Good morning, everyone, and thank you for attending OM Holdings' webinar this morning. My name is Jenny from the IR Department of OM Holdings. Together with me, Lisa Chee, and we will be hosting the webinar today. OM Holdings is a manganese and silicon smelting company with vertical exposure in mining and trading, and has just released its December 2024 quarterly production and market update last Tuesday. I am delighted today to have OM's Managing Director, Adrian Low, and he will run through the key points followed by a Q&A session. If we are unable to answer your question, we'll attempt to address the query post the webinar. So, without any further ado, I'm pleased to hand over to Adrian. Adrian, over to you.
Thanks, Jenny. Thank you, everyone, for dialing in to attend our webinar this morning. You know, I think we are closing 2024, and it's already February, so you know, very soon we'll be releasing our 2024 full year results. So anything, you know, questions relating to the full year will unfortunately, you know, of course, be deferred until those results are out. So, you know, I think I would appreciate it if all the questions today were kept within the realm of operational details, so to speak. So in 2024, I think we closed the fourth quarter more or less on track. So I think if you look at what we put out in our announcement, and indeed look at the numbers, you will realize that, you know, we closed 2024 exceeding the upper end of the guidance by 3%. So I think that is meaningful for two reasons.
One, I think, you know, we are on track in terms of how we are forecasting production. Two, I think really something that is perhaps not very visible to analysts and shareholders is the impact and additional ton of production has on fixed costs because the furnace, because the smelter complex is designed for 16 furnaces. You know, this has an impact on the unit cost of production. So in terms of silicon metal production, we actually managed to commission the furnace. So, you know, some shareholders will recall that when we first converted the furnaces into silicon metal, there was an issue with commissioning. This year, however, in 2024, we managed to successfully commission the silicon metal furnaces.
That being said, I think owing to market prices and just the broad trends in terms of silicon metal versus ferrosilicon pricing, we have opted then to move those furnaces back into ferrosilicon production because the per furnace day utility is higher producing ferrosilicon. So I think some shareholders have already raised this in some form or shape, and, you know, that is the answer. It makes more sense, and it makes more commercial sense to be producing ferrosilicon today, while at the same time, you know, I think the company stands ready to switch production depending on what the broader trends are. Okay. In terms of sustainability, OM Sarawak was awarded the Champion Award for the prestigious Diamond Award under the Large Enterprise category, and this was a competition, you know, organized locally in Sarawak.
You know, our submission involved, you know, describing the circularity of how we are treating byproducts and waste within OM Sarawak. So, you know, obviously that includes the silica, ferrosilicon fumes, microsilica, and as well as how we are repurposing and reusing slag, right? So that includes both ferrosilicon slag, high-carbon ferromanganese slag, which is reused in production, as well as, you know, how we're selling silico manganese slag to local enterprises. For that, you know, we were awarded the Champion for this award. In terms of, you know, financing, again, I think it's I probably said this for a few quarters now, but we paid $12.4 million to project finance lenders in Q4. I think this will, you know, this has been going on for a while.
I think last year we mentioned that we would be working on, you know, alternatives and looking at what the optimal capital structure for the company ought to look like. So that's something that's ongoing. I think, you know, shareholders, you know, should be able to expect something within this calendar year. Okay. In terms of production volumes, you can see our guidance for 2025. You know, these are from the plans involved in the budget production for FY 2025. The numbers are, as you can see below, so 170,000-190,000 tons for ferrosilicon and 270,000-300,000 tons for manganese alloy. Again, you know, big caveat, this depends on the product mix.
You know, we do change that through the year, but we have sort of marginally lowered guidance, you know, based on looking at the maintenance plan of ourselves and also this year of Sarawak Energy, our main energy supplier. I think the details are pretty self-explanatory. I think on the mining front, really the mine remains under care and maintenance. The intention is not to restart mining. On the UFP front, you know, everything has been installed. The optimization has been done. We've completed a trial production, and that has been relatively successful. We are doing a second trial in quarter one this year. The idea behind that is to sort of put up the parameters of how we are selecting yield and, you know, trying to optimize what sort of manganese content we should be targeting.
So once that is done, I think, you know, you will be in position to restart commercial operations at the mine. On the smelting front, nothing significant has changed. You know, 14 out of 16 furnaces have completed major maintenance. And this has, you know, been the case for a long time. We have deferred, you know, the two ferrosilicon furnaces mainly because they're running well. So there isn't really a reason to sort of accelerate the major maintenance. And, you know, there's no reason to spend the CapEx before it needs to be spent. That being said, I think in 2025, we expect to put those furnaces through major maintenance. Okay. So that's it for production guidance. In terms of the markets, so, you know, the next two slides, you know, usually I talk about what's going on in the ferrosilicon and the manganese alloy markets.
For ferrosilicon, you know, I think if you look at what has happened through 2024, it's not been very exciting, I must admit. You know, prices have been on a steady downtrend for a couple of years now. You know, you will notice this sort of blip towards the second half of last year. I think that's really a sort of gradual reaction to the reduction of supply of ferrosilicon from places like Russia. You know, that the gain then becomes kind of eroded towards the end of last year as markets decline, I think primarily due to pressure both in China as well as the rest of the world. I think in the long run, you know, the demand and supply of ferrosilicon is more or less balanced. We have found, in a sense, our place in global markets.
That means that, you know, there won't be unnecessary price wars or, you know, buying your way into markets and the sort of activity. So I think, you know, we are convinced that OM Sarawak today, compared to pre-COVID, we are in a structurally much stronger position just by looking at, you know, the power tariff differential between what we enjoy in Sarawak and in China. Russia remains well cut. So, you know, I won't speculate on that, but there's that differential there as well. If we move on then to silicon manganese in the next slide, you will see that, you know, 2024 was a lot more exciting for manganese alloys. We saw from Q1 last year the force majeure event at South32 that led ore prices to spike, I think, by four times.
That led silicon manganese prices, the blue line, to increase by 20%-30%. Excuse me. And then, you know, both then declined very, very rapidly to close at a much lower level at the end of the year. I think the, you know, 2024 was a year of sort of whipsaw and overreaction both on the, you know, increase and on the decrease. I think here on out from Q1, we will see normalization of these prices. What that means is that, you know, manganese ore prices today are close to $4. You know, the closing price December was $4.08. I think, you know, for Q1, we expect some increase, you know, between $4-$5.
But DMTU and for silicon manganese prices that closed at $885 at the end of December, that should normalize to a range between, you know, $900-$1,000. So I think these are sort of normal price ranges for manganese. And they go hand in hand, as we see with the exception of 2021 and 2022 during COVID. Typically, you know, the correlation between these two prices on a monthly basis should be close to 80%-90%. So that is our expectation. And with these sort of standard patterns, you know, the profitability of OM Sarawak has been very, very stable within these ranges. So that is all we have to share for today. And I think there are a few questions. So let's leave more time for the Q&A.
All right. Thank you very much, Adrian, for the presentation. We will now move on to the Q&A session that we have received. The first question relates to the ultra-fines plant at our Bootu Creek Mine, which would be able to share some insights as to how and why it has taken such a long time to upgrade the UFP and why it has been taken close to five years, mainly.
Right. So first of all, I think it hasn't really taken five years. I think, you know, whoever asked the question might be looking at sort of today and, you know, when the UFP was first launched. So I think, you know, obviously the reason why we had to do this rectification was that the screening efficiency when the UFP plant was commissioned was not optimal. The screens were performing poorly, scrubbing out, you know, mud and everything else that has gone into the tailing stuff. So when it was commissioned in 2020, you know, obviously that was during kind of peak COVID. And the rectification exercise, you know, trying to understand what should be done and what can be done took a long time, right? And the actual full commercial reassessment was actually done kind of post or around the same time as mine closure, so 2021, 2022.
And then from that point on, I think the board only gave its blessings to proceed at the end of 2023. So from then on, you know, the time it takes to indent the screens that had to be redesigned and install them and, you know, go into sort of trial production took about nine months, I think, so most of 2024. And we were in place to restart towards the end of last year. And, you know, indeed, I think right now in Q1 2025, we're doing second trial. So, you know, if you look at that in context, you know, that there are reasons for various delays in the process. And, you know, having said that, I think that the UFP really is complementary to the economics and profitability of the group, right? And as well as the cash generation.
It's not really the main project that we should be pushing for and, you know, unnecessarily accelerating. So that's also part of the reason why it has taken the amount of time it has. So we want to restart the plant, you know, in the right place at the right time with the right economics.
All right. Thank you, Adrian. Moving on to the second question. So there are three parts to this question. So the first one is whether you will be able to provide us some general comments on the execution of our past projects. I think that will probably revolve around the conversion of furnaces and about the major maintenance. And the second part to this question is actually what is the industry standard for maintenance and what does it seem to take almost half a year per furnace? And the third part is actually answered in your first question earlier, and that relates to the UFP. So I think maybe we can tackle the first part first, which is providing some general comments on the past projects.
Sure, sure. So, look, I mean, if we're talking about Sarawak, really, that's, you know, the conversion project. So, you know, I also remind shareholders that, you know, we started off the Sarawak project with 16 ferrosilicon furnaces, right, in 2014. So that was actually the agreed-upon package with project finance lenders and, you know, in consultation with them at that time. Obviously, that was not ideal in 2016. At the end of 2016, you know, we had modified six of the furnaces to manganese alloys, so what we call Plant A now. And those, you know, were sort of commissioned in sequence in 2017. So that was the first, you know, bulk of sort of conversion works. And post that, I think we then did another tranche of sort of conversions, right?
And so two of the, you know, of the 10 ferrosilicon that were left, we decided that optimal balance should be six ferrosilicon furnaces. And so two of them were switched to metallic silicon and two of them were switched to manganese alloys, right? And this took place in the last couple of years. And, you know, part of that was delayed because of COVID. But, you know, as of last year, you know, the manganese alloy furnaces obviously were commissioned very, very smoothly. So bread and butter, it's also not a very complex product, nor a complex sort of conversion process. But the conversion to metallic silicon, you know, as most shareholders will know, took a while.
The conversion itself was not that drawn out, but the sort of commissioning and, you know, the switch of production to ferrosilicon and then the recommissioning last year took a bit of time, so I think that's really, you know, that really boils down to the technical differences of metallic silicon and ferrosilicon, and ferrosilicon, in a sense, it's an easier product to produce. It's only 75% Si, 25% is iron. You know, iron melts at very, very low temperature. It's very easy to operate the furnace, whereas metallic silicon is much trickier to operate because it's 99% Si. You know, you have much lower tolerances for error, and you don't have the benefit of the circulating iron to improve furnace conditions. You know, that being said, you know, maybe I just sort of share the economics of metallic silicon.
I think, you know, right now, you know, China obviously has built a surplus in terms of silicon capacity. And that's, you know, all the way upstream from metallic silicon production to all the way downstream down to solar, right? So I think this, in a sense, the economics of metallic silicon will depend very much on the geopolitics. And I think needless to say, all of us in the company, as well as most shareholders, I would imagine, will be focusing on, you know, the tariffs and sort of the tit for tat duties that will be emerging in the days and months to come. And so, you know, perhaps there's a place, right, for non-Chinese metallic silicon. But right now, it's a very, very small niche. I think, you know, it's much more profitable and much more economical to be producing ferrosilicon right now.
That's, I think, the first part of the question, Jenny. Sorry, what was the second bit? If you could just rewind.
The second part revolves around the major maintenance part. This question says that what is the industry standard for maintenance and what does it seem to take almost half a year per furnace?
Okay. So I think the industry standard is pretty close to what we're achieving, which is about two months per furnace. So I think, you know, it's never been half a year. You know, I think we did most of the furnaces over a 12 to 18 months period. So, you know, I think, you know, if you look back at the announcements, it should be between two to three months per furnace.
All right. Thank you. And actually, the third question was on UFP, but I think you have already addressed it in your first question on the screen feed distribution part and where we need some optimization works going on. All right. We'll jump to the last question. This one relates to the valuation of the company. So I think we have received very few similar questions around, and it's on the valuation of the company. How does OM Holdings actually plan to turn around this valuation?
Yeah, right. So we, you know, yeah, obviously we have received similar questions, you know, over various periods of time. And I think the broad direction really has not changed, right? What management is focused on doing is developing our assets, generating cash from our assets. You know, since COVID, we have generated over $400 million in operating cash flow. These have been variously redeployed. I mean, the most significant one was the acquisition of the minority interest in OM Sarawak around 2021 and 2022. We have spent a lot of effort in terms of sustainability as well as, you know, the optimal product basket as well as, you know, sales market kind of distribution. So that's what, you know, management has been focusing on. And I should also mention kind of what we're doing with the debt on the debt front, right, which I mentioned earlier.
So I think we have delivered on that and we've proved to be resilient even during depressed market conditions. So we're relatively nimble and, while at the same time, you know, operating in a very, very kind of firm and steady manner. So while that is all true, I think I would not deny that there's an issue with the valuation, right? Obviously. And this really, I think, you know, we spent the last two years speaking to a lot of investors, a lot of buy-side funds, a lot of brokers. And I think our conclusion is that this largely really stems from the fact that liquidity is low. So, you know, like a lot of the shareholders that might be on this call, I think the vast majority of shareholders looking at the registrar have gone through quite a few cycles with us.
They, like yourselves, do understand that the company is undervalued. You know, to what extent is really not our place to share. But I think the result is that, like many of our shareholders that may be dialing in, they are not inclined to sell. So over time, ironically, this decreases the free float. And I think we've seen that since we listed on Bursa because actually the free float has decreased since then because there are other sort of convicted shareholders that have come in. And so very ironically and strangely, the situation actually reflects conviction in the company, but you don't see that reflected in valuation because the free float is declining. So I think what really needs to be done is beyond things like, you know, the dividend policy and, you know, improving kind of the news flow.
I think what needs to be done is a kind of a structural rethink of, you know, what the sort of corporate structure should look like, and I think this will be a priority for the management as well as the board, you know, engaging with the board in 2025 and 2026, so you know, rest assured, this is, you know, really top of mind for us, and you know, we hope that we will be able to deliver some sort of, you know, semblance of a plan in 2025 and 2026, so you know, these two years, so unfortunately, I think that's probably all I can share at this point, and you know, look forward to sharing more once we arrive at some kind of concept.
All right. Thank you for sharing that, Adrian. Now that appears to cover the majority of the questions from our audience today. If you do have any further questions, please forward them to investor.relations@ommaterials.com. We will be making a recording of this webinar available via our LinkedIn profile in the coming days. This concludes our webinar for today. Thank you, everyone, for attending, and thank you, Adrian, for the comprehensive update.
Thank you, everyone, for dialing in. Have a good day.