Finally, I would like to advise all participants this call is being recorded. Thank you. I'd now like to welcome Justin Werner, Managing Director, to be in the conference. Justin, over to you.
Thank you very much. If I could ask the moderator to please turn to page 3. Welcome everyone to the Nickel Industries annual results presentation. I'd like to start off firstly with safety. 17.8 million safe man-hours worked, a significant increase on the man-hours worked in 2024, and over 26.1 million man-hours have been worked since our last reported LTI back in 2021. You can see our LTIFR and TRIFR significantly below the world steel average. In terms of ESG, we continue to be a leader in Indonesia. You can see a number of awards there, including awards from prestigious companies such as CNBC, and improving scores as judged by S&P and other third party groups.
You know, we- the Best Community Award at the Global CSR and ESG Summit in Vietnam. The company continues to perform very well on the safety and ESG metrics. If we could just go to slide 4, please. Despite a challenging year, which saw the LME price down another 10% versus the 2024 average, we were still able to deliver a robust EBITDA, pleasingly with a number of records set, including record nickel and cobalt tons of HNC, record NPI tons of 1,055,000, and record mine production of 19.2 wet metric tons million, with sales of 9.9 million wet metric tons.
By the numbers, revenue of $1.65 billion, adjusted EBITDA of $282.8 million. I should note that on the 2024 numbers, at the end of last year, Q4, there was some challenges due to using up the full RKAB for last year. That resulted in $1.5 million of standby costs to mine contractors, and it reduced our Q4 EBITDA from to $37.5 million versus the $87 million that was delivered in the Q3 , so about $50 million delta.
Had that not occurred, if you add the $50 million onto the $282 million that, that delivered, that we delivered, that gives you about $332 million, which is in line with our 2024 result of about $326 million. In 2025, we paid a dividend of $0.015 per share, and currently net debt sits at, sits at $861.8 million. In terms of our processing operations, $207.7 million of adjusted EBITDA, 13,000 or 13.3 thousand tonnes of nickel produced. ENC HPAL construction schedule is progressing very well and scheduled for commissioning in the first half of this year.
Another busy year on the corporate front. We had a very successful bond refinancing. We raised $800 million 5-year bullet senior secured notes. We were able to reduce the coupon from 11.25% to 9%. We also disremoved the amortization. We did go out initially to raise $500 million. We had about $6 billion of orders, so it was very well supported. Pleasingly, the mix of investors was a third North America, a third Europe, and a third Asia, where typically we've seen a majority of investors come out of Asia.
We had approval just last week of increased RKAB sales quarter, which is a very positive result given the significant cuts that have been occurring in country, and I'll talk about that a little bit later. We announced the sale of a 10% interest in the ENC project to a strategic partner, SeAH, who is the super alloy supplier to SpaceX. Again, we see that as a very strong endorsement of the quality of the ENC project. We also announced signing of an MoU for supply of up to 14 million wet metric tons of ore from our Sampala project, where development is progressing very well.
On the mining front, we delivered $91.6 million in EBITDA from mine operations. I mentioned the record nickel ore sales of 9.9 million, we've been able to successfully increase that from 9 million last year to 14.3 million this year. Almost 60% increase. If we could just go to the next slide, please. What this slide shows is the robustness of our business, through the cycle, we believe that we've come out of cyclical lows, which we experienced in 2025.
If you look at the EBITDA number across the top there, you can see in 2022 it was $339 million, $403 million in 2023, $326 million in 2024, and $283 million in 2025. That's despite the nickel price going from almost $30,000 in early 2024 to lows of $14,000 in 2025. We've been able to maintain a strong dividend over that period of time. Really, how we've been able to maintain this EBITDA profile when a lot of other businesses have actually gone out of have left the market, is the growth through the cycle. You can see in 2022, our processed nickel tons were thousand.
Last year in 2025, it was 134,000. That is set to grow this year with the commissioning of ENC, which will another 72,000-80,000 tons of new nickel units at a very high margin. Our mine ore sales, which have increased from 3.5 million in 2022 to 9.9 million in 2025. We now have approval to go to 14.3 million in 2026. If you could just go to the next slide, please. In terms of revenue, you can see they're down slightly to about $1.65 billion. Gross profit also down and operating profit.
The key, key drivers there was a decrease in the NPI price versus 2024 of 2.8%, and the LME nickel price was also down 9.8% versus 2024. I mentioned at the start of the call, the RKAB license did significantly impact the profit and EBITDA for this year and did also have an impact on grade and production volumes. Pleasingly, though, in the things that we can control, HNC production increased by 6.3%. HM sales increased 10%, as I mentioned, with potential for another 60% this year, and RKEF cash costs decreased 1.8%. That, in summary, delivered about $283 million in adjusted EBITDA for 2025.
If we could just go to the next slide. In terms of the balance sheet, a very robust balance sheet, despite margin compression across 2025. As of 31st December, cash, $357 million, debt of $1.2 billion, so net debt of $866 million. That debt comprises $800 million of unsecured notes maturing September 2030 and $123 million of syndicated bank loan facilities with ranging maturities, with an additional undrawn $50 million. There was an impairment charge of $8.1 million, and that was in relation to writing down of some of the limonite inventory. And that's unfortunately inventory that was sterilized for the construction of the ENC tailings facility.
If we go to the next slide, please. Here you have the, the, the, the, the reconciliations, by, by, by waterfall. I won't talk through the numbers, but, you, you can see that there, and if there's any questions in relation to the waterfall, happy to, to answer those at the end of the call. If we could just go to, to the next slide, please. In terms of our RKEF operations, I mentioned at the start of the call, record NPI production of 1,055,658 tons. Sorry, moderator, next slide, please. Cash costs were 1.8% lower, and that was driven by lower nickel ore price, given that it is linked to the LME price and lower power costs.
The contracted price of $11,187 a ton was lower than 2024. That resulted in a decline in adjusted EBITDA, and we saw about a $261 a ton reduction in adjusted EBITDA per ton, so it was down about 22% on the previous year. The good news is, and I'll touch on that later in this call, is that we've seen a significant increase in the NPI price, and it's already more than 2 times what our average up a ton price was for 2025. If we could just go to the next slide, please. Our HPAL operations performing very strongly.
Again, another record, 8,500 of attributable nickel tons to NIC and 802 of attributable cobalt tons. HNC continues to operate well above nameplate capacity at around 40% above nameplate capacity. Cash cost increased slightly, mostly attributed to higher sulfur raw costs. MHP contract prices increased by 8% to around $14,990 a ton. The margins, EBITDA per ton margins were higher in 2025 versus 2024, but around $6,677. We've seen a very strong increase as well in EBITDA per ton margins, particularly in January, where we're over $10,000 a ton. ENC update, progressing very well.
Integrated nickel refinery for both the cathode and the nickel and cobalt sulfate plants is complete, and you can see that in the photos in the top there. The HPAL smelter itself is also nearing completion. We're starting to buy some of the consumables and outlaying working capital. Mechanical tests have commenced on key pieces of equipment such as the CCD circuit, thickness, precipitation tanks, slurry storage tanks, reagent tanks, and things like that. There's been a reallocation of additional resources to ensuring the timely completion of the ENC plant. If we could just go to the next slide, please.
We were delighted to announce the acquisition of a 10% interest in the ENC project at a $2.4 billion valuation on 100%, which is above the $2.3 billion that Nickel Industries invested at. That investment was made by SeAH, KOSDAQ-listed premium alloy supplier. They're one of only five accredited SpaceX suppliers, and they're the only one that has a 10-year supply contract. They supply all of the super alloy products, which are particularly nickel intense to the SpaceX rocket program. We see this as a huge endorsement of the quality of the ENC project.
What it will also do is it opens up the potential for ENC product to go into other, other sectors within or other players within that aerospace and aeronautical industry, which is a very, which is a growing, growing industry. If we could just go to the next slide, please. There is a short video here, which moderator, are you able to click on, on that link? If it doesn't work, we can just bypass this page. If you're not able to open it, look, I would encourage everyone to visit this link and to open it. It will give you, it's a very short video, and it shows the size and the scale and the tremendous progress that has been made at the, at the ENC project.
If we could just go to the next slide, please. Mining operations. I mentioned another record year of production, 19.2 million wet metric tonnes, and sales of 9.9 million wet metric tonnes. Despite the limonite nickel grade decreasing, the limonite contract price increased 31%. That's related to increased demand for limonite ore from Indonesian HPAL projects that are non, non-integrated, that we've been selling to. Again, this bodes extremely well for ENC, which will be fully integrated. So we will have a significant limonite cost advantage to HPAL producers that are integrated with their mine. I mentioned at the start of the call, unfortunately, there was about $21.3 million in standby charges in the quarter, related to the RKAB extension.
Pleasingly, we were able to have to recently increase that to US$14.3 million wet metric tonnes for 2026. Unfortunately, that delay in the RKAB did see our adjusted EBITDA versus 2024 down, down slightly. If we just go to the next slide, please. The Sampala Project is progressing very well. Of the required 24 kilometers of haul road that's required to link up the project with the IMIP, we are about 90% through completion of that first 8 kilometers. We've also been progressing the permitting. We've submitted feasibility studies for both the ANN and the ETL projects, and we expect approval of the feasibility study in the coming weeks.
For the ANN project, we've incorporated a slurry plant for an expansion of the ENC project, which is related to the IU that was signed for the supply of 14 million tons of limonite a year for the Sampala. That will allow us to monetize the very significant limonite resources that we have at Sampala. We've been very aggressively drilling the project through the course of 2025, over 100,000 meters, and we're very confident of a resource of over 1 billion wet metric tons, which, taking today's margin of around $12 a ton, you can see the value of the Sampala project. We have about $20 million-$30 million of CapEx left to bring that project into production.
It, it's a world-class ore body, and we're making good progress there in the development of that project. If we could just move to the next slide, please. There's three big catalysts that, that we've been telling people that we're aiming to deliver for 2026. The first of those is the increase in the Hengjaya Mine, RKAB. Whilst it was short of the 19 million that we were seeking, I think the loss of 4 million-5 million tons, which equates to, you know, sort of $50 million-$60 million in EBITDA, has been more than outweighed in the significant increase that we've seen in the NPI and LME nickel price.
I'll talk about what that has done to our January results and what it means for us looking forward. To date, we are the only company that has achieved an increase, with larger companies being cut by almost two-thirds from their 2020 quota. We think, again, strong endorsement of Hengjaya Mine's environmental and ESG track record. The additional 5.3 million will obviously should increase the EBITDA for the Hengjaya Mine for 2026. The second catalyst is the commissioning of ENC, and as you've just seen, that's progressing extremely well. We've reported HPAL margins of over $10,000 a ton in January at 72,000 tons of nameplate capacity.
Remembering that HNC is running at about 40% above nameplate, it's not unreasonable to think that there will be some outperformance at ENC as well. We look forward to the commissioning and ramp-up of ENC over the course of this year, and then first full year of production in 2027. Finally, the Sampala Mine, as I've just touched on, progressing well in terms of development, and that'll add significant additional EBITDA as well, particularly given that we already have an MoU for 14 million tons of limonite on an annual basis. If we could just go to the next place, next page, please.
The closing share price of 101 as of last week, and a market capitalization of around $3.1 billion. We think we are very undervalued if you look forward for what we can deliver in 2026 and in 2027. The broker consensus forecast gives us an EV/EBITDA multiple of about 7.1x. That's on about a $500 million EBITDA estimate for 2026. I would note that from our NPI business... Well, in January, we delivered $50 million in EBITDA, and that consisted of NPI margins jumping over around 150% from about $1,114 a ton for the December quarter of last year, to $2,800 a ton.
In January, we haven't yet captured that full NPI increase. If you take our annualized NPI production of over 130,000 tons of nickel in NPI and apply a $3,000 a ton margin, you can see that there's potential for, you know, close to $400 million in EBITDA just to be delivered this year, assuming pricing stays the same from our NPI business. We have the HPAL margins at above $10,000 a ton, taking a conservative number of 20,000-30,000 tons for ENC for this year. There is another $200 -$300 million in EBITDA, so we're already well past that $500 million broker consensus number.
Taking the 14.3 million RKAB and applying a $12 a ton margin, that's $170 million for calendar year 2026. That, you know, puts us around $700 -$800 million, significantly reduces that EBITDA back to sort of, you know, 4 times. Again, we, we think that the significant growth that we're looking forward to in 2026 is not yet priced into the stock. As I said, looking forward into 2027, we'll have the first full year of ENC, as well as the hopefully, the commissioning of the Sampala Mine, which will, which will deliver again, more incremental EBITDA. Any...
The final point, we're extremely well leveraged to any change in the nickel price, given our significant volume, and I've just touched on the volumes for 2026 and additional volume growth coming in, in 2027. All of this growth is fully funded, requires minimal sustaining CapEx, with a beneficiary of significant tax holidays, and any improvement in the nickel price offers significant EBITDA upside, and I think that's been strongly evidenced in our January results alone. Looking forward to 2026, assuming no change from where we sit now, and that, that price increase has been driven by the significant RKAB quota cuts, we're looking forward to a very strong 2026. With that, hand over to questions.
If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. That is star one if you wish to ask a question. Your first question comes line of Austin Yun from Macquarie. Your line is open.
Morning, Justin and team. Just a couple of questions. The first one is on the mining operations. I understand there was a mining landslide incident, happened after the RKAB update. I'm just wondering if that had any implications of the general mine to, you know, continue mining with that mining quota, or has there been any changes since that event, the landslide event? Thank you.
Yeah, Austin, I think you're referring to a QMB tailings breach. That's not our operations and has nothing to do with our mining operations.
Yeah, understood. That's, that's a third-party mine, but I just wonder. Okay, sounds like no, no impact. The second one is, I believe you, RKEF and ENC is fully covered by this new RKAB quota. Just keen to understand for the HNC H-PAL process, what's the source of ore? Given the recent, you know, cut to Weda Bay, has that got any impact on the HNC operation?
Yeah, this, this quota will allow us to provide 100% of the ore requirements for, for ENC for, for 2026. It will also mean that we will be able to re- supply the same amount of saprolite that was supplied last year to our RKEF in IMIP, so that puts them at about 60% self-sufficiency. There's, there's, there's no change there. We, we currently don't supply to HNC. They are supplied by a, by a, by another third party. That we, we will only supply moving forward this year. Once we start commissioning 100% of our limonite, we'll be going to, to ENC and, and no other parties.
Yeah, thank you. Just lastly, on the capital allocation, it's good to see that the, the cash flow pressure is taken off bit by the sell-down of the, ENC. Given we entering a period of a high nickel price, just keen to understand your capital allocation priority for the next 12 months and how you think about balancing between, you know, debt reduction versus shareholder return. Thank you.
Yeah, so we, we have about $46 million remaining for 2% in ENC, which is due in the end of March of this year. In terms of any other CapEx payments, there's just a $20 million-$30 million for the development of the Sampala project. Look, that's, that's it for this year. We'll have around $100 million of interest payments. I, I think, you know, looking forward, we should generate some strong free cash flow. How we, we will be looking, taking a look midway through the year and looking at, you know, is it appropriate to look at, to revisit the dividend, to look at the share buyback and obviously, any, any debt payments.
We'll be making that decision as a board later in the year. We have been working and throughout last year, and we'll be continuing to do the same this year to really optimize that debt, debt stack, bring down the interest rate, try to remove as much amortization as we can and push out the maturities. We continue to work on optimizing that debt stack moving forward.
Thank you. I'll pass now.
Your next question comes to line of Richard Knott from Barrenjoey. Your line is open.
Hi, Justin. Thanks for the call. Just on the 14.5 million ton quota, I, I presume you'll be looking to try and increase that mid-year. I mean, how do you think about the phasing of production over the next, over the next sort of 6 months? Should we be just sort of flatlining it at a well, flatlining sales at a, at a sort of 14.5 divided by 12 monthly number?
Yeah, we, we, we are able to make another application midway through the year to, to increase the RKAB, so we, we will be doing that. In terms of the sales numbers, once ramped up, and I think you could sort of look at around September of this year, we will need about 1 million wet metric tonnes of limonite on a monthly basis. We, we will be looking at sort of maintaining where we are at the moment. We, we, we shouldn't see a significant change on a monthly basis. We, we've, we've sort of now reduced our limonite supply to third parties, and so we're, we're more focused on saprolite at the moment.
Yep. Yep. Okay. And, and I think you mentioned in the call that Sampala, you're now looking at a 2027 start. Is, is that right? When, if that's the case, when do you think you'll have to make the incremental payment to the, to the landowner there?
Yeah. We, we're, we're very focused on permitting there. Unfortunately, as with a lot of things in Indonesia, there is approvals that are required that are that are outside of our control. You know, we are obviously are doing everything similar to what we did with the RKAB to ensure that we can progress those on a timely manner in a in a in a with a good outcome. In terms of the resource development and closing of that project, we are looking to get an update out to our shareholders this this week.
Right. Okay. Yep. Okay, fine. We'll wait for that. Is Chris on the line at all? I just had a couple of nitpicky questions about some of the, some of the expenses. In particular, there was a financing expense line of, of $22 million in there that, that didn't include the bond issue costs. Just wondering what that was?
There's, that's not the bond issue costs, the early take out of the October 28 bonds.
Right.
Obviously, taking them out early, there was a make-whole pay on that.
Got it. Got it. Then just in other expenses, there was a $15 million other expense, $16.6. That was, it was quite a big number. Just wondering-
Yeah.
the flavor of the kind of things that were in there.
Yeah, there were some increased selling expenses around our operations and also a write-off of the loan of some of the loans to which is in those 8 where we carry some loans for the Sant Paul's transaction, but that, that's the majority of the differences.
Yeah. Okay. Brilliant. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, Richard.
Your next question comes from the line of David Coates from Bell Potter Securities. Your line is open.
Right. Thanks. Thanks, Justin. Thanks, Chris. Most of my questions have been answered, actually, but a couple of small ones. Justin, would you mind just running through the swing factors on the Hengjaya Mine expansion? You, you touched on them at the start of the call. If you just outline those again for us, please, in terms of the impact on profitability.
There was obviously the significant one was the $21.5 million in standby costs in the December quarter. Other than that, margins remained fairly stable throughout 2025. We, we did see some price increases in limonite ore. That, the, the, the big factor in Hengjaya Mine performance was really that, those standby costs. Pretty much for the whole of the December quarter, we were, we were only able to mine for the last 19 days of December.
What was the sort of, I guess, sort of a lost production that came out of that, that you really might estimate out of that?
Yeah, look, given that prior to that, we, we actually had two record months before we stopped of over 1.5 million, potentially, sort of 4.5 million tons, so, probably $45 million, $45 million US. That's at a $10 margin, probably more than that at 12, which is what we sort of were seeing. That sort of $50-$60 US in lost EBITDA. I think that's sort of putting that back into the adjusted EBITDA numbers, would have seen us on a pretty even keel to, to, 2024 adjusted EBITDA number.
Cool, thanks. Chris, again, a little bit of a detailed one. D&A charges for heading into 2026, what sort of an increase would we be looking to see, roughly? If you can illustrate...
Yeah.
Any indication of that at all.
Off, off the top of my head, I'd be guessing, so I'm not gonna do so. Cody, I'll come back to you.
Fair enough.
And, uh-
Okay, cool.
Thanks.
Yep. Thanks, guys. Cheers.
Thanks, Dave.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. That is star one, if you wish to ask a question. Your next question comes to line of Jonathan Ang from BlackRock. Your line is open.
Hey, good morning. Thanks for the presentation. I think I just got a couple of clarification points, right? The first one is that I know that you are producing above nameplate capacity for the RKEF plants, but how much ore does ENC and the RKEF plants require separately on a full year of nameplate capacity?
Yeah, thanks, Jonathan. ENC will require about at full nameplate, about 12-14 million. Sorry, 12-14 million tons of limonite. Our HPAL operations roughly require about 1-1.2 million tons of saprolite ore on an annual basis, and we have 12 lines. 4 of those, I would note, are at a smaller capacity. Our saprolite requirements are about sort of 10-11 million a year.
That's where.
That's where we sold close to 6 million in saprolite last year, that's where we're sort of sitting at about that 60% self-sufficiency.
Okay, thank you. I guess the follow-up question to that will be, what's the cost difference between, being self-sufficient and having to purchase the required ores? I guess do you see any difficulty in purchasing the required ore? Because it looks like it's like 20-25 in total versus your 14.5 quota.
Yes, there is a big cost advantage in being self-sufficient. The reason for that is, is that given the shortages, there is a premium over and above the market price. That premium has ranged anywhere from sort of $10 up to almost $30. Given that ore is about 35% of your cost base, for your operations, there is an impact to the profitability of the RKEF. I think that's been more than outweighed. If you look at the NPI price increase, as I mentioned, it's up over 100. There's a significant increase in the NPI price.
That led to, if you look at January, you know, a 150% increase in our EBITDA ton margins. There is an impact, but, the, you know, the increase in the NPI price is far outweighing the increase in any increase in the ore costs. In terms of supply, Indonesia consumed about 270 million tons of ore last year. The current RKAB quota is about 250 million. That's what the government's looking to set. There may be some shortages that will be filled by ore from the Philippines. We don't see any risk to our operations of being able to secure ore supply.
We think the risk will be smaller, non-integrated players, that, that won't be able to purchase ore, and don't have the power advantage, so have already have a much, much higher cost.
Got it. Thank you for that clarification. I think I just have one last question. In terms of your Sampala mine, what's the expected quota for 2027? I mean, given that it, it, it got kind of tightened.
For Sampala, our, our initial, target will be about 6 million, ramping up to. We obviously would need about 14 million to meet our, the requirement for our MOU. The reason we are confident in being able to achieve that is Sampala actually is three different IUPs, so each IUP makes an individual application. So we think we probably have a better chance of, you know, let's say, we want to get to 18 million tons. We think we'll have a better chance of doing an aggregate of 6 million tons per company per IUP, rather than trying to get a headline 18 million tons out of just one IUP.
Okay, got it. Thank you so much.
Your next question comes from the line of Dim Ariyasinghe from UBS. Your line is open.
Thanks, guys. Thanks for the call today. Just a couple of ones. First on the ENC ramp-up, you talked to commissioning, yeah, over this quarter. Just in terms of like the sales though, can you walk us through that? Have you got the license to commercially produce, I think, the IUI? Yeah, what, what does that look like, over the course of the year?
The IUI, we can't actually apply for that until there's sort of mechanical completion and a closing off of the investment CapEx by the government. Then in terms of first sales, we're probably targeting somewhere around July. Given that first sales out of the H-PAL plant, talking about a 2-3-week residence time from feeding first ore to achieving first product, and about a 40-day residence time from feeding MHP into the cathode and sulphate refineries to produce product from those refineries.
Okay, cool. July? Yep, that's, that's clear. Then just on the broader RKAB news, is there any, and so, you know, somewhat positive that you got, you know, more than, than previous years, but not what you requested. Is there any science between, you know, so you're getting allocated 14 versus, where they, I think, getting 12 and requesting 42? Yeah, can you walk through the rationale there, or is it pretty opaque, I guess?
Look, that is something that we have raised with the government. We think that providing more transparency would certainly be well-received by miners in Indonesia. I mean, where they were told that their number was calculated based off, they only have 8 RKEF lines. It was the 8 RKEF lines which require about 8 million tons a year, plus they were given 30% over that. Our number was based on what we did last year in saprolite plus the 8 million tons of limonite that's required for ENC this year, given that it's not a full year of production, and so it's not the 12 or then that's required next year.
Look, they, they told us that there is some science behind it, but they haven't provided any sort of transparency in terms of how it was actually calculated, or they haven't provided transparency certainly to the broader market either. Slightly frustrating, but, look, I think it's not also, it's not also just that, it is, it is, you know, what is your rehabilitation track record, and your environmental track record? Are you up to date on payment of, of royalties and, and taxes, and, and have you been a good payer of royalties and taxes rather than being someone who's been slow or lax? I think there's, there's other things that go into it.
As I said, unfortunately, it's, it's not transparent at this point, but something that, I think a lot of miners in Indonesia are, are pushing the, the government for moving forward.
Awesome. Okay, cool. Thank you. Cheers.
Thank you.
Your next question comes the line of Mitch Ryan from Jefferies. Your line is open.
Well, thanks, Justin, and team for taking your question. Just following on from Jim's question there, given the material cuts to some of the feed sources for IWIP, what happens to your capacity within that, if, if you're unable to, to source appropriate feed? Or how do we think about just the broader facility there? Does everyone get scaled back accordingly, or, or do some lines get turned off if they're unable to source the 100% required feedstock over the course of this calendar year?
Yeah, look, we, we, we actually had a board meeting, end of last week with, with Tsingshan. They sound confident that there'll be no scaling back, that they'll be able to source the required ore, from other third-party ore suppliers. Coming back to the numbers, I mean, there was only $270 million produced of ore sales made last year, and there was over $350 million of RKAB quota issued. A lot of companies were issued quota and, and, and didn't even use it. The 250 that, that they've introduced this year, assuming everyone reaches it, because, obviously, it's, it's very valuable.
We think there's only a small requirement of ore, and that 20 million will most likely be to other non-integrated players that a s I said earlier, I think they'll struggle to source that to source that ore in the market.
Okay. Thank you. Just with the ENC ramp-up, can you give us-
Mm-hmm.
You know, you've obviously got performance guarantees, within that agreement. Can you just remind us of some of the key milestones for those and how that would work if for any reason that ramp-up was slightly delayed?
That, that's something, in terms of those guarantees that, we'll, we'll be working through Tsingshan in the coming months as we, as we move forward with the, with, with the, with the commissioning and ramp-up.
Okay. Thank you. That's it for me.
Thanks, Dim.
Your next question comes to the line of Tinh Winn from Windragon Family Trust . Your line is open.
Thanks, Justin. Oh, it, it's been covered, so it's good. Thank you.
Thank you.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. That is star one if you wish to ask a question. Your next question comes from Jinming Tong from Barclays Bank. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning, and thanks for the call. I just want to get some clarity on the ENC's 10% acquisition by SeAH. There have been some changes to the final terms from what was originally announced. Can you just walk us through why that was the case, especially the trade announcement that Nickel Industries has provided, as well as, you know, Nickel Industries' stake, which was, I think, originally intended to be 55% at the final end, but is now at 46%?
Chris, do you want to take that one?
Yeah, that's for Justin. Thanks for the question, Jin Ming. The first one, I think when, what you might be referring to, I don't think there has been any change. Sorry, I don't think there has been any change in what we've announced. SeAH is always taking 10% of the ENC for $2.4 billion, $30 million of that is in equity payments, which they have made in full as of today, and the remaining $210 million in debt. The important thing around the $210 million in debt, when we're in conversations with SeAH towards the end of 2025, SeAH was a $200 million market, listed market cap, listed company in Korea with a market cap of around $200 million.
Very difficult for anyone at that level to acquire, to make a $240 million acquisition. We saw the strategic advantage in bringing, or strategic benefit of bringing SpaceX into our supply chain, where it's not into our customer chain, sorry, and being a supplier effectively to SpaceX, with SeAH being the intermediary. We, the, the three lenders who provided that loan are very well known to Nickel Industries. They are, two of the three are existing lenders to Nickel Industries, and so we were very comfortable, and they were very comfortable taking effectively Nickel Industries' risk, as we provided guarantees to SeAH for that $210 million. As set out throughout the report, you can see that positions us very well.
If, if for whatever reason, SeAH ever defaulted, which based on the cash flows that we're seeing out of HNC and what we expect at ENC, we cannot see that that could be the case, but we would simply step into SeAH's shoes for that 10%, effectively acquire that for and then take over the loan. Effectively acquire that remaining 10% for a significantly higher, a significantly lower amount than what we were previously looking to pay for our remaining 11% for ENC. That left us still sitting at 44%, rather than going up to 55%. The reason why we've announced another 2% increase is predominantly because we wanted to be the largest shareholder in ENC, and so we and Shanghai Decent was very happy with that.
We increased for 2%, and they obviously sold us down 2%, or they will sell us down. We've got a remaining $46 million payment to make by 31 March, and that will be our final payment for ENC. What it also does, bringing, not making those final payments, as, as you can see in our announcement, is it releases another $207 million of commitments that we were going to make, 2 payments, one on July 1 this year and one on October 1. It's really a way to also strengthen our balance sheet going forward. As we continue to watch, watch the margins, hopefully, the margins stay steady.
I'm not gonna try to predict margins, so, just releasing in the near term that commitment of over $200 million, through conversations with various, various interested stakeholders was considered to be very prudent, balance sheet management.
Appreciate that, Chris. Thanks. If I can follow up, can you talk a bit about when SeAH's off-take arrangement will start, and if you are in discussion with any other third-party customers for off-take arrangements as well, other than ENC?
SeAH, SeAH is a 10% equity holder in, in ENC now, has rights to 10% of the product that comes out. As soon as production starts coming out, as, as products are sent from ENC, SeAH, will receive its, its, its share of the products. In terms of other, customer or other potential off-takers, Justin, do you want to talk to that?
Yeah. Look, we are in discussions with a number of other off-takers. Obviously, the SeAH announcement has been positively received, so we will continue to have those discussions as we near first production of first product.
Thank you, Justin. That's all from me.
There are no further questions at this time, so I would like to hand back for closing comments.
Thanks again, everyone. As I finished on, given the significant strengthening in the NPI, and now, I mean, nickel price, and the delivery of $50 million in EBITDA from operations in January alone, we think that we're extremely well-placed in 2026 for a very strong year, and obviously, with ENC commissioning at the current $10,000 a ton margin in the HPAL business. You know, we set up for a very good year, and, you know, we look forward to delivering EBITDA that is that should be significantly stronger than last year, which was obviously a tough year, given it's probably the lowest nickel price we've had in the last couple of years.
Despite that, we were still able to, to deliver a robust EBITDA. Thank you, everyone, for your time today.