Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Nickel Mines December Quarter Results webcast. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. To ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Justin Werner, Managing Director. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and welcome everybody to Nickel Industries December 2021 Quarter Results Call. Before we get into the presentation, I am currently on site, so if we do experience any technical issues, which I hope we won't, Cam Peacock is on the line to step in for me. With that, presenter, if you could just turn to page two. Pleased to report for the December 2021 quarter, our strongest quarter in terms of cash flow generation for 2021, continued consistent production of greater than 10,000 tons of nickel metal. Margins maintained above $6,000 a ton. As I mentioned, record strong underlying cash generation from operations of $67.8 million.
Pleasingly, we had a breakout quarter for the Hengjaya Mine, recorded production of 847,260 wet metric tons with a record EBITDA of $8 million, and the mine continues to increase as a material cash flow contributor. We just announced today and attended the first tap of NPI on the 25th of January for the first line of Angel Nickel. A tremendous result delivered well ahead of schedule, with the remaining three lines to commission over the next 60-90 days. We also during the quarter announced material tax concessions of 10 years of zero tax, a significant improvement on the seven years that we currently have for our HNI and RNI operations.
It again speaks to the significant commitment and support from the Indonesian government in terms of the significant investment that Nickel Industries and its partner Shanghai Decent continue to make in the Indonesian nickel environment. We also during the quarter signed a definitive agreement to acquire a 70% interest in the Oracle Nickel Project, a further four RKEF lines back in the IMIP, and they're actually already under construction and well progressed. An MOU was signed during the quarter, which includes future energy along with HPAL collaborations in the future. We'll be providing more updates on that in terms of the existing HPAL and also some of the nickel matte operations at the end of the call.
An MOU was also signed with SESNA for a 200 MW peak solar project, and that's really the first project in that new future energy collaboration and direction that Nickel Industries is taking. Finally, pleased to declare an AUD 2-cent per share final dividend. If we could move to page three, please. Just a summary of the numbers. As I mentioned, over 10,000 tons, again, a small 26-ton difference with the September quarter. Realized NPI price again improved significantly up to $18,545 from the $16,701 that was realized in September. Again, as I mentioned, strongest cash generation from operations for 2021 at $67.8 million.
You can see that Hengjaya Mine production there, a 46.3% increase on the September quarter. That's a fantastic result. If we could move to page four, please. Again, here you can see in the green and the blue bars, consistent production. Prices did increase or costs did increase over the quarter, driven predominantly by power costs. Although pleasingly, we saw a decline in December from November of about $403 per ton. We saw the sort of peak metallurgical coal costs of $459 in October, reduced to about $313 a ton in December. I think what this really demonstrates is that we've been able to maintain strong margins throughout the cycle.
As I said, it's the EBITDA margin at this time has been maintained. If we move to page five. This is just the Hengjaya Ranger Nickel operation summary. You'll see there that the NPI grades have decreased, which has resulted in a higher payability. Pleasingly, while grades have decreased, we've still been able to maintain basically the same production profile well over 10,000 tons. If we could please move to page six. Here you can see the strong revenues and EBITDA.
Our second half is a record second half, and we expect our full year results for 2021 to be a significant improvement on the $200 million odd EBITDA that we reported in 2020 and look forward to releasing the full year accounts in the coming weeks. Moving to page seven, please. As I said earlier, what this demonstrates is that we've been able to maintain strong margins throughout the cost cycle. You can see there, as I also mentioned, you know, the second half of the year was a record in terms of EBITDA and reflective of the industrial nature of the company's operations. Could move to slide eight, please.
On pricing, as I mentioned, September quarter pricing was $18,545. That was up 11% from the $16,701 in September. If you look at the chart there, the blue is the LME nickel price, the red is what we were paid, and then the green is the Chinese NPI price. If you look at October to November, NPI pricing was actually trading at a premium. It has come off a little bit, but as of today, NPI pricing is sitting around $19,000, LME close to $23,000, still sitting above 80% payability vs LME. Our pricing for the quarter was dragged down a bit by the $17,000 price you can see there in December.
That has picked up with the recent December contract signed at close to $18,000 a ton. As I mentioned, NPI pricing today sitting at close to $19,000 a ton. The other key point I'd make is that during the December quarter, 63% of our NPI sales were within IMIP. For 2022 to date, 100% of our NPI sales have been made within IMIP, and that's reflective of a strong ramping up of stainless steel production within IMIP. If we could just move to page nine, please. A summary of the Hengjaya Mine. As I mentioned, fantastic result, up 46% to 847,000. Limonite sales also commenced.
We sold 98,000 tons of limonite, and we'll provide further details in the next quarter in terms of limonite sales. Could we move to page 10, please? The cash flow waterfall. During the quarter, $25.8 million was retained by Nickel Industries as dividends. $6.5 million was paid out to Shanghai Decent. With the consolidation of Angel Nickel, you can see the $11.5 million of cash that was there on acquisition, and then the construction expense of $42.7 million for the quarter. Opening cash for the quarter was $120.8 million, and closing cash was $137.9 million. If we could move to page 11, please.
Very pleased and excited, obviously, to announce the first NPI tap from Angel Nickel. Very happy to be on site to meet with the Angel Nickel team and the chairman of IWIP who have done an exceptional job. What ANI does when it comes online is it brings our attributable nameplate production capacity to close to 53,000 tons. That puts us just on the heels of BHP. As I said, we've also confirmed material tax concessions of zero corporate tax for 10 years, which frees up a significant amount of free cash flow that we can reinvest into future growth and also pay out a dividend, which we've just also announced. If we could just turn to page 12, please.
On the corporate front, I mentioned the MOU, multifaceted, securing a sort of a framework for future collaboration between Nickel Mines and Shanghai Decent, and the relationship continues to get stronger. A focus on future energy, which is reducing carbon emissions and also looking at pivoting towards more electric vehicle-style products. From that MOU, we immediately converted into a binding agreement for acquisition of the Oracle Nickel Project, another four RKEF lines. What that will do is take our attributable nameplate production capacity to about 78,000 tons. In reality, that will probably be more like 100,000 tons per annum. And that sort of cements us up amongst the top 10 and makes us a globally significant nickel producer.
The independent experts report, again, similar to the Angel Nickel report, for a $750 million consideration or a 100% return to valuation of sort of $1.5 billion. As a result, once again, overwhelming shareholder approval of basically 100% at the EGM that was held on the 25th of January. I've touched on the Angel Nickel project commissioning, and we look forward to the remaining lines commissioning over the next 60-90 days. We've also been busy and focused on acquiring new nickel resources as they increase in value, as evidenced by the Hengjaya Mine. We've signed a CSPA for Tablasufa Nickel project, 5,000-hectare operation production license in West Papua.
That nicely complements the existing MOU that we had for the Siduarsi contract of work, which we're currently progressing into a binding definitive agreement. An MOU was also signed for 200 MW peak solar project within IMIP. The provider is SESNA. They actually are completing a 450 kW peak project at the Hengjaya Mine. There's already a good relationship. They're a local Indonesian party. No capital required from Nickel Mines. Compared to today's coal pricing, the pricing that could be delivered from solar could be some sort of, you know, 20% cheaper. One of the other benefits is that it would be a fixed price contract over 20 years.
Would remove any volatility and doesn't have any inflation escalator there. Then finally, a AUD 0.02 per share final dividend. Record date of 3rd of February, payment date of 10th of February. In summary, again, another very busy quarter, very strong end to the year. Happy to announce a 33% increase in the dividend vs 2020. We continue to grow the company very ambitiously and quickly through responsible funding of the company. The first half of ANI and with the ONI transaction, that will more than triple our current nickel metal production by 2023.
Remembering that both Angel and Oracle Nickel have 20% larger capacity and will have a 20% cost advantage when compared to our existing four lines, HNI and RNI. The tax announcement that I've mentioned, again, just speaks to the commitment of the Indonesian government. When you look at what's happening in Indonesia, it's very exciting. There was a recent announcement of the Kaltara Project, a green industrial park in North Kalimantan, which Tsingshan will be participating in. That already has received investment commitments of $132 billion. Just quickly touching on the nickel market.
Stocks fell 220,000 tons last year, equal to almost 8% of the total market, with analysts reporting a deficit of about 130,000-160,000 tons, depending on who you read. That's expected to continue into the first half of 2022. Average LME nickel price rose from $13,800 in 2020 to $18,874 last year. Year to date, it's already $22,229 for 2022. You know, we're looking forward to this coming year where, you know, in a year's time, we should be set to triple our nickel metal production.
As I said, that will generate significant EBITDA margins, and we look forward to continued growth with Shanghai Decent. Finally, I'd just like to welcome during the quarter, we announced the appointment of our new CFO, Chris Shepherd, who brings a lot of experience and energy to the board and we welcome him onto the Nickel Industries team. Also thank Peter Nightingale for his many years of service to the company as a founder. With that, I'll hand over to Q&A.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star then two. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. The first question today comes from Jack Gabb from BofA. Please go ahead.
Thanks, hi, Justin and team. I guess first question is just on your limonite and also on the road. Can you give us a bit of an update as to how that road is progressing to the IMIP? Then I guess more broadly as you're looking to add limonite resources both around the IMIP and elsewhere, just what's the longer-term goal here in terms of the amount of resources you need? Which I guess relates to then how much HPAL capacity you're potentially looking to get exposure to as well. That's the first question. Thanks.
Yeah. Look, thanks, Jack. So in, obviously, last December quarter, we delivered about 98,000 tons of limonite. That is set to continue into 2022. There has been a bit of an issue with a geotechnical issue at the HPAL plant in their stockpile. So at the moment for January, we're just waiting to restart limonite deliveries, but we expect that to restart soon. We'll be targeting around sort of 100,000 tons of limonite per month delivered to the HPAL plant. They have successfully commissioned their first line. I'm actually going out there to visit the HPAL plant tomorrow. My understanding is that its commissioning is progressing well.
In terms of the haul road, about 60% of the haul road is currently being built. We're in the process of finalizing environmental approval for the remaining 40% and just completing the land acquisition. We're hopeful of that haul road certainly coming online this year. That will allow us to materially increase production from the Hengjaya mine of both saprolite and limonite. Somewhere in the order of probably 5 million tons of saprolite and sort of 3 million tons of limonite once that haul road comes online, and that's the initial numbers. In terms of new resource acquisition, yeah, look, the MOU for the contract of work in Papua, Sulawesi is interesting.
It's geologically different to the other areas of Indonesia, Halmahera and Sulawesi. The geology is more akin to Papua New Guinea, given that it's part of the same island. Obviously in Papua New Guinea, we have the Ramu HPAL, which is probably one of the world's much more successful HPAL plants and last quarter had, you know, costs of less than $2 a pound. We are looking to build the resource base. We actually this year have an exploration budget approved for further drilling of the Hengjaya Mine. We'll look in the second half to make an updated resource announcement. I mean, we're currently sitting on about 1.3 million tons of contained nickel in the ground.
We'll look to significantly grow that, you know. At least sort of five- to six-fold, given obviously the importance of the supply of nickel to RKEF and HPAL operations. To answer your question, you know, obviously the more resources we can secure, the better position it puts us in to secure more RKEF and HPAL lines in the future.
Perfect. Thanks, Justin. That's really helpful. Second question is just on the balance sheet and I guess the pending payments that are coming for Oracle. I guess just curious, when we think about your net cash position, I guess some of the cash is tied down in the various subsidiaries. How much of it is actually available to meet the upcoming payment obligations? Thanks.
Yeah, look, thanks, Jack. It's probably a good opportunity for me to introduce you to Chris. He's on the line. Chris, I'll throw this question over to you.
Mr. Werner, just to let you know, Chris has accidentally disconnected and is rejoining us shortly.
Okay. No problems. Yeah, look, Jack, we have you would've seen in the cash flow waterfalls, obviously at the end of quarter, $137 million in the group USD. The Oracle transaction has been structured in such a way that most of the significant payments are backended to the end of 2022 and also even into early 2023. We have a lot of flexibility in terms of, you know, how we fund the Oracle acquisition. We've made sort of $30 million of payments to date with the strong RKEF generation from our existing operations and obviously Angel Nickel now commissioning early and coming online, and that will be contributing cash flow as well.
I said we have significant flexibility and we've sort of, you know, haven't made a decision on that point in time, given that, as I said, the major large payments don't really come until the back end of this year.
Okay, perfect. Just last question from me is the NPI grade dropped a little bit in the quarter. Was that just a result of what's coming through from the various mines at the moment or anything else?
Yeah, look, that was just to improve the realized pricing. You know, the lower the NPI grade, while it's counterintuitive, we actually do receive better payability. That was just an attempt at improving the payability and obviously looking to maintain that same EBITDA margin that we did for the previous quarter.
That's great. That's all for me. Thanks very much.
Thanks, Jack.
Thank you. The next question comes from Kate McCutcheon from Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi, Justin and team. The cost increases that we saw come through, do you have a sense for how much of that is transient vs structural change? I mean, you still looked a great EBITDA with the higher prices, but I'm interested in how we should think about costs at HNI, RNI going forward.
The main driver of cost increases continues to be power costs. You know, that was up 7.5 cents-10 cents, driven predominantly by thermal coal. Metallurgical coal, as I mentioned, that peaked in about October-November. That has come down significantly. Hence, we saw $400/ton decrease in the December costs vs the November costs. I think, again, what we've demonstrated is that we've been able to get through this cycle and maintain very strong margins. When you look at what's driving the Chinese NPI price, you know, we have a significant advantage with the cost of the ore that we use.
As a result, a Chinese NPI producer currently, their production cost is about $19,000 a ton. You know, you compare that to the sort of $12,000 that we're recording. Look, we don't make, or we're not trying to make any future predictions on what coal will do. I'm sure the analysts have their own decks and own views on that. As I said, I think, you know, what we've been able to achieve, given the cost pressures, is just it highlights the robustness of the business and the fact that we sit at the very bottom end of the cost curve.
Yeah. Understand. Kind of following on from Jack's question, when can we expect the market update on how you're going to fund ONI in terms of debt equity?
Yeah, look, as I said, we have sufficient cash on hand at the moment and we continue to generate monthly significant cash. So look, we have flexibility and so that's something at the appropriate time that we will update. Coming back to the earlier point, you know, the large payments aren't due till the end of this year. With the strong cash flow generation and obviously Angel coming online, we'll see how that performs. The cash generation there, you know, there's no immediate need for us to go and do anything.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from David Coates from Bell Potter Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, Justin. Thanks for the presentation this morning. So a couple from me. Let's see. You've talked a little bit about the costs. One aspect I just wanted to go into a little bit more was the Indonesian coal export ban. Is that having an impact on the price you're paying for local coal? Or are you really sort of still holding to, I guess, sort of international market rates?
Yeah. We've yet to see an impact from that, given that it was sort of really a very short ban of about a month. Yeah, yet to see any impact from that.
It's likely there might be some low costs kind of flow through from that ban. Is that right?
Potentially. Although it obviously isn't in place for very long. You know, I don't think we'll see it. That ban was more designed for domestic SOEs, particularly, you know, PLN, as the electrical utility for Indonesia.
Fair. No problem. Just a quick one on the limonite. You did touch on it. You said we should be seeing you'll be booking sales for the March quarter of this year? And what kind of, I guess, what was the approximate rate you think that will be for 2020, for calendar 2022?
Sorry, David, can you just repeat that?
I'm sorry. Yeah. You'll be booking limonite sales from the current quarter, and
Yep.
Is that at about 100,000 tons a month?
Yep. Yep, that's correct. In terms of the pricing, it is sort of commercial in confidence, but it is a double-digit number. The cost is very small. You know, there is a very healthy margin. Given that, the cost of mining the limonite is already expensed in the saprolite costs, as I said. It's a very nice little margin for us. We'll provide more detail on the limonite sales in the March quarter.
Excellent. Thank you. One final question. I'm not sure how much you can give us on this, but do you have to guide us at all on the ramp-up schedule at Angel? Obviously great, fantastic result, but it's coming pretty much a quarter ahead of even accelerated expectations. Can you convey any thoughts on when we might see the first full quarter of production out of Angel?
Yeah. The next sort of 60- 90 days will be bringing on the remaining three lines. The power plant we're still targeting to be finished by September. As a result, what that will mean is, given the already significant number of lines in operation and limited power, we'll probably be running at about 60% of nameplate up until the point that the power comes online in September. Moving forward from about October of this year, we'd expect to be sort of at 100% of nameplate. As you know, you know, Hengjaya typically tends to be nameplate, but I think that's a safe number to use.
You know, sort of in the next 60-90 days to bring everything online. RNI, call it 90 days, looking at running at about 60% of nameplate capacity and then full ramp up to 100%, at around sort of October this year.
Nice one. Thank you very much. That's all from me. Cheers.
Thanks Coates.
The next question comes from Dylan Kelly from Ord Minnett. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, gents. Two questions from me. Just the first one, apologies if we have to go back over this again. Just want to understand the payability uplift that you get when the NPI grades come down. I understand it's slightly counterintuitive. If we're going from about, let's call it, you know, 13.5% to, in the mid, what 12.5 or 12.7, what's that payoff or how should we be thinking about things in terms of the payability lift at the back end or the realizations jumping and how do we think about that going forward?
Is this just a short-term program just to see if the plants can run at this or is this something that we should be running forward?
Yeah. The NPI pricing that we quote is sort of, you know, 8%-12%. We obviously produce significantly higher than that. We have in some instances produced up to 15%. Once you start to exceed that 12% grade, you start to attract penalty. The reason for that is that above 12% grade, that's actually above the grade of 300 series stainless steels. 300 series stainless is about 12% nickel, which means as a result, stainless steel producers have to blend down the nickel grade in the stainless either using iron ore, obviously quite expensive or using a lower grade nickel pig iron.
As the nickel pig iron grades increase, that discount that you receive actually increases as well to the point where, you know, it can be as high as a couple of hundred dollars off the the NPI price. The trade-off there is that obviously if you produce a higher NPI grade. That results in more net nickel tons produced. It's really the trade-off between are we going for more nickel tons at a lower margin or are we going for lower nickel tons at a higher margin, which you can achieve by producing a lower grade NPI, which attracts a lower discount.
Okay. That's well explained. I think I might come back offline and just try to work through some of the moving parts on,
Yeah. Yeah.
The various benchmarks ... 'cause it seems quite intricate. That's fine. Just, we've discussed a little bit about the two new deposits in West Papua.
I just wanted to know if there's, you know, is it too early to be thinking about here, is this being simply like a DSO operation, feeding back into, the various plants in parts of Indonesia, or should we be, like or is there any indication about Tsingshan, generating a bit of a beachhead in that part of West Papua, for downstream processing?
Yeah, no, it's a good question, and I think West Papua has the potential as an emerging nickel processing province. You know, it is quite well endowed with nickel laterite resources. Not of the same grade as you see in Sulawesi and Halmahera, but in terms of and particularly the quality of limonite, there are very high cobalt grades. Again, coming back to Ramu, you know, less than $2 per pound proven operating HPAL plant that's been operating very successfully. The other thing is obviously with the increase in LME nickel price and the increase in oil prices, the acquisition of nickel projects or nickel project values have increased. The acquisitions that we made in Papua quite opportunistic. Very good value.
Yeah, look, to answer your question, certainly it is potentially an area that we are focused on with Tsingshan as an emerging province where we can get a foothold cheaply on the significant resources.
Agreed. Any problems trying to mobilize in that part of the world to try to get rigs on the ground and perform a, you know, resource update? Could you just walk us through the timeline for that?
Now, look, pleasingly our Sulawesi contract of work, which we have announced an MOU on, we've already completed 32 holes of drilling. In fact, we've just as part of the due diligence, we've just increased to two drill rigs now. We've had very good local support, so absolutely no issues. I think that's a result of, you know, people are seeing the significant benefits that, you know, this type of investment and development can bring. You know, just returning from IWIP, you know, that now is sort of a workforce of 31,000, and, you know, that labor is predominantly all local from the surrounding communities.
You know, just to give you an anecdotal evidence, we went up there. I went up there with some environmental consultants who were staying on to go to a dive resort up there and the guy said, "Look, I've got to apologize. You know, we can't offer you any meals. We can't offer you that because basically all our staff have left to go and work at IWIP." You know, that's the sort of opportunities that it's bringing.
Sounds like a good news story. Excellent. I'll pass it along.
Yep. No worries. Thanks, Kelly.
Thank you. The next question comes from Hayden Bairstow from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Morning, Justin. Hope you're well, mate. Just, a couple from me. Just on the chart on price realizations, just keen to understand what NPI grade you're actually going to be targeting from now on, and will that mean that we'll get this sort of ongoing slight discount vs the average NPI price, going forward? Or if you tighten up the grade a bit more, that should start to look pretty similar?
Yeah. I think the target is moving forward for about that 12%-13% grade. It makes sense, as we did in the December quarter of 2020, when costs were very low, to increase, and we were producing at sort of close to 16%. In that sort of environment, it's more beneficial to produce a higher grade. In this environment where you do have some cost pressures, decreasing the grade to improve the payability delivers a better result. We'll look sort of moving forward at sort of 12%-13%. There's obviously still, you know, coal prices are still elevated. Where they'll move to for 2022, you know, we don't really know.
We're not sort of trying to make predictions, but you know, that will be the focus in terms of our NPI grade for at least this quarter and moving forward. I would add just as an update to people, obviously Tsingshan announced the successful sale of nickel matte from the first two RKEF lines. We are still in very close communication with Tsingshan as to when might be the appropriate time for us to transition to converting two lines to the production of nickel matte. Look, that's something that we'll update as and when it occurs.
Okay.
And that-
12.5 or 12%-13% setting, that, you know, I guess what a 160 run rate on the NPI volumes is sort of 20,000 tons of nickel for both those plants and similar for all the other mines. Is that sort of how we think about it going forward?
It is, although obviously, ANI has a 20% greater nameplate production capacity and will have a 20% cost improvement on the power costs. You will see a slightly lower cost with obviously that increased 20% of nameplate capacity.
Okay, great. Good stuff. Thanks, man.
Thank you. Once again, to ask a question, please press star one on your phone. The next question comes from Patrick Collier from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Good day, Justin. Just firstly, are you able to give any indication of cost performance today, just given you mentioned December was a bit better. Is what you've seen in January so far?
Yeah, look, even though we are at the end of January, we sort of haven't pulled together all of the detailed costs. Yeah, look, unfortunately too early to. We probably won't have those numbers till early February. As I said, you know, pleasingly, we did see a sort of $400 a ton decline in December. You know, we don't have visibility on the January costs as yet, so I can't make any comment.
Okay.
As to how they're looking.
Sure. No problem. Just secondly, on Angel, I mean, if I look at HNI and RNI, they were quite quick to come down to steady state costs post-commissioning. Should we expect similar cost performance at Angel as it commissions over the course of the year?
Yeah, although remembering that it will probably only go to about 60% of nameplate capacity, given the power constraint until the captive plant comes online in around sort of September.
Okay. That 60%, I mean, is there a large fixed component that could push costs up while it is at 60%, or is it mostly variable?
No, mostly variable.
Okay. Thank you. Just lastly, given the 10-year tax holiday at Angel, should we expect similar at Oracle, just given that those two projects are quite similar in scale?
Yeah, absolutely. I see no reason why that wouldn't be the case.
Okay. Thank you. That's all for me. Thanks again.
Thanks, Patrick.
Thank you. The next question comes from Kieran Bahala from Bawa Holdings. Please go ahead.
Morning, Justin. Just wanted to
Morning.
Get an idea as to the strategic direction that the company will be going into. Now, Hengjaya and Ranger, they are, from what I understand, an integrated mine and processing operation, whereas Oracle, it seems that it'll be just purely a refining and processing operation, and the other one in West Papua would probably only be a mining operation. Are there any plans to expand the scope for the other two, the one in Sulawesi and in West Papua?
Yeah. The Hengjaya mine provides a very good hedge for our ore costs at our current Hengjaya and Ranger Nickel. You know, about 75% of their ore needs is filled from the Hengjaya mine. We're in the process of ramping that up to the point where it will obviously be in excess of that. I mentioned that we are looking at you know, new project acquisitions. You know, I think it would certainly be beneficial if we were to be able to identify more resources of a significant size that could feed into Oracle Nickel, similar to the Hengjaya mine for HNI and RNI.
To answer your question, we are looking into that, and we are assessing resources for that very reason. In terms of West Papua, our intention that, you know, the view or sort of how we've approached it is we do see it as a potential emerging province. Whether it starts out initially as a small DSO operation, I think given that the size and scale of the limonite and the characteristics, you know, we see it as being potentially an emerging area for the development of significant limonite resources, which obviously lends itself to HPAL plants and the production of mixed hydroxide nickel and cobalt sulfate.
All right. Thanks.
No problem, Kieran.
Thank you. Mr. Werner, at this time we're showing no further questions. I'll hand back to you for any closing remarks.
Okay. Look, thank you, everyone, for your attendance on the call today and all of the questions. Look, as I said, you know, again, we look forward to 2022, another big year, with you know, production set to triple. You look at the strong EBITDA for 2021, that's going to grow significantly over this year and then into next year. You know, not just that, there's obviously other developments in terms of resource acquisition and you know, potential movement into sort of you know, EV battery-related nickel production. You know, we look forward to another strong and exciting year in 2022. Thank you, everyone.