I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Justin Werner, Managing Director. Please.
Thank you very much. Could I ask the moderator to please move to the next slide? Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining this morning's call. The two transactions announced this morning really expand on the previously signed MoU for ore supply from our world-class Sampala Project. We're pleased to obviously announce recently a significant upgrade in the resources to in excess of 1 billion wet metric tonnes at 1.2% nickel. These transactions further diversify us into the HPAL chain. I think importantly, the CNE transaction allows us to monetize some of the value in our Sampala resource at a significant value uplift. The upshot of these transactions, it will deliver approximately 17,000 tonnes of attributable nickel in MHP. This is a nameplate for a $169 million cash consideration.
That's the only cash consideration required, at face value, that's a $10,500 capital intensity versus current Indonesian projects, which are sort of between $20,000-$30,000 a tonne. Very attractive capital intensity. It's to be funded from existing cash and operating cash flow with a debt backstop at commercial terms from Tsingshan if required. Highlights the strength of the relationship with Tsingshan. Importantly removes the risk of any equity overhang. The CNE deal requires no cash, as I mentioned earlier, validates the Sampala Project value at over $1.3 billion, which is a 5.4x value uplift from NIC's acquisition price. Which we haven't even paid for it yet and we're already getting this value uplift. It brings Sampala more closely aligned and integrated with downstream HPAL processing.
It delivers on the government objectives and we believe strongly positions the project for a favorable RKAB outcome, which was demonstrated with the RKAB quota that was delivered to our Hengjaya mine operation. Finally, it further diversifies us deeper into the EV battery supply chain, with a number of blue-chip Korean and Japanese partners and an undisclosed strategic investor in the EV supply chain. If we could just go to the next slide, please. Thank you. Just an overview of the transactions. The first transaction, TMI, comes with a CapEx guarantee. That's $965 million. We will be acquiring 17.5% of that project for $169 million cash. The payment is due in November of this year. As mentioned earlier, if there is any requirement, Tsingshan will provide any required debt funding to bridge any shortfall. It has a production capacity of 38,640 tonnes. That's at nameplate.
Our attributable production there will be 6,775 tonnes. I mentioned earlier, some blue-chip Korean, Japanese investors, LS, M&M, and Hanwha, as well as a strategic investor in the EV supply chain. The date for reaching nameplate of TMI is around September of next year. The project's very well advanced. Then CNE, the valuation there, $671 million. The effective share swap will see us move to a 36% interest in CNE. It will see us reduce from 60% in Sampala to 42%, but still retaining the largest shareholding in Sampala. Being a share swap, obviously, there's no cash consideration. It has a production capacity of 28,357 tonnes. Our attributable production there is 10,208 tonnes. The other shareholders will actually be our local partner, who is our local partner from the Hengjaya Mine as well, and we've had a long-standing 15-year relationship with our local partner.
We're very pleased that he's been able to participate in this transaction as well and will share in some of the upside of being a shareholder in the CNE HPAL. All ore for both of these projects will be supplied via a slurry pipeline similar to ENC from the Sampala project. There's no additional CapEx requirements from NIC in either of the projects. If we could just go to the next slide, please. Here is just an overview. You can see on the left, CNE corporate structure post-transaction. Post-transaction in the Sampala project, Nickel Industries will move from 60% to 42%. Our local partner will move from 40% to 28%, and Jaya will come in to 30%. The Sampala project combined will hold 85.7% in the CNE HPAL, of which NIC will hold 36%, and Blue Zone Singapore will hold the remaining 14.3%.
As mentioned previously, again, 100% of the limonite ore supply will come from the Sampala project. Effectively, we're swapping an 18% interest in the Sampala project. This is the A&N and ETL IUPs only. It doesn't include the third, Kitafora, IUP. The implied cost there is $44.7 million and effectively gives us 36% of the CNE HPAL at an implied value of $241.8 million. That is a 5.4 x value uplift on our Sampala project stake. Requires no cash, no additional CapEx. As I said earlier, that's an implied capital intensity of approximately $10,500, which is significantly below the industry peers. If we could just go to the next slide, please. These transactions effectively bring to a conclusion our investment journey into the high-margin HPAL segment of the market.
That started with HNC. We hold a 10% interest there with attributable production of 8,500 tonnes a year. Currently producing at 40% above nameplate capacity. Q1 margins were $9,992 a tonne. It's a very high-margin business. It has a tax holiday of 15 years, plus an additional two years at 11%. We moved into ENC. Nameplate capacity of 72%. NIC holds a 46% interest. We were able, I think reflective of the strong relationship with Tsingshan, were contractually bound to acquire 55%. We only moved to 46%. It's the first HPAL globally to produce MHP, sulfate, and cathode. It further diversifies our nickel products. Our attributable production from that project is about 33,000 tonnes. We're expecting first MHP next month and targeting nameplate capacity by October of this year.
It also has a tax holiday of 15 years, plus another two years at 11%. At the ENC project, I think that project was really validated by the incoming investment of Korean-listed SeAH who's the only accredited superalloy supplier to SpaceX and the only supplier with a long-term 10-year contract. These final two transactions, as I said, this really caps our investment journey into HPAL. Given that the Indonesian government is no longer approving any more HPAL projects, we think that we've been able to get these on highly attractive valuation terms. TMI, targeting nameplate by September of next year. 39,000 tonnes nameplate, and NIC to hold 17.5%, so that's 6,775 tonnes of attributable production. There's some very good names, Korean and Japanese in there, and as I mentioned, the strategic EV player in there. Again, CapEx guarantee, nameplate guarantee.
Finally, the CNE transaction, which is effectively a share swap. We will be taking a 36% interest in that HPAL and reducing our interest by 18% in the Sampala Project. To run through the numbers at a very high level, if you assume that A&N ETL had a 20 million tonne a year RKAB, if you used current margins of $10 a tonne, NIC, pre-transaction with a 60% interest, would have 12 million tonnes of attributable ore sales a year. At a $10 margin, that's $120 million in EBITDA. That's pre-transaction if NIC had just retained its 60% interest in A&N ETL. Moving to 42% of A&N ETL, that brings our attributable nickel sales down from 12 million to 8.4 million. Again, at a $10 margin, that's $84 million in annualized EBITDA from our retained shareholding in A&N ETL.
I think importantly, the additional 17,000 tonnes of attributable nickel that we're bringing on for just $169 million. At today's margin of $10,000 a tonne, it would also deliver an additional $170 million in EBITDA. If you combine the $170 million and the $84 million, you come up with $254 million. If you wanted to use a more conservative number for HPAL margins, say $5,000 a ton, you're looking still at the $84 million of the 42% holding in A&N ETL. At $5,000 a tonne margin on 17,000 tonnes of attributable nickel, again, this is all at nameplate, you've got an additional $85 million. The $85 and $84 brings you actually to $169 million, which indicates a one-year payback. We think these are highly value-accretive transactions. Both companies have applied for tax holidays.
This, as I said, really sort of, I guess, marks the conclusion of our investments into the high margin HPAL segment of the market. I think being able to monetize Sampala at such an early stage in the project cycle, I think really validates the decision to look to acquire the Sampala Project and the long-term value that, not just Sampala, but both of these projects will deliver to our NIC shareholders. That concludes the presentation. 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 two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Austin Yoon with Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Morning, Justin. Thank you for the update. Good to see you further diversifying your product mix. I'm just keen to understand what's the perfect mix for Nickel Industries. How should I think about, in a long-term view, the mix of NPI and MHP product? I'll come back with the second one. Thank you.
I think, obviously we're sitting at around sort of 125,000 tonnes of nickel in NPI production annually. As you know, there's a moratorium on any new NPI production, so we might be expanding on the NPI, and we would have no intention to anyway, even if the opportunity was available. If you add up our attributable production from HNC, ENC, TMI, and CNE, you're looking at about sort of 60,000 tonnes a year from HPAL. We're looking at about a third coming from HPAL, 2/3 from NPI. I think, even more importantly, ENC is attractive because it offers us further diversification further downstream from MHP into the sulfate and cathode markets. I think we have a good balance at this point.
I think what's also pleasing is we're seeing a strengthening in the nickel pig iron market being reflected obviously in the May numbers. We think that those robust nickel pig iron numbers should certainly remain. We think that once some of the volatility comes out of the market, and there's resolution to the Middle East war, that we'll see HPAL margins strengthen again and certainly, at $10,000 a tonne currently, they're very high and very healthy.
Thank you. Just the second one is a bit of a silly question. Up to the media, I don't know TMI and CNE very well. I'm just keen to understand who are the builder of those two projects. Should we think these two projects share exactly the same technology as the ENC one, or if there's any differences? Also, I understand the commissioning timeline is around mid-2027. How should I think about the key milestones from now to then? Thanks.
Yeah. Look, TMI and CNE are effectively an expansion of ENC. You can see those in the ENC video. You can see where these projects are being built. In terms of the timing, TMI, we're looking at nameplate by September of 2027. In terms of CNE, we're looking at a commissioning in mid-2027. Certainly before the end of next year, both projects should be at nameplate or potentially even above nameplate, but before the end of next year.
Yeah, sure. Thanks. Just one last quick follow-up. Given each facility has a different shareholder structure, but understand this is both a kind of ENC expansion, how should I think about the procurement of the key input in addition to ore? Would there be any competition in terms of sulfuric assets, energy, and also prioritization of product? Thanks.
I think the two key inputs are really ore and sulfur. Obviously, the ore is coming from Sampala for both projects. That will be at the market price. In terms of sulfur, look, the projects won't be competing. They will be both operated on an even footing. There's no issues with competition for facilities or resources.
That's clear. Thank you. I'll pass on.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Aman Aggarwal with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for taking my question, and congratulations on the announcement. I just had a couple of questions. Firstly, on the assets, could you explain how much debt do we have sitting on these assets already, and what is the cost of debt, if any?
Chris, I'll hand over to you for that one.
Yeah, that's fine. Currently, it's all equity funded, Aman. No debt at the asset level. Obviously, if that changes, we'll let the market know in due course.
All right. That valuation is full equity valuation, I got it.
Yes.
Also on the ENC, could you give an update on when we expect commercial production, and how much we expect to produce this year?
Yeah. We're targeting first MHP in July. We're targeting to hit nameplate by October of this year. That will give us a target of around 20,000 tonnes of nickel in MHP, for this calendar year.
Got it. Okay. Just in terms of timeline, we have the $28.5 million advance payment for A&N ETL. That's going to come up in a couple of months, I believe. We have the $169 million in November for TMI, and in first quarter next year, we will have another $149 million. That timeline remains the same, right?
Chris, did you want
No. Yeah
Did you want to comment on the upcoming payments?
Yeah. Not quite, Aman. We've already made the $28.5 million advance payment. That's already done.
Okay.
The remaining $149 million, we'll be making five of that for ETL in coming months. $144 million for ANN. That's due in April 2027. You've got $5 million in the next few months, the $169 million for the TMI investment, the remaining $144 million for ANN will be made in April next year. As we said, we wanted to be very clear, as Justin mentioned, we want to be very clear with investors that we believe that we're fully funded from existing cash reserves and existing cash and our upcoming cash flows. We thought it was very important to ensure that if, for whatever reason, I guess margins weren't what we expected over this next six months, six to nine months, that we had that commitment from Tsingshan to ensure that we would not be coming back to the equity market for issuing any new shares.
Okay. Understood. Thank you so much.
Thanks, Aman.
Thank you. Your next question is from Daniel Gage-Brown with Argus Media. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for your presentation. I just had a couple of questions. My first question was just, on the point you mentioned that the Indonesian government has announced a moratorium on new HPAL projects. I was just wondering if you could help me understand when that was announced, and what the rationale behind that is.
Yeah. I can't give you a specific date on when it was announced, but it was some time ago.
Yeah.
The rationale behind it was, I think the Indonesian government took some learnings from the rapid growth in RKEF and nickel pig iron production. What you saw for a period of time there was oversupply. That led to a deterioration in margins in the NPI business. When we first started, we were experiencing margins of sort of $6,000 a tonne, to sort of over the course of 2024 and most of 2025, margins of $1,500 to breakeven on some of the older RKEF assets. Obviously, from a tax perspective, that's not attractive for the government, given that it's given out significant tax holidays, you then had a number of these RKEF operations rolling out of tax holidays, but in an environment where they were breakeven or some even loss-making.
I think having learned from that experience, and given that Indonesia, at the end of this decade, will produce 75% of global nickel output. The Indonesian government's demonstrated that it wants to intervene, it wants to maintain prices that will deliver strong margins for producers, and I think it wants to, and it's done that through RKAB quotas. It's done that through moratoriums on NPI and HPAL. Given that we were early-stage investors into NPI and into HPAL and MHP, we've set up a very strong production base of diversified nickel products. I think, if you look at NPI now, you've got growing demand from stainless growth in China and India. You have a cap on NPI, and that's led to some strong price increases in the NPI over the last couple of months.
We think that, as I said, the government has learned from the NPI experience. They've got in, probably ahead of the curve. Look, now, I think even if you wanted to fund an HPAL project at the moment, it would probably be, I don't think you would get it funded. This sort of represented the final opportunity to secure more nickel units via HPAL at a very attractive capital intensity.
Okay, thanks for that. I just had one more question. Sorry if you already covered this in your presentation and I missed it. I just want to ask, will the output that Nickel Industries receives from its investments in CNE and TMI be proportional to the equity stake that it holds, like 36% and 17.5% of the nameplate?
Correct.
Okay
17.5% in TMI will give us about 6,775 tonnes. That's at nameplate.
Yep.
The 36% interest in CNE will deliver us about 10,000 tonnes at nameplate.
Great. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from David White, private investor. Please go ahead. Pardon me, David, your line may be on. Your next question comes from Warwick Morris, private investor. Please go ahead.
Justin, congratulations on the deal. I just want to get an update from you on the likely dividend timetable and what impact these transactions will have on that. Thank you.
Apologies, Warwick, that was a bit muffled. I don't know, Chris, did you get that question too?
Yeah, I got that. Thanks for the question, Warwick. It was just around dividends, Justin. Warwick, as per usual, the board will be meeting in the month or two after each half-yearly period. We haven't had that meeting yet regarding dividends, and we'll wait to see how the quarter evolves and our outlook. No dividend decision has been made yet.
Right. What impact would the transactions you've outlined today have on future dividends?
Well, obviously, depending on how our margins go over the next few quarters, we're paying $169 million from an investment which would not be available for dividends. That's the clear impact. The precise outlook for dividends is clearly dependent on our Q2 and beyond earnings, which we'll be releasing to the market in due course.
Okay. Thank you.
Thanks, Warwick.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Jit Ming Tan with Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi. Morning. Congratulations on the transactions. A couple of questions from me. Firstly, for the TMI and CNE MHP output, do you know if the companies have buyers in place for their eventual production? That's question number one. Question number two is relating to TMI. Your announcement says that the consortium shareholder includes LS M&M, Hanwha, and a strategic investor. Is there a reason why the strategic investor is unnamed?
Yeah, look, in terms of other shareholders and where the product's going, I can't comment on what they're or where that product will be going. Look, unfortunately, the strategic investor has asked that their name not be disclosed. As I mentioned, they are a strategic investor in the EV supply chain.
All right. Understood. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one. Your next question comes from Mitch Ryan with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Mitch, you may be on mute.
Sorry. Thanks for taking my question, guys. Sorry about that. Can you just comment on growth opportunities beyond Indonesia? I think you've started, Tsingshan is starting to, in the press, look beyond Indonesia. Some Indonesian companies are investing in mining assets outside Indonesia. Given the growing regulatory changes that are occurring in Indonesia, do you see anything on the horizon for Nickel Industries?
Thanks, Mitch. No, look, we've been very focused in Indonesia. Obviously, with a moratorium on NPI and HPAL we don't think there'll be any further investment opportunities there. I think really the remaining investment opportunities within Indonesia are really in nickel ore resources. I think we've seen that in the Sampala acquisition, given almost 5.5 x value uplift in a very short period of time. I think any further opportunities we see will really be upstream in resources. Outside of Indonesia, look, there's nowhere really that has the size of ore resource, the grade and the existing infrastructure or even the government incentives. I don't know anywhere in the world where you could go and get a 15-year tax holiday on your investment. Look, we certainly are actively looking overseas for any other opportunities outside of Indonesia.
As I said, I think our focus looking forward, and it has been for some time now, is if we could do another Sampala transaction, I think we'd certainly contemplate doing it given the long life value of that resource, the low capital intensity to develop the mining operations and the very low acquisition costs.
Thank you. Given, I guess as you've outlined, the value of the ore deposits and the mining deposits, can you just help me understand the total volume of ore from Sampala required to feed ENC, TMI and CNE? I guess what I'm asking is what's the required RKAB size that you'll need?
For ENC, that'll require about 12 million-14 million tonnes of limonite a year, which will be coming from Hengjaya. TMI, CNE will require the same volume, about 12 million-14 million tonnes, which will be coming from Sampala. The minimum RKAB in both instances for HM and Sampala is 14 million tonnes. I guess one of the benefits of Sampala is given it's actually three individual IUPs. You're actually then looking at an aggregate number rather than a headline number. If we were only to get 7 million tonnes at ETL, 7 million tonnes at A&N, would mean that we'd be at that 14 million tonnes and even, we've got a third IUP which could feed in. Having that ability to sort of split that 14 million tonnes requirement across the three IUPs, we think gives us a very good benefit as well.
Okay. Thank you very much for taking my questions.
Thanks, Mitch.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Werner for any closing remarks.
Look, thanks everyone. I appreciate you jumping on the call at short notice. Look, as always, Chris and myself are available for any further questions that you may have. We look forward to providing further updates of ENC and now TMI, CNE in our upcoming quarterly. Thank you again, everyone, for your time.
Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.