have run pipes to some local, you know, sort of water storage locations, and we've put in water treatment solutions to ensure that we can use those in our production process.
This quarter's outages were so significant that they did actually cause us to have to shut down production on more than one occasion. The team, once again, though, with their fabulous can-do attitude, has really, you know, been looking at, and this is part of our sustainability program anyway, how can we continuously reduce the amount of water that we use so that this is no longer such a risk in the business. We are this month implementing a new change which has the objective of reducing our water consumption by about 40%. So hopefully that will give us further protection. Frankly, if there's no water coming through the pipes and there's no water coming out the sky, it can be very difficult even with the best recycling technologies in place.
Having said that, still an excellent outcome in terms of production. It was only, you know, some 90 tons less than last quarter, and last quarter was our record. Price continued to hold up despite some of the inside China market dynamics. Of course, with all minerals companies, there's a lot of discussion at present about what's going on with costs, and input costs in particular, and we've not been immune to these. As you will see, some of our costs have gone up by, you know, up to, I think one of them went up by about 70%, but on average about 20% increase in our chemical reagents that we use in the process.
That just once again reinvigorates all of our initiatives which are targeted at improving efficient use of chemicals. The team is working on various different projects, including opportunities to recycle chemicals within the process. Once again, to ensure that we keep our muscle in terms of cost and don't just sort of get thrown around with some of those cost increases. Having said that, recently we've seen some moderation of that, and so we hope that that will continue. The growth projects, well, you know, Kalgoorlie, I've been there several times during the quarter. The fabulous service that is offered these days by the airlines saw me actually sleep there with half a dozen of my colleagues and another 120 of my closest friends. That was in the Kalgoorlie Airport terminal.
I wouldn't really recommend it. It's not the most comfortable of places to spend an evening. It was still worth it to see our site as it's developing. I know that some of the people on the call today will be at Diggers & Dealers in a couple of weeks' time. We will be running bus tours. People won't be able to get off the buses on site because we've got a lot of people doing a lot of work there at present. Gee, it's really exciting. I happened to be there one of the days when we were lifting one of the kiln pieces into place, and that was pretty exciting. We've now got all five of them in place. The kiln's been rotated for the first time.
The welding process is afoot, and we have just, you know, every time I'm there, and I've been there every, you know, sort of maybe only 10 days apart at different times during the quarter, I can see a difference. We have shared, for those who won't have a chance to see it, some photos of the site, so you can see just, you know, sort of how much progress is being made. The big process water tank there was pretty exciting to see that as it was constructed and lifted for each phase. Things are moving along very smartly in Kalgoorlie.
Of course, as I've indicated before, the U.S. award of the phase two to phase four for the heavy rare earths is very exciting for our company, and we look forward to moving that project along. Really a very good year. We're excited to be entering the new financial year. The market continues to evidence significant growth. We're seeing accelerated uptake of many of the technologies in which rare earths are essential, including, of course, the famous electric vehicles, but also wind, automation, and electronics. As I said before, our challenge is to grow as fast as the market is growing.
You can see some of the projects that we're doing to be able to underpin our ability to continue to serve the increased demand of the customers we have today and the firms who would like to be customers of Lynas in the future. With that, I'm very happy to take any questions.
Thank you. At this time, we'll begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask question, please press star one on your telephone ,and wait for a name to be announced. There may be a short silence while questions are being collected. Once again, to ask question, please press star one. First question comes from the line of David Deckelbaum from Cowen. Please go ahead.
Morning, Amanda. Thank you for the time today.
Morning, David. Nice to hear from you. I guess it's evening for you, though, isn't it?
It is. No better way to spend a Sunday evening. I wanted to talk about just the water consumption tweaks in Malaysia. Can you just talk through it seems like you've experienced this issue in the past. Why wouldn't have this initiative been undertaken sooner? Is there a trade-off that you anticipate with operations on selling sort of total REO concentrate versus the NdPr? 'Cause certainly the NdPr volumes held up relatively well in this quarter.
Yeah. This has been various iterations of these challenges, and we've implemented a lot of initiatives to improve our ability to withstand some of the changes from the local water supplier. Way back when I, you know, relatively early on when I was living in Malaysia was the first time we had a water outage in Kuantan. It was not just industrial, it was residential as well. I was sort of looking around thinking, "Gosh, can I get buckets of water out of the swimming pool to put into the toilet systems?" Then I discovered that in fact there was a water storage tank in the ceiling, which is pretty common.
That just gives you a sense for the fact that people have an expectation that there may be outages. They have varied the reasons for the outages from dikes collapsing in the dams or pumps not working as efficiently as they could do. There's always another reason for it, but the outcome is that for someone who uses a lot of water as we do, it's very challenging. We have three very large process water storage ponds on site. The third was built in, I think it was 2017, after we'd had a previous, you know, really sort of challenging period.
As well as that there were some disused pits sort of close to the plant, and we've set up pipes from there so that we can bring in water from those areas as well. Why didn't we put the recycle in previously? Well, it's just part of an ongoing schedule of improvements that we have. It's a little more complex than running a pipe from a local, you know, sort of water catchment area. You know, the team has been working on it for some time, and it's being executed actually this month. We expect that that should be an excellent outcome for us.
Still, as I said, when the supply is as disrupted, you know, at times almost nothing coming down the pipe, it is challenging to be able to respond to that. You're right, absolutely. We have prioritized when we are, you know, sort of, limited on water, when we're rationing it, we absolutely have prioritized the NdPr production rather than the other materials. We prioritize NdPr. Secondarily, we prioritize the SEG that we produce and then the lanthanum and the cerium after that.
I appreciate that, Amanda. So I guess would it stand to reason that we would see an inordinately high number of REO produced in the subsequent quarter? Should things just be normalizing as this new process is instituted?
No, we won't see an inordinately high production because we have other constraints on the amount that we can produce downstream for our lanthanum. And cerium materials. Even if we've got it all coming from the upstream SX into product finishing. There is a ceiling on the amount that we can precipitate and either produce as a carbonate or an oxide.
Thanks, Amanda. I'll let some others ask some and hopefully reach you later.
Thanks, David.
Thank you for the questions. Once again, to ask question, please press star one. The next question comes from the line of Daniel Morgan from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Oh, hi, Amanda and team. You did spend a little bit of time talking about growth and, you know, in your report you outlined that you expect the market to perhaps double over 10 years to 2030. If you were to outline further growth, can you just talk about the bottlenecks in your Lynas 2025 footprint you will have? And where might you think about investing? Is it mostly you'll need to invest in Mount Weld? Is there surplus capacity that is being built in Kalgoorlie? You know, might you invest further in the US? Thank you.
Thanks, Daniel. Yes, we are very well progressed, and we'll provide more detail on this as we move through. Yes, as we identified, I think all the way back in 2019, the next step up, significant step up in capacity is not a debottlenecking task. Primarily it is a, you know, we actually have to make some substantive steps. Mount Weld, certainly, continuing to explore the Mount Weld ore body is important. We have more than 25-year mine life at present. And we have excellent prospectivity for increasing that mine life.
Last week, or the week before last, I was out at Mount Weld and, you know, walking along the bottom of the pit, sort of looking at some of the different areas and what we know about, you know, sort of the grade of the material. Yes, we will be making investments in exploration and processing at Mount Weld, as we move through the ore body. Yes, we've got the uplift that we get out of Kalgoorlie. Yes, we will be looking at opportunities to further develop our existing facility in Malaysia. Also, the U.S. investment is pure growth.
Thank you. In any investments, what are the major permitting bottlenecks that you might face in the various regions?
Permits everywhere take time. Right. I actually talked a little bit about this last week as well. Even at Mount Weld, as we think about Mount Weld, the work that we need to do there requires us to increase our disturbance envelope and there's, you know, that just takes time. Out at Mount Weld, as you know, you've been there, we don't have a lot of close neighbors. We don't have any remarkable flora or fauna, but nonetheless, it still just takes time to do the work. We don't see any showstopper in terms of permitting. We just see that it's a process that maybe takes longer than we think for the benefit.
That, you know, we are a, you know, a company that really focuses on sustainability. It's one of our core values. We don't seek to get permits to do things which are going to rape, pillage, and plunder. We actually want to do things in a responsible and, you know, as responsible a fashion as is possible. We would like to see more streamlined permitting processes really everywhere. It's not specific to any particular geography in which we operate.
Thank you. The Malaysian press has, at times, written about that you're seeking to amend the requirement to cease cracking, and leaching in Malaysia from time to time. Is this something that is, you know, you're definitely seeking and on the table, and is there a point at which you have to go, "Okay, well, you know, that's an opportunity for us," or, you know, might a decision not be made and you have to go, "Right, well, we have to expand our footprint without, you know, Malaysia helping"?
Our position has always been that the Malaysian operations have been a bit of a political football. They are maybe the most reviewed industrial operation in Malaysia. There's been four separate scientific reviews, none of which have recommended shutting down any part of the plant. Indeed, each of those reviews has found that Lynas is compliant with all regulations, and that the operations are intrinsically low risk. We don't think there is any evidence for the conditions which were applied to the most recent renewal of the license. We continue to engage with the local regulators on that basis.
Just a last question on that water issue, which has, you know, been an impact during the quarter. Has the issue of water availability extended into, you know, this quarter? i.e., should we expect that the September quarter is still gonna be impacted by this? I imagine that the 40% target you're seeking to reduce freshwater use, you know, that is not a costless thing, i.e., you'd be doing it in the normal course of business if it was. What is the cost in dollars or efficiencies or, you know, why haven't you enacted this in the past? Thank you.
Why haven't we enacted it? Just because we have it hasn't been the highest priority initiative on site, you know. As with anything, you can't do everything all at the same time. We've had other things where we might, and even as we talk about water management. Where we've been able to get bigger benefits by focusing our efforts in those areas. It has been on our to-do list for a little while, and now it is at the top of the to-do list. Of course, it is beneficial. Any opportunity to recycle. This is recycling the water that we're talking about, is clearly going to, you know, be. Well, we think about it, reduce, reuse, recycle.
Recycling water or, you know, at some time in the future, we're hoping that we'll be able to identify a process where we'll be able to recycle chemicals, for example, is beneficial in the business. There's no magic to why it wasn't done any time sooner. It's just been a case of having the resources available to do the work, where those resources may have been doing other work that we saw at the time as being higher value add. Really, that's the situation. Will it continue? Possibly. It's unpredictable. That's the biggest issue, which is why we've put in all of these strategies to mitigate the risk. It's unpredictable.
You know, one day we might be getting 600 cubes an hour, and the next day we might be getting 50 cubes an hour. So it's the unpredictability, which is the challenge. That's why we're trying to buffer that with as we talk about this over, you know, sort of a journey starting with increased, you know, sort of storage on site through to now, you know, sort of the greater recycling.
Okay, thank you very much.
Thanks.
Thank you for the questions. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one and wait for your name to be announced.
No questions?
Once again, to ask question, please press star one and wait for your name to be announced. Follow-up questions from David Deckelbaum. Please go ahead.
Amanda, didn't expect to be back so soon, but.
No, no. Everyone's very quiet today, David.
Yeah, well, at least, you have plenty of apt listeners out there. I'd like just some comments around the market. When you think about the Q1 or the June quarter rather, your Q4 , obviously some impact from COVID-related shutdowns in China. Did you get the sense that many of the magnet customers there were, you know, sort of destocking inventory levels that they had around NdPr? Do you foresee sort of a pent-up demand scenario as China potentially reopens into the remainder of summer and then into sort of December quarter there? You know, is this just a, you know, perhaps a bump. Things were normalized, but demand was just at depressed levels.
I'm just trying to get a sense if you have any color around the sort of customer inventory levels relative to norms?
Magnet makers aren't holding a lot of stock, of course, because the price has been as high as it has been over the past 12 months. So we don't see that as being a risk. The situation in China is that the producers have been able, you know, sort of the big production areas like even when Baotou was shut down for a couple of weeks, the northern areas was able to continue production, bearing in mind that it's got an integrated industrial complex there. I think China continues to be unpredictable for as long as the zero-COVID policy persists. But generally speaking, demand is strong, and we're not expecting to see there being any reduction in demand growth, and particularly not in outside China consumers.
Our customers' demand has continued to grow, bearing in mind, as everybody knows, most of our NdPr is sold outside of China, and that demand has continued to be very strong and to grow, right through the last year, and our customers are forecasting continued growth. We also have much more interest from magnet buyers in outside China areas, seeking to secure their raw materials. We see that as a very robust, you know, sort of source of growth for the business as we move forward.
Appreciate the color there. Perhaps just the last one for me. The Lynas 2025 vision, again, congrats on getting the award from the U.S. DoD on the heavies. You know, that's obviously a you know, it's not an enormous separation facility, and it sounds like you all plan to co-locate a light rare earth separation circuit there as well along the Gulf Coast. I guess as we think about doubling that production from the 2019 reference level, I know it's in your custom to kind of come to the market when you have something concrete, you know, and you don't necessarily wanna get out ahead of your skis.
When we think about it, do you foresee all of that growth and the ability to match the growth of the market coming all from Mount Weld? Or do you think that there is a requirement to figure out ways to find third-party feedstock?
We actually have a team, David, whose job it is to assess third-party options. There is nothing available today. Even on the most optimistic project plans, there's nothing available within the sort of timeframe that we're talking about. We assess the third-party feed options. You know, we have a database. We do test work when we've got to the stage where we've got enough detail or we've got material. But there's no third-party feedstock available.
However, the additional point on this is that when we have looked at this and we've looked at other sources, that there is nothing at this time where it is more economically beneficial to source from somewhere other than Mount Weld, because the Mount Weld ore body is unique and it's great, and the fact that we're already there sort of puts it well ahead of everything else. We're looking at it. We're happy to process in our new plant configuration. We will be able to accept concentrate, and we will be able to accept Mixed Rare Earth Carbonate. But nobody has material available for us to purchase at this time.
That's helpful color especially certainly as we think about Mount Weld supporting all these feedstock initiatives globally. Thanks again for the time today.
Thanks, David.
Thank you for the questions. Once again, to ask question, please press star one and wait for your name to be announced. The next question comes from the line of Jay Aronson. Please go ahead.
Hi, Amanda. It's Jay from Colorado.
Hey, Jay. How are you?
I'm doing well. How about yourself?
Good, good. Thank you for that lovely gift that you sent. It's got pride of place in the boardroom. For everybody else who doesn't know, Jay found a wonderful gift box with a sample of each of the rare earth elements. It's just lovely. As I said, thank you for thinking of us.
Well, I found that in my travels, and I aaw it, and I thought you guys might appreciate it, so I'm glad you got it.
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. I have a question. I've been reading a little bit about the challenging power grid in Texas. I mean, it's challenging even by Texas standards. It went down last winter and they had rolling blackouts and so on. I'm just wondering, in the planning of this new facility for both the lights and the heavies, is there gonna be some alternative source to mitigate the rolling blackouts and the uncertainty sometimes in the Texas grid, which appears to be getting better?
Oh, Jay, I can't answer that directly right now. At all of our sites, we are looking, you know, at power, and we are looking at the ability to use alternate power sources. You know, as we seek to reduce our emissions intensity over time, certainly finding you know, renewable sources is a key part. In some instances, they can come off the grid. In other instances, we're gonna have to look at, you know, sort of site-specific installations to assist. I'm not close enough right now to some of those issues in Texas. We're still quite a long way, you know, from that being you know, sort of a key issue.
We're just starting our process of finalizing our, you know, sort of the project plan now that we've got approval. Of course, the next step will be the famous permitting process, which will no doubt keep our team very occupied for some time yet.
Okay. Great. Just one other question. The US dollar is getting really strong. I noticed it's on parity with the euro, you know, just recently. Does that really affect, you know, getting a $120 million contract? Does that affect it in any way?
I'm sorry. I just got a message from someone else on the call saying a number of the analysts are trying to register questions and not coming up. Sorry. As we think about the effect of currency, the US dollars grant in the US, we will be spending most of that money in US dollars in the US. So the exchange rate's not gonna be such a big issue. Having said that, you know, we continue to work with the DoD on what might be any changes in the external environment which may affect the costing or otherwise of this facility.
In terms of the rest of our business, generally speaking, a strong U.S., you know, because we've talked about this previously, we operate, you know, the price of rare earths is truly sort of set in renminbi, even though it's reported in U.S. dollars. Of course, we operate in Malaysian ringgit in Malaysia and Australian dollars in Australia. We do get a number of natural hedges. I don't think in the time that I've been here that all of the currencies have been going in the same direction at the same time. I think specifically to your U.S. question, it is U.S. dollars in the U.S., so the exchange rate is less relevant.
Okay. Thanks so much, Amanda. Questions.
We understand that people are having trouble actually, logging to ask a question. Jen's telling me.
It seems to be that unfortunately the Australian dialing number is preventing people, some people from asking questions. Apologies for that. We have been advised that, if you dial in with the US number, it will allow it to, but, it does seem there's an issue with the Australian dialing number at the moment.
Thank you. We do have a question from the line of Paul Young of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Morning, Amanda and team. Yep, I went through the U.S. number and now it's working, so good morning. Amanda, first question is on this water issue again. I still don't follow as to what is the exact issue on the supply. Is this a political issue or is it actually an equipment issue with the supplier?
It's equipment. It's not political. As I said, and it's been a rolling number of issues. Our team is working very closely with the suppliers, Paip. P-A-I-P, not P-I-P-E. When last I was in Malaysia about three weeks ago, I met with the CEO as well. They're, you know, he's assured us that the new pumping system which will be in place in August will make this a thing of the past. But, you know, we are necessarily cautious in believing that there's a magic solution because we've been dealing with this off and on for, as I said, you know, for at least the last six years. It's a rolling number of issues.
You know, it started off the first time that there was an issue, one of the berms in the water storage facility collapsed and needed to be replaced. The latest is really to do with the age of the pumping equipment, and it's being replaced.
Okay, thanks. How do you reduce your water consumption by 40% so quickly? Is it the fact that you weren't recycling any of the processed water?
Well, we have some recycling, but yes, this is a significant step up in recycling in SX. I will just highlight for everyone that the objective is the 40%. It doesn't mean it will do that on day one. You know, these changes always we have to you know sort of phase them through, and we certainly don't want to create you know sort of further challenges for ourselves in terms of throughput. But it is really you know. You know, when we talk about this isn't like just all of a sudden. I mean, we because it is upstream SX where we're doing this, you know, it's either gonna work really. Well, it will work.
We're confident of that, but we did a lot of bench work and tests before implementing this at a plant scale. We go into it with a relatively high degree of confidence.
Yeah. Okay, thanks, Amanda. Then back onto Kalgoorlie and just the timing of that project relative to you know the broader 2025 plan for Lynas. Just an observation, looking at the you know progress on the project in the quarter, some really good progress on mechanical completion, which is great to see the you know sort of erection accelerating there. If I look at it and go, well, I sort of feel like the you know commissioning by sort of March you know or June quarter next year, producing carbonate is gonna be a bit of a stretch. Then again, you know extension of the license in Malaysia will allow you more flexibility to potentially increase you know production beyond the 10,500 tons of NdPr.
In my view, you sort of need both anyway, and I think probably the market's coming to that conclusion. That probably tells me that, you know, you need that license extension, but then the political backdrop and it sounds as though, you know, that's probably a realistic outcome. I guess where am I sort of wrong with that thesis?
Nothing's in the bank quite yet. Certainly anything that allows us to continue to use installed assets is beneficial, and a high-value add for our customers. The world at large, you know, continues to question whether we will execute our projects on time. I would make the point that Lynas is the only non-Chinese producer who has executed its projects on time. You know, we look at the Kalgoorlie facility, we look at our project plan, we look at our ability to execute and get feed on. If we thought that there was a significant gap in that, we of course would disclose that to the market.
Okay. Great. Last question for you, Amanda, is on the US heavy rare earth refiner. I'm trying to think how we think about this, should think about it from perspective of improvement and realized pricing. You said the SEG, the heavies to China at the moment, you must be getting a discount because you're not obviously producing the final oxide product. It will be when you build the refinery in the US, probably cost go up a bit. From a margin perspective and earnings standpoint, it must be positive. How do we think about the improvement in realized pricing across the heavies in particular?
Yeah. Yes, Paul. Whether the thesis is correct, we wouldn't be doing it if we didn't see that the thesis is correct. We wouldn't be doing it if we didn't see that we were going to increase our margin. Well, we might be doing it because of, you know, there will be a margin uplift. The best way for you to think about it is really to think about the costs associated with separation. You can see those in, you know, sort of the Chinese pricing really. You can see, you know, sort of the ongoing costs associated with heavy rare earths separation, and that gives us a sense of, you know, sort of the likely scale of the uplift.
You know, we haven't disclosed a specific number because it also, as you're saying, I mean, we're now in the detailed execution phase and inputs and a variety of other things in the U.S. are going to affect the finally realized margin. Certainly we see that there will be an uplift in our heavies contribution.
Okay. Thanks, Amanda. We'll have to make some assumptions. I'll pass that on. Thanks.
Thanks.
Thank you for the questions. Next question comes from the line of Trent Allen from CLSA. Please go ahead.
Kalgoorlie Airport. I think we've all spent more time there than we would like to, as pleasant as it is. No, I just had a question about just back on the water again. You might have covered this with Paul while I was dialing back in. Do you have a conceptual CapEx number for those changes? Also, might it increase the OpEx at the LAMP? That was my first question.
Yeah. I know the CapEx. The CapEx number, you will not see it as being remarkable within our CapEx spend, so it's within our normal stay in business sort of CapEx allocation. So there's no sort of, you know, AUD millions associated with doing this. The second thing is, actually it should reduce our operating costs, but water's not that expensive in Malaysia, so once again, you won't see that as being a significant outcome. The driver for doing this is because it's gonna give us more stability in process.
Okay.
not cost.
That's cool. I mean, is it reasonable to think, I mean, it might take a little while to ramp up the way these chemical processes do. Might it be finished sort of by the end of this calendar year or earlier than that?
It should be. The process should be, the work required to do this should be completed within this month. You're right. The uncertainty is always, can you just cut over 100% or do you find yourself with some challenges and you have to go back to your previous process while you address those challenges? You know, we've seen that. We see that with any number of initiatives that we do within the business. That's just part of our normal management, and it once again should be invisible to you and to the market. We just should be managing that as part of our change management framework.
Okay. Thanks. Also, Paul touched on the Lynas 2025 and your deadlines there. It looks like Kalgoorlie's tracking pretty well. What about the PDF in Malaysia? You've started construction there. Will that be? You're expecting that to be finished by the deadline next year? And can you remind me of what that is, that time?
The PDF, once again, when I was up there about three weeks ago, we, with the board indeed, toured the PDF site. Really, you know, progress is going very well. The PDF contractor is using a contractor who has done work previously on the Lynas site, so is very familiar with, you know, sort of the design elements and, progress is very good. Yes, we are on track absolutely to timeline and, the first transfer of material into the PDF is scheduled for late next calendar year.
Okay. That's cool. Thank you for that. We'll see you in Kalgoorlie in a few weeks.
Terrific. Thanks, Trent.
Questions. Once again, to ask question, please press star one and wait for your name to be announced.
You know, as we're waiting for questions, Jen, because she's so wonderful, always does a Q&A, you know, and writes down what she thinks are gonna be the really difficult questions that I might be asked and gives me, you know, sort of proposed answers. I'm wondering, since people can't actually get on to ask questions, whether I should ask some of the questions that she's put in there. I think, well, no, 'cause she only includes the really hard questions. Well, one of the questions is that maybe people might be interested to ask is whether the COVID-19 situation in WA and in Malaysia, whether that's having any effect on production. In the quarter just passed, of course, in Malaysia, we've had actually very low caseloads.
Like with so many places, that's increasing now with the new Omicron variant. You know, we have really tried and tested safety protocols to look after the health of our people. They have served us well through the two years of the pandemic, and we expect that will be the case moving forward. We continue to, you know, encourage our people to get their boosters. In WA, once again, we are seeing, you know, sort of continuing relatively high caseloads. Once again, we have well-established protocols that are protecting our people on site. Our people voluntarily continue to wear masks in relevant situations. That really is about ensuring that they're protecting each other as much as it is about protecting themselves.
That was one question I thought that maybe some people would be interested to hear. I hear that we have no more questions. I'm hoping that's not just a technology issue. For any of the analysts that do have questions that they were unable to ask online, please feel free to drop Jen and/or me a call, a line and we will certainly find a way to get back to you today. Thanks, everybody, and have a great week. Thanks, everybody, and-
Gentlemen, that concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating.