Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Nickel Industries Limited December quarter results webcast. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer section. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Justin Werner, Managing Director. Please go ahead.
Everyone for joining the December quarterly results presentation. Slide person, could you move to slide number two, please? I'm very pleased again to report another record quarter, in excess of 23,000 tons of nickel metal produced. Apologies, slide number two, so the next slide, please. which is up considerably on the 20,000 tons that the that was produced in the September quarter. And that's really we're seeing that from the contribution from ANI. Pleasingly, we also saw very good production in our nickel matte and very strong margins from our nickel matte. As a result, RKEF EBITDA of $90 million.
As I mentioned, the margins on our nickel matte almost $6,000 a ton, and over $4,000 a ton for Angel Nickel. You can clearly see there the results of having the integrated power plant that we have at Angel Nickel. Now with Oracle coming online, you know, expect that 23,000 tons to continue to grow significantly. At the mine, also another record, 2.7 million tons of ore was mined, and the mine delivered an EBITDA of $16.1 million, which is up over 58% on the last quarter. Underlying cash generation from operations of close to $100 million for the quarter.
As I said, the transition to nickel matte has proven very successful and we are currently enjoying very, very strong margins there. Finally, as I mentioned, Oracle, two lines are commissioning, another two over the coming weeks we'll commission and we will start to see the result and impact of additional profitable nickel units coming through with the Oracle commissioning. If we could move to the next slide, please. The table here, it just summarizes those numbers that I've been through, as I said, 23,000 tons in excess, a record. The RKEF sales, RKEF EBITDA and Hengjaya mine production all records as well. If we could just move to slide four please.
You can see here quite clearly, the impact of Angel Nickel, and what that's had on now our nickel units. You can see it's continued to grow from quarter- to- quarter, and we expect to see a similar profile for Oracle Nickel. That 23,000 tons for the quarter will probably likely grow by another sort of 10,000 tons-12,000 tons per quarter. If we could just go to the next slide, please. Slide five, y ou can see here, the margins, and pleasingly, you know, we've seen doubling in EBITDA from the September quarter and also almost a doubling of our EBITDA per ton margins back to sort of the more historical levels that we've enjoyed.
If we could just go to the next slide please, number six. Mentioned record quarter for the Hengjaya mine, 2.7 million tons. You could see both the saprolite business and the limonite business currently making, you know, very strong margins, you know, almost $20 a ton on our saprolite and more than $10 a ton on our limonite. Pleasingly, the haul road, which will link up our Hengjaya mine to IMIP is progressing very well, and we hope to be able to commission and start using that haul road by the end of the second quarter.
Just finally, the Hengjaya mine was awarded a Green PROPER rating from the Indonesian Environmental Authority, one of only two mines to have received that award. We're very proud of that. The other mine is Vale Inco, and it's in recognition of not just meeting, but exceeding, environmental and ESG standards. As I said, it's a tremendous achievement given that we are one of only two mines in Indonesia to have been awarded that rating. If we could just move to the next slide, please. Just to refresh on, we did update the JORC resource in the September quarter.
Again, on this slide here, if you could just go to slide seven, please, you can see 3.7 million tons of contained nickel metal. We still have probably another 500 hectares that is prospective. That number potentially could continue to grow. You can see there that puts us amongst the top 10 global known nickel resources. We mentioned in the recent raising that new mine acquisitions, and we are working on those, and we will look to grow from that 3.7 million tons of contained nickel metal.
Ideally, we would like to sort of situate ourselves right at the very top of that, top of that curve in terms of known nickel resources that NIC would have control of. If we could just move to slide eight, please. Post the quarter, in fact, only sort of one to two weeks ago, we finalized the electric vehicle battery supply chain strategic framework agreement with our large shareholder, Shanghai Decent. There's a number of elements to it really is a transformational transaction for the company and it will diversify us into the class 1 nickel space. Could eventually see sort of two thirds of NIC's production being class 1 EV suitable nickel and cobalt battery metals.
The elements to the agreement, there is a 10% acquisition of the Huayou Nickel Cobalt HPAL, which is for $270 million, and they've elected to take that in NIC shares, obviously subject to shareholder and further approval. The HNC HPAL project is the world's lowest capital intensity, fastest build, fastest ramp-up, and has very low carbon intensity, less than 10 tons of carbon per ton of nickel. In fact, it sits at around seven. How they achieve that is it has the world's largest sulfuric acid plant, which generates a lot of heat, which is obviously then turned into power. The first element of that agreement is the acquisition of 10% in that HNC project.
Importantly, it gives us access to 10% of the MHP that's produced, so we will have marketable MHP of about 6,000 tons per annum. It allows investors to get a see-through into what a successful HPAL plant looks like and how it operates. It sits at the very bottom end of the cost curve and has, you know, enjoyed margins up to and in excess of $10,000 a ton. You know, it is a very profitable business. We're also acquiring another 10% in Oracle Nickel for $75 million. That is the same price that we paid almost 14 months ago and is certainly cheaper than some of the more recent transactions that have been done in the market.
The other elements of the framework agreement are 2 options. The first one is $25 million for the construction of a HPAL plant where NIC would have the opportunity to take a majority. That plant will actually go further than just producing MHP. It will go right down to nickel sulfate or nickel cathode to allow, you know, more of the margin capture. The second option, $15 million, to construct a low-grade to high-grade nickel matte converter for Oracle Nickel. You've seen this quarter the very strong margins of sort of $5,950 a ton from the nickel matte business.
The transaction was funded by a recent capital raise, which was fully underwritten and very heavily oversubscribed. We had very good support from existing and new shareholders, and we have now just launched a share purchase plan for retail shareholders to also participate in what we see as a very exciting transaction for the company. As I said earlier in the call, something that will set us up to be a significant producer of class 1 nickel, but also make us the only diversified nickel producer. A number of nickel products, NPI, nickel matte, MHP, and potentially in the future, nickel sulfate or nickel cathode. I'll end the presentation there and happy to turn over to any questions anyone has.
Thank you. If you wish to ask the question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel a request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. We will now pause for a brief moment while waiting on some questions to be registered. Once again, if you wish to ask the question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your first question comes from David Coates from Bell Potter Securities. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Justin. Thanks for the presentation, and congratulations on a really, really strong December quarter result. Really starting to show the benefits of some of your strategic decisions. Just, and on that, you know, the benefit of going down the nickel matte path has been shown. With that diversified production that you just sort of pointed out, you guys will be the only sort of producer with that you know, different product exposure. How do you, how do you see the margins or the outlook for the margins in those different markets over the next six to 12 months? Do you have much visibility on that? Obviously, good margin in nickel matte at the moment, but just sort of see. You know, improved margins in the NPI markets. You know, what's your outlook for those different markets in the next six to 12 months, do you think?
Thanks, Coates. We've certainly seen an improvement in NPI pricing and look, that's probably predominantly driven by China opening up, you know, which was always gonna happen. Look, I think we're expecting stable NPI pricing moving forward. Obviously the decision to, you know, as I said, integrate and have that power, you can see the difference, you know, HNI margins are sort of $2,000 a ton. Angel Nickel margins are, you know, over $4,000 a ton. There's a clear advantage in having that integrated power. Coming back to your question, NPI, we see as stable. Nickel matte is obviously very strong.
The margins that, based on the analysis that we've done, that we're seeing in MHP also look very strong. Whilst MHP sort of payability has perhaps been coming down, I think it's just probably important to remember that, you know, the price, the net price received is sort of still around, you know, $20,000 a ton. You know, if your OpEx is $10,000 and less, you know, that's where those strong margins come from. T he next six to 12 months, we looking forward to sort of stable pricing across NPI and even LME and SHFE.
Excellent. Just another question on that diversified with those diversified products, are you guys, you know, looking to diversify your customer base as well? Like or sort of sell direct to, you know, other customers yourselves? Or will you largely sort of continue to sell through the, you know, sort of, SBI/Tsingshan's existing customer base and through them?
Look, we have the opportunity at the end of March to seek other buyers for our nickel matte. We're sort of in the process of doing that. For our MHP and the acquisition of 10% of HNC, we also have the freedom there to market that to whoever we choose. Yeah, look, the number of discussions and dialogue is, has already commenced with potential offtakers. You're right, it will diversify our customer base. Look, we don't see Tsingshan as a risk, but, you know, the ratings agencies, people like that, see, you know, single customer exposure as a risk. It certainly will give us, you know, diversification.
Excellent. Thanks so much Justin. Cheers.
Thanks Coates.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Werner for some closing remarks.
Look, just to close again, you know, very pleasingly another record quarter. I can't talk enough about achieving the Green PROPER rating. It's a tremendous achievement, you know, and I think reflective of the fact that our Hengjaya mine has now become a showpiece to sustainable and responsible mining. It is very important, particularly, you know, as we now make this transition into the class 1 and EV battery space, all investors are taking a very keen interest in upstream and what is happening, where the ore is sourced from and how it's mined. A s I said, we see that as a tremendous achievement.
We're also very excited by the most recent transaction, which as I said, has been well received by the market. We'll see, you know, NIC further diversify and also, you know, look to reduce our carbon footprint given the very low carbon intensity of an HPAL. W ith the HPAL deal, as with all of our deals with Tsings han, it comes with a CapEx guarantee. I can't overstate how important that is as well, particularly if you look around the market recently, the number of CapEx blowouts that have been announced by several major companies, you know, in the battery material space, have been significant.
You know, some of them have been in the order of, you know, 100% or doubling of the original forecast CapEx. To have that guarantee, we also see as extremely valuable. We look forward to another strong quarter for the March quarter. Thank you all again for your time.
Thank you. That does now conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.