I think we might lock the doors. Okay. All right. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Anthony Kiernan , I'm the Chairman of Pilbara Minerals, and I certainly welcome you to the annual general meeting of the company. And it's terrific when I look around the room. I've got gray hair, and there's a number of people in the room who've got gray hair, and I know that those people have been shareholders of this company for a long, long time. And it's terrific that you've stuck with it, and it's terrific to see you all here today. And sorry about the comment about gray hair, but such is life. But thank you.
I know that I've met many of you over the years, but as I said, it's terrific to see you here again, and thank you for your support. Some housekeeping matters before I get carried away. On the screen, there should be some information. Yes, evacuation diagram. So just have a look at that. If you've got any questions in relation to that, you can probably ask Vince down the front. He knows all that sort of stuff. Vince De Carolis, okay. Before I came in, there was a guy sitting out on the street. He looked like he had nothing to do. And I said, "Why don't you come in here and have a bit of a yarn to U.S.?" That's Dr.
Len Collard, who, who's going to give us a Welcome to Country. Oh, sorry, Emeritus Professor Dr. Len Collard will give us a Welcome to Country. You want a wheelchair, mate?
Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Tony. How is everybody?
Great.
Noongar kwop? Are you well? Yeah, make sure you have plenty of water, 'cause we're copping a bit of a flogging from the heat lately, aren't we? So, Swan River. And, so what I always do, I always start off in our language because, when I was a little boy growing up in Wickepin , my parents and my grandparents, like lots of grandparents, that I found out when I went to Wickepin Primary School, all wanted their children to speak their heritage language, so Italians and Portuguese and Croatians. There were Scots and Irish and Welsh and all manner of people. And from what I understood, everybody's grandparents wanted their kiddies to speak their heritage language.
What I know is a lot of my friends, particularly the Italians, some of them spoke Italian, but a lot of them forgot their heritage languages. And so, as my pop always said, "In the future, when you become a man, you're gonna have to talk to people, and so you must always speak in the first language of the heritage of this place," which I do. The good news is, we also had to learn to speak English, and having been to the U.K. on more than one occasion, I realized if you talk to the Scots in English, they don't understand you. You speak to the Irish, they struggle as well. And then I reflected, so what I always try to do now is not say that I'm gonna speak in English.
Guess what language I'm gonna speak to you in? Australian. So I'm gonna do the very best Australian as I can. And, the reason why, I mix it with, with Noongar is because, the English that we speak, or the Australian English, is a mixture between, in this part of the world, Noongar and, whether it's English or Irish or Welsh or Dutch or whatever. But the little story I shared with you was about, William Dampier. Has anyone heard of William Dampier? He was one of them boat people. You heard of them boat people? Well, the Noongars knew about them a long time ago, and they were sitting down here, on the edge of the river, and they saw the boat come. They were my family that saw them. And, they... There's a long narrative about the boats.
The irony of it was, in the 1696 expedition into the Southland, one of the other captains of the boats was a guy named Gerard Collard. In English, you would say Gerry Collard. So I rang my Uncle Gerry up. He's, he was a munartj, or a policeman. I said, "Unc, you're not the first Gerry Collard that was around here." The captain of, I think it was the Nijptang or the or one of the boats, was Gerry Collard. So we've actually got a foot in both camps, I think. Partially in the boat people's camp and partially in the mob that were here.
And so when Pilbara Minerals reached out to me and invited me to come and have a yarn with the shareholders, they said, "Len, would you pop in and say g'day, share a little yarn, and bring some kwop wirrin, or some positive blessings, for you on your journey here today, and celebrate what yous have been up to? I know the market has been up and down. I'm a surfer, and you know what? It's the same, really. One day the waves are up, next day it's down. Next minute, you're happy, next minute, you're sad. Next day, we started off, it was a nice clear day, the waves are perfect, suddenly turns to crap, and then, you know what I mean.
And so surfers, I think, and shareholders in any company, I think we've, we've had the same sort of experience. So keeping in mind that Tony said to me, "Len," when he invited me in, he said, "Mate, there's a long agenda that Minerals is trying to cover, cover today, Pilbara Minerals. So, Len, I know those Aboriginal dream time stories go on and on and on, but, mate, can you keep it short, please?"... Tony, I'll stick to my word, and that's about where I'm going to finalize my yarn. I want to say welcome here to UWA, and welcome here to the Bilya Boodjar, or the Riverlands, as, as we Noongars call it.
I'm going to play a little tune on my didgeridoo to bring the Kwop in, or the good spirit, and hopefully set us on a positive conversation. I think there's plenty of good things to share today, and I know the chair and the board are pretty happy with how things have been traveling this year. I can just tell by the smiles on the faces of these people in the audience that what I'm saying is true. On that note, I'll finish off the tune. My wife said, "Make sure you apologize to the shareholders and to the board," 'cause I've got another thing to go to. As you know, it's pretty hot, so I wanna try and get home and have a shower and get ready to go back to the next event.
So what I'm gonna do is finish off with the didgeridoo. Play some didgeridoo for you, and as the Noongar always say, "..." I'll see you later on.
I know you're disappearing, Len, but thank you very much. Thank you for the welcome to Country. I also would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, the Whadjuk Noongar people, and pay my respects to their elders, past and present. I can also acknowledge the traditional owners of the land upon which our Pilgangoora operation is located, in the Nyamal and Kariyarra people, and their enduring connection to the country. With me today, I'll just introduce some of our members of staff. The one closest to me, Alex Eastwood, the Company Secretary, and I'll talk more about Alex later on. Next to him, Dale Henderson, who's the Managing Director. I think that's Sally-Anne Layman next to him. Yes. Nick Cernotta and Steve Scudamore at the end. Another director, Miriam Stanborough, is virtually online.
She was unable to attend today by virtue of an illness. Also in attendance, a number of our senior executives. We've got the Chief Financial Officer, Luke Bortoli; Chief Operating Officer, Vince De Carolis; Chief Sustainability Officer, Sandra McInnes; and Chief Development Officer, John Stanning; and project director, Paul Laybourn. Paul, why didn't they make you a chief? Everyone's a chief. Okay, I would like to reintroduce our chief project director, Paul Laybourn. Okay. I'd also like to acknowledge the attendance of a Computershare representative, Rod Sims, up the back there. It's an annual meeting for me and Rod. We've probably been meeting this way for probably 10 or 15 years. Before I keep going, I'll just deliver an address before we move on to the formal business of the meeting.
Well, as I said at the beginning, it's wonderful to see so many shareholders here, but so many shareholders who I know have been on the register for a number of years, and they would have been part of the journey, the good times, the bad times, the good times, and at the moment, the somewhat indifferent times. But it is the resources space that, and these things do happen. As Len said, "Good surfing days and bad surfing days." But certainly, it's a pleasure to see you all here today. The 2023 financial year was quite remarkable for the company. We achieved exceptional operational and financial income outcomes, with a 64% increase in production and a 68% increase in sales.
The achievement itself is a result of our strategy to maximize the value of our Pilgangoora operation and capitalize on the rapidly growing demand for lithium. Obviously, we were the beneficiary of a strong price for our product. But unless you can execute your fundamental business model and operate efficiently and safely, the price is of no consequence. It's a bit like being in cricketing terms. You need to have the ball in your hand to get the benefit of a favorable wicket. Significantly, the company entered the ASX 50 and finished the year as the top growth stock in the ASX 50, with 114% growth over the financial year, and as you'd appreciate, a cash at bank figure of AUD 3.3 billion at balance date.
As part of our capital management framework, we paid an inaugural dividend in March 2023, which, when combined with the share price growth, delivered total shareholder returns of 127% over the year. Being able to return funds to shareholders, many of whom, as I've said, have supported the company for many years, was a very proud occasion for the board and management. Strong operational results come after shift after shift, quarter- after- quarter, and leverages our track record of operational performance and underpins our internal growth. The operational performance of the company is only possible if our Great People , and we use that in uppercase, Great People, are physically and mentally healthy. Pleasingly, this year, we reported 2.9 field safety interactions per 1,000 hours worked, which exceeded our target of two, and more importantly, is a leading indicator of safety performance.
As our operational workforce continues to grow, we are focused on maintaining a strong safety culture because there is nothing more important to us than our Great People going home safe and well after a good day's work... We've taken significant steps towards becoming further integrated in the battery materials supply chain, which of course, includes storage through our downstream processing joint venture with the South Korean company, POSCO, and our decision to construct and operate a midstream demonstration plant at our Pilgangoora operation with Calix. Apologize for that. Last month, we exported our first shipment of spodumene concentrate to be processed in the new lithium hydroxide chemical facility in South Korea as part of our joint venture with POSCO, which will commence commissioning soon.
There's a number of us actually going out to Korea over the weekend and next week for the commissioning of the plant in Gwangyang, which will be quite a significant step for the company. Subsequent to year's end, our P680, as we call it, expansion program achieved first ore. Paul, well done. This was an important milestone, as we take our production capacity to 680,000 tons per annum of spodumene concentrate, and it's the spodumene concentrate which we sell after processing the ore. It also underpins our P1000 expansion project, which, as it stands today, will make our Pilgangoora operation the second largest producing hard rock lithium mine in the world, with the capacity to produce 1,000,000 tons of spodumene concentrate in 2025.
The board and the company are extremely positive for the future of Pilbara Minerals. This is evidenced by our current capital expenditure program. You'll appreciate we're committing a lot of dollars to increase in run rates and generally on site, and our commitment to being a dominant player in the battery materials market in support of a sustainable energy future. Global demand for lithium is projected to continue to grow strongly, which will be driven largely by the adoption of technologies such as electric vehicles and large battery storage for renewable energy systems. While the long-term outlook is excellent, we know there'll be price demand variability from time to time, and as you'd appreciate, and I'm sure Dale will address that when he gets up to talk.
This is not to be unexpected because of the technologies being developed in the world as we move towards the clean energy requirements. Pilbara Minerals, however, is an established producer with a strong balance sheet, strong long-term, long-term customer relationship, which allows variability to be addressed. Just to that point, one of the things which I think are often said to me that, that is a standout for Pilbara, is we actually know what we do. Our day job is getting the ore, processing it, and I think it's fair to say that this company executes its business model as well as anyone, and I think we've got a lot of benefit for that. And it's a lot of credit to our operating team.
We have a laser focus on sustainability, which is critical for our success, and we continue to prioritize improving performance and disclosure in this area. We're setting our sights on interim targets, focusing on credible and informed goal setting while prioritizing training and awareness to stay ahead in the evolving sustainable landscape. Our Chief Sustainability Officer here is Sandra McInnes, so feel free to have a chat to Sandra, when we have a cup of tea and a sticky bun outside. With a growing workforce in operation, we recognize the significant responsibility we have as a business to make a positive and sustainable impact on the community. As such, it was pleasing to be able to provide support through the establishment of several new multi-year partnerships, all of which align to our community investment focus area of education, community resilience and energy transition.
I would like to acknowledge Dale Henderson's first year as Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, and please feel free to harangue him after we finish the meeting. The leadership transition has been seamless, and as you'd appreciate, we've added quite substantially to our senior management team, many of whom are here. The depth of our experience of our expanded executive leadership team is an absolute asset to the business. They are an exceptionally high-performing team who share a clear vision, clear strategic vision, I should say, for Pilbara Minerals. Together, they lead a very talented group of Great People , each of whom have contributed, sorry, to our success, and no doubt, sharing the exciting opportunity to be part of something better.
I'd like to thank and particularly acknowledge everyone from the company, from those that sit on reception desk, through to accounts payable, through business development and up on site. Each and everyone contributes to the success of the company, and I thank each and everyone for their contribution. I'd also like to acknowledge the long-serving Chief Commercial and Legal Officer of the company, Secretary Alex Eastwood, who has stepped down from his role this month. Alex, the gentleman on the end there. Alex has played an integral role in Pilbara Minerals' leadership team over the last seven years, has been instrumental in many aspects of the business. Most importantly, Alex has been a loyal and dedicated leader with an enduring belief in Pilbara Minerals' vision. We wish him well in the future endeavors and extend our sincere thanks for the enormous contribution he has made.
Alex and myself have spent a lot of time together over the years because we're both old reformed lawyers, so I suppose you can't keep us apart. But in all honesty, his contribution has really been, it's been wonderful. So, Alex, on behalf of all the shareholders here, thank you very much for your contribution. Give him a clap, please. He deserves it. To the young group there up on the table, the board of directors, thank you for your ongoing contribution and the active role each and every one of you play in the strategic direction of the company. As you'd appreciate, most of the directors have been with us for a number of years. Finally, thank you to our shareholders, many in the room, stakeholders, partners, and communities for your continued support.
I believe we are uniquely positioned in the sector with a Tier One operating asset, a strong balance sheet, dedicated and talented team, and a clear growth and diversification plan, which is well underway. We're committed to operate in a uniquely Pilbara Minerals way to enable the clean energy transition and generally make a difference to the world. Our journey has begun well, and we look forward to sharing it with all of you. Thank you. Okay, on with the business. And, you know, a lot of us will be hanging around afterwards, so please feel free to come up and, and have a chat to us. Now going on to the more formal things. The company released its notice of meeting for today's meeting, and that can be viewed on the ASX and Pilbara Minerals website, as well as on the company's Computershare platform.
This year's annual general meeting is conducted as a hybrid meeting, being physically here at the University of WA, as well as online via Computershare meeting platform. We encourage shareholders to make use of both of those platforms to participate in the meeting. Rod told me just before the meeting that we had something like over 100 online, so there's a fair bit of continuing interest in the company. So I welcome shareholders, proxy holders, and representatives attending in person and online. To ask questions, and I've got to just go through this. There are two ways to ask questions: if you're attending, obviously, you raise your right hand, and someone will give you a microphone. If you're attending virtually, and to those people online, by typing and submitting a question on the online platform.
To ask a question, select the obvious Q&A icon, type your question into the text bar, or alternatively, if you wish to ask a question verbally, please follow the instructions written below on the broadcast page. Further information about the submission of questions via the online platform is set out in the online meeting guide, available on our website or as an attachment within the meeting platform. Please note that you can start submitting questions from now on, but I won't address those questions when they relate to a particular resolution until we get to that. We may receive multiple questions in relation to one. We'll probably amalgamate those, so they can be answered together. If your question relates to a specific item of business, please refer to that item of business when you submit your question.
Also, in the interest of time and to allow all attendees an opportunity to ask questions, you may be limited to asking one question, one follow-up question. We'll see how we go. And if you're asking a question from the room, please ensure you wait for the microphone to be put into your hand. As is custom these days, all voting will be conducted by way of a poll on all resolutions, and I'll shortly open voting for all resolutions. If you're eligible to vote, there are two ways you may cast your vote, in person or via the online platform. For those in attendance, you may vote using the voting card, which you were handed when you entered the room. When called upon to vote, please do so by marking your voting slip either for, against, or abstain.
Your voting card will be collected prior to the end of the meeting. If you've got any questions in relation to that, just address them to Computershare staff over there. You'll have voting slips, and those which are eligible to vote will be able to use those. For those online, once voting opens, sorry, please press the Vote icon, and all resolutions will be activated with voting options. To cast your vote, you simply select one of the options. There's no need to hit the Submit or Enter button, as the vote is automatically recorded. You can change your vote up until the time I declare the voting closed. If you require any assistance during the meeting, please refer to the online meeting guide, which is available on the platform.
With regard to proxies, these will be displayed on the screen for each resolution. Please note that there are a number of open proxies which have been received in the chairman's discretion. I advise that as the chairman, I'll be directing those in favor of each of the resolutions. We can get on to the business of the meeting. Okay. I now turn to the formal matters to be considered and declare voting open. Those online, please feel free to cast your vote. I'll give you a warning before I close voting. Rod Sims over there will be the returning officer, and following confirmation from Computershare, the final results for the poll will be announced to ASX later today.
At the conclusion of the formal part of the meeting, Dale will make a presentation, and there'll be an opportunity for questions at the end of his presentation. And as I said, management and the board will be hanging around, so please feel free to come up and have a chat to us. I now propose that the notice of meeting be taken as read, unless anyone would like me to read it. Okay, thank you. If there's no objection, I'll record the motion is carried. I'll now move to the business of the meeting. The first item of business is to receive and table for consideration the annual report, which includes the financial report, the sustainability report, the directors' report, and the auditors' report for the financial year ended 30 June 2023.
Members should vote, and note that those reports are tabled for comment, not really for approval. Representatives of our auditors are down there, Derek Meeks, who's been around for a long time, and Glenn, his offsider, is lurking around somewhere over there. They're available to answer any questions from members in relation to the conduct of audit. So I lay the financial results before the meeting, and then I'll pause if any shareholder's got any questions or observations on the financial report and the report of the directors and auditors. Okay, nothing from the floor. Alex, anything online?
Nothing, sir.
Okay, thanks. If there no further questions or comments, or no, there are no questions, I should say, or comments on that, I'll now proceed to the specific resolution, the notice of meeting. I don't propose to read each resolution out unless anyone wants me to, because the resolution itself will be displayed on the screen. And you can read that, and also will be available to those which are online. Okay. Resolution 1 relates to the remuneration report, which is included as part of the directors' report that can be found on page 132 of the company's 2023 annual report. Voting on the adoption of the remuneration report is advisory only. Proxy votes, as I said, are displayed on the screen in relation to the remuneration report.
At 92% acceptance is very high for a rem report these days. The resolution itself should be displayed on the screen. Yes. I now invite shareholders to comment or ask any questions in relation to resolution one, which is the adoption of the remuneration report. Okay, no questions from the floor. Alex, anything online?
No questions, Tony.
Thank you. I now put the, put the resolution and then move on to Resolution Two. Resolution Two, notice the meeting relates to the re-election of Sally-Anne Layman as a director. Sally-Anne, who's been on the board for a number of years, retires by rotation and offers herself for re-election. Her details are set out in the explanatory memorandum and annual report. Proxy votes in relation to the re-election of Sally-Anne are on the screen. The resolution itself is also on the screen. I'll give you a chance to read that. And it's also available for those which are online. So are there any questions or comments or clarification in relation to the re-election of Sally-Anne in the terms of the resolution on the screen? No question from the floor. Anything online?
No, Tony.
Michael's not asking a question online, Sally-Anne? About why you worked so hard, you think? Okay. Okay, so, anyway, I now put the resolution. Okay, thank you, and as I said, it'll be conducted on the poll. Resolution number 3 relates to the re-election of Steve Scudamore as a director. Scudamore has been on the board for many, many years and chairs our audit committee and does a sterling job in relation to that. He retired by rotation, offers himself for re-election. His details are set out in the explanatory memorandum and in the annual report. Proxy votes in relation to Steve's re-election are on the screen, as is the resolution, which I don't intend to read, but it's there for, able to be read. I now invite shareholders to comment or ask any questions they may have on the resolution to re-elect Steve Scudamore. No question from the floor.
Anything online, Alex?
No, Tony.
Okay, thank you. I now put that resolution. Resolutions 4 and 5 of the notice of meeting relate to the renewal of the company's employee award plan and amendment to the existing plan. As I'm sure you'd appreciate, the purpose of the employee awards plan is to appropriately motivate, retain, and reward employees for driving long-term growth and performance of the company. The plan was previously approved by shareholders in November 2022. It needs to be refreshed, and as part of the refreshing, we've actually updated certain aspects of it to accord with ASX listing rules, and in particular, adding a provision there to enable dividends to be attached to awards. So, Resolution 5 itself seeks approval.
Subject Resolution Four will pass the amendment, and Resolution Five will allow existing shares to get the benefit of the changes to the, to the plan. Resolution Four relates to the renewal of the plan. The votes in relation to that, proxy votes, are displayed on the screen, as is the resolution, which I don't intend to read, and the proxy votes are on there, 96.6% in favor. Now, invite any shareholders seeking clarification or any comment in relation to the plan. Okay, any questions online, Alex?
No.
Thanks for that. Okay, I'll now move to Resolution Five, and that is the meeting which relates to amendments of the existing securities. So having, having agreed to amend the plan, there are currently existing securities which have been issued under the plan. Those issued securities now get the benefit of the amendments which have been made. As I said, those amendments were made to come in line with ASX listing rules. Proxies in relation to Resolution Five on the screen, as is the resolution itself, available for reading. Now, inviting the shareholders to comment or ask any questions they may have in relation to Resolution Five. Anything online, Alex?
No, Tony.
Okay. I'll put the resolution. Moving to Resolution 6 of the notice of meeting, which relates to the approval of the issue of employee performance rights to Dale Henderson under the employee award plan. Full details of these are set out in the explanation memorandum, including the performance hurdles that apply to these rights. Approval of the resolution does not necessarily mean the performance right to automatically convert it to shares. There's the need for Dale to meet the performance hurdles and the appropriate vesting conditions within the defined 3-year period. The performance vesting conditions are weighted 40% towards what we call relative total shareholder return against a peer group of companies. In other words, we compare our performance against a peer group of resource companies.
40% towards the total shareholder return, a peer group of ASX 50 companies, which is at the top, and 20% against successful commission of the delivery of the P1000 project infrastructure, which I referred to before and is part of our heavy capital expenditure commitment this year. There's also a service condition that Dale remains employed to the company for a three-year period. The proxies in relation to that are on the screen, as is the resolution. I invite shareholders to comment or ask any questions in relation to the resolution. Anything online, Alex?
No, Tony.
Okay, thank you. Resolutions 7 to 10 are all common insofar they relate to the issue of share rights under the awards plan to the company's participating non-executive directors. The company's salary sacrifice scheme for non-executive directors was approved by shareholders previously at the 2020 Annual General Meeting, and that approval is scheduled to end at the end of this month. Accordingly, we propose to implement a new scheme. This is not a, this is not in addition to directors' fees. What directors do is they get the opportunity to take a percentage of the director fees, up to 40%, in performance rights or in shares. In other words, they don't take the cash, they take, they take the shares. And one of the reasons for this is it allows a greater participation of directors at equity level.
As I said, it's not in addition to, in addition to the salary. It just removes part of the cash component, and that's satisfied by, by shares. As I said, there are a number of, couple of resolutions in relation to those. The first resolution is Resolution Seven, which relate to the issue of share rights to myself. Obviously, I have an interest in the resolution, so Alex, pass to you.
Thanks, Tony. The proxy votes received on this resolution are displayed on the screen. I won't read the resolution, but it's clearly set out there on the screen. I now invite shareholders to comment or ask questions they may have on Resolution Seven, and then I'll read any online questions. Right. Do we have any questions in the room on the resolution?
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Temporary Chairman. My name is Jeff Carrick, and I'm a share-
You're still not audible.
Might have to time you out like they did in the-
How we going then? I'm a shareholder through my super fund. A couple of questions about the plan in general, if you don't mind me asking two at once. The notes to the meeting say that there's a minimum holding policy. The first question is: What is that minimum? Is it some fraction of the annual fee? And the second one is: It mentions that the previous plan that we're replacing had a provision for a salary sacrifice, so I'm interested to know what has changed in the new plan.
Okay. So in relation to the first one, the minimum holding policy. We do have a minimum holding policy. Alex, correct me if I'm wrong, it is over a three-year period, the directors must hold equity equivalent to a defined percentage of their...
A percentage of their annual director's fees.
Let's just say the director's fee was $200,000, which it's not, but let's say it was $200,000. Yeah.
Yep.
So over a three-year period, they would need to hold equities, 30% of that.
Yeah, I think it's higher than that. It's about 50%. Oh, it's 100%, sorry. 100%.
It's 100%, Sally-Anne, thank you.
100%, that's accumulated over a three-year period.
Okay, so you look at, so you look at what the, what the salary is, and it's over, over AUD 200,000, the person needs to acquire shares to the value of that. Okay. Going to your second question, I think you're asking, what is the difference between previous and... Simply, the previous approval was given in 2020, and that approval is only for a three-year period. So it's just a renewal, there is no difference. And, and under the, under the listing rules, directors cannot get any equity or any equity without shareholder approval, irrespective of what it is. We can buy shares on the market, obviously, in accordance with our policy, so there's no difference. There's no magic. Okay?
Yeah, that's, that's correct, Tony.
Oh, sorry, you're running Resolution Seven.
I'll run that one. Yeah, thank you. So any more questions in the room? Are there any more questions? Okay, I'll just check if there's any questions online. There are no questions online in respect to this resolution.
Okay, thanks. Thanks for the question.
So-
I-
Yeah.
Okay.
I'll put the resolution to the meeting, and if you haven't already done so, please cast your vote on the item. Now I'll hand back to Tony because he does a better job than me as chair.
Thanks, mate. Appreciate that. Resolution Eight is like Resolution Seven. We're going through each of the directors now. Resolution Eight relates to the issue of share rights to Nick Cernotta should he elect to take it. The resolution is on the screen. It's the same principle as that to me, and the proxy votes in favor of it are on the screen also. So any questions in relation to that or comments, observations in relation to Nick? Okay. Anything online, Alex?
No, nothing.
Okay, thank you. I now put that resolution. Resolution Nine relates to the issue of share rights to Sally-Anne Layman. Proxy votes are on the screen. Resolution is on the screen. Any shareholder have any comment in relation thereto? Okay, anything online?
Nothing.
Is anybody out there?
Yeah.
Well, who's it? E.T., isn't it? E.T., you out there? Something like that. My kids remind me.
No questions on the resolution.
So what? Sorry.
There's no questions.
On the resolution, no. Obviously, lining up for the big guns. Resolution 10 is similar to the previous resolution. This relates to the issue of share rights to Miriam Stanborough. Resolution's on the screen. The votes in relation to that are also on the screen. Any comments in relation to that? Anything online, Alex?
No.
Okay. Resolution Eleven relates to the approval of potential termination benefits to personnel who hold or have held during the previous three years, prior to cessation of employment, executive shares or shares in the company. Under the rules of the employee award plan, on termination of an employee with unvested awards forfeit those unless determined by the board as a good leaver. There's information in relation to the explanatory memorandum, which explains the background to all this. And approval is being sought in relation to the Corporations Act, because the Corporations Act sets out there's a defined limit on benefits that can be paid to senior executives on termination.
And it may be the circumstances exist where some of the benefits that the person may have acquired through good leaver status may exceed the ratio which is in the Corporations Act. The resolution itself, as I said, fully set out in the explanatory memorandum. The proxies are on the screen, and the resolution is on the screen. Any questions or comments on it? Okay. Anything online, Alex?
Yes, Tony. We do, we do have one question on Resolution 11. The question is, "Why was there such a large vote against on Resolution 11?
I think that's probably a question you may need to... It wasn't a large vote against it. It's probably you need to ask those who voted against it. Nicky, you got any comment on it? Nick, Chair of the Rem Committee.
Okay, sorry about that. There was some advice given to us through the proxy advisors that are related to the termination benefits that were paid to the previous CEO, Ken Brinsden, on his departure, which are related to retention scheme that we put in place. So that was the, that was the reason why.
Yeah. So someone just took a different view to the board, that's all. As we can see, the 75% are for it. Any other questions in relation to that?
No, that's it, Tony, on that resolution.
Okay. Thank you. I now put the resolution. Resolution 12! Well, that's the increase in aggregate fees payable to directors. Why didn't we put that one first? So anyway, what we've done there is obviously we benchmark these things. We just look at what is the appropriate figure. Nick's the chairman of the Rem Committee. He would have taken the professional advice on that. And what we're seeking to do is increase the aggregate fee pool for directors. And information of that, and information of the background of what directors do get paid. The AUD 1.7 is not per person. I'll give you the big tip. And the information is set out in the explanatory memorandum. The votes, proxy votes in relation to those are on the screen.
Any questions in relation to, or observations in relation to that? Yes.
Hi. I'd like to know how much was paid to the directors last year, please?
Okay. Look, the figure will be in the annual report. Someone turn it up for me. What page?
One forty-eight.
148. Alex, you can ask the question if you can find one, page 148 then. Oh, Nick, Nick, Nick-
I've got it here.
Nick's got it.
On page 148, the chair, Anthony Kiernan , was paid in 2023, AUD 247,955. Miriam Stanborough was paid AUD 176,000. I was paid AUD 185,087. Sally-Anne Layman was paid AUD 193,000, and Steve Scudamore was paid AUD 189,042.
Okay. Thanks for the question. As I said, we benchmarked those, and we found that we were orphans when it came to what we should get paid. So, not to worry. Anyway, the resolution is on the screen. Any further comment or question in relation to that? Thank you for your question. Appreciate that. Anything online, Alex?
Nothing online on that question, Tony.
Okay, I now put that resolution. I apologize, I should have put that resolution to you to run, Alex. I'm sorry. Not to worry. Anyone get upset that I didn't pass it over to Alex? No. Okay, that's fine. Thanks, Alex. Look, that concludes all the resolutions we put to the meeting. Now, as I said, all resolutions will be conducted by poll, so if you could complete your poll papers and hand them to Rod over there. Thanks. Alex, could you give the lady minor up there? I think I've seen her. It's the green voting cards that would be handed in. Any, any answer? There's one over the back there. Oh, that's a shame. Unknown. The tax man. Or the bank telling you, you know, your credit card's overdrawn by AUD 2.38.
Okay, any more green cards to go in? Thanks, Computershare. Thank you, Rod. Appreciate that. I assume that all shareholders have now voted, those that wished to vote, so I, I declare the poll closed. And Computershare will now go and do what work they do. They'll count the poll and collate the results, and details of the results of the meeting itself will be posted on the company's website and also on the ASX company announcement. Like, and all I say, thank you all for your attendance. I formally close the meeting, but that doesn't mean we leave the room. Dale will make a presentation. Obviously, the lithium market is an interesting stage, so no doubt, he will address that.
In all sincerity, it's great to see so many shareholders here who've been with us for a long time, and I hope you will be with us for a lot longer. Thank you very much.
Thanks very much, Tony, and good afternoon, everyone. I will echo some of Tony's earlier comments. But firstly, I was just reflecting, it was not many years ago, this room was half the size. I think it was only a handful of people. I'm pretty sure we only had one packet of Tim Tams. And to think the year we've had has just been absolutely remarkable. The largest growth stock in the ASX 50 for the year just past. It's a remarkable feat that I don't think anyone saw coming, and it's credit to an amazing market, a lot of hard work, a great asset, but in particular, the support of our fantastic shareholders, many of whom have been there through the rollercoaster, which is the establishment of this industry.
So thank you all for coming, those obviously here and those online, members of the press, our partners at Pilbara, staff at Pilbara, of course, the board of Pilbara. Yeah, and as I say, most importantly, our shareholders, thank you. I will take us through a presentation in a moment, but just a couple more sort of opening comments from me. It really has been a rollercoaster, the formation of the industry, and some of my comments a little bit later on the market will reflect that. And what's more is it seems like the macro environment has got even more tumultuous. We've had the wars, unfortunately, inflation, of course, there's the pandemic, and then we've had the geopolitical shifts, to name but a few.
So navigating these waters has been, as I say, tumultuous. So to this end, a thank you to the board of Pilbara Minerals, and in particular, Tony's stewardship as chair, who, you know, has really navigated these uncertain waters. Also, thank you to the executives, in particular, the parting executives. Earlier in the calendar year, we had Brian Lynn, our longstanding CFO, bow out. And of course, we've got Alex Eastwood stepping down as our Chief Commercial and Legal Officer. Alex, he's hyper-conscious, hyper-conscientious, relentless in his efforts, and he's been a major contributor to the business, as Tony spoke to. He's been deeply involved in each of the key junctures the business has had.
I'd also add, Alex is actually our most cheeky executive, and he's been our self-titled, Chief of Fun, so we will miss you, Chief of Fun. Welcome also to the new blood, the new executives who we've got here in the front row, Sandra McInnes, Luke, Vince, Paul, and John, whom have joined the team over this past year and really have hit the ground running. So thank you to the big efforts, believing in the mission, rolling your sleeves up and getting stuck into it. And thank you, guys. But most importantly, thank you to the team at Pilbara. They are the driving force of the business, the results. They've delivered everything which has happened to date and will deliver everything that comes forward.
So we, the executive, but a small increment, of course, of that team, so all praise goes to them. And lastly, thank you to some of our partners, Nyamal, Kariyarra, our contractors, our customers, of course, and our financiers. So it's this collective effort which has brought through the journey of Pilbara to date and what lies ahead. So it's a proudly homegrown Australian company, independent, pioneering a path forward in what is an incredible industry which is unfolding before us. Stepping to the presentation. In a nutshell, Pilbara is powering forward to make the most of this incredible emerging market, and that's made possible because of our scale and the asset, our low-cost profile, and a Tier One jurisdiction. These things coming together at what is the toe of an incredible market which is stepping forth.
Where we are today, well, we're ASX 50. We are 100% independent. We've got an incredible growth pipeline ahead with more than 70% increase in capacity before us, and we're getting on with the job of adding more value through our downstream joint ventures. Our strategy is all predicated around maximizing shareholder value as rapidly as we can, and we think about this through four key priorities. First and foremost, it's about the operating platform, making sure that it's shooting the lights out shift after shift, quarter- after- quarter. It is the money maker, and it's through this that all other value-add steps can occur.
Priority two is about expanding that operating platform to full extent, making the most of this incredible Tier One asset that and it seems like the more we drill, the more we find. It's, it's a fantastic system, so the best route to creating more value is make the most of this asset that we're stewarding to life. Thirdly, it's about downstream through chemicals participation, which is all about adding more margin per lithium unit coming from the mine. And lastly, diversification, which is all about moving ultimately beyond the Pilgangoora asset. But we describe this priority as a priority fourth, a distant fourth, but one that we're gearing up and, and ready for when the right opportunity presents itself. So those four priorities are in service of our aim, which is to be a leader in the provision of sustainable battery materials products.
Now, I'll step through each of these one by one. But before I do, as it relates to sustainability, the year which was has been a really key year for us to start moving up the curve more rapidly in care of Sandra McInnes coming on board as our Chief Sustainability Officer and her team building on the work done to date. It really has been a year where we're starting to pick up the pace, and delighted to have more bench strength joining the team to help us pursue our aims as a sustainable producer more quickly. As it relates to FY 2023 highlights, we've got a heap of them. It was a year of more production, more sales, strong increase in pricing care of the strong market we were operating in.
As it related to growth, we approved the expansions, plus getting on with some of those expansions. As it related to chemicals, our joint venture with POSCO got stuck into construction, and that's vastly progressed, and we're looking forward to flying over very shortly to see the progress on that. The midstream joint venture with Calix was finalized, and then after all of that, we continued to drill, and we increased our reserve to the tune of 35%, which was enormous. Effectively adding another 100 million tons to the reserve, increasing our mine life by another 9 years. So 34-year mine life, which of course affords the opportunity to get bigger, provided studies can prove that will work okay. As it relates to financial highlights, triple-digit percentage increases across the board.
A remarkable set of financial outcomes for the financial year. Strong volumes, strong pricing has played through to that amazing set of numbers, revenue, cash, EBITDA, and it, and of course, bottom line profit in excess of 300%. As Tony mentioned, of course, this enabled us to get on with paying back dividends to our shareholders, which we did to the tune of AUD 0.25 through the interim and final dividend. So fantastic milestone for the business, maturing as a company and of course, paying back to those many shareholders whom have supported Pilbara's growth journey to date. And we look forward to future dividends in that regard.
As it relates to sustainability highlights, a combination of outcomes here, ranging from, sustainability ratings, some physical, outcomes in terms of decarbonization with our 6-megawatt solar farm coming online. Systems and reporting improvements as well through the water balance and environmental management system. As it relates to culture, we've, as a team, we've really got on with the job of doing, some very active investment around culture. Deeper culture surveys, funding, broader, deeper training and, helping, enable and empower our leaders further and further. All of that's playing through to, reinforcing the already great, culture, which is, Pilbara Minerals. Now, stepping through each of those, 4 planks of the strategy, the operating platform. This pictorial, gives, quarter-over-quarter, run rates of, both production and sales.
You can see in the September quarter, just have a slight step down on the prior quarter. That's principally due to the tie-in of the P680 project, such that that was effectively tied in. Therefore, as you do those tie-ins, it does impact production runtime slightly. I would just add that we planned for those tie-ins, and we feel very comfortable about the guidance for the year. And I'd note that production volumes for the year were in FY 2024, are very much back-ended, back half of the year, as a function of bolting and that new expansion capacity care of the P680 project. As it relates to plank two, that expansion profile, this pictorial is both a look back and a look forward.
In the gray, you can see the produced tons on the years past. You can see the down dip in FY 2020 or the lithium winter as we called it. Then from that point forward, it's been stepping up production year-on-year. In the blue, the 680 expansion I mentioned a moment ago. This is the one that Tony mentioned as being construction complete, commissioned, and this is ramp up quarter. Such that as we step into the start of next calendar year, we're at that full nameplate production capacity. Beyond that, the P1000, sort of green, blue bar to the right. That is, FID has occurred, engineering is underway, procurement is completed, and it's into the throes of construction. Now, beyond that, you'll see the dotted lines.
We like the idea of going bigger again, courtesy of those drill results I mentioned. How much larger we can go depends on really the studies. So those studies are underway. PFS is timed to be delivered to market June quarter, next year, so we look forward to seeing the outcomes of that. But as I say, we like the idea of growing our production capacity even further and making the most of this incredible tier one system that we are developing at Pilgangoora. A couple of pictorials of the expansion. Here's the P680 that I mentioned. You can see how it's very much been a brownfields expansion, tying in to the existing infrastructure.
So big credit to the site team, Vincent's operating team and, and Paul's project team, to, to manage all of those ties successfully and bring it online on time and on budget. The other part of the P680 project relates to the installation of our large integrated crusher and ore sorter facility. This will support not only the current capacity, but will support the future capacity as we move up to the P1000 or 1 million tons per annum. This ore sorting facility will be the largest of its kind globally. Certainly, the largest in lithium and the largest in the Southern Hemisphere for mineral concentration ore sorting. So big, big set of infrastructure, but we are delighted to be bringing this to life.
We see this as an important part of continuing to improve our lithium recoveries, reduce our cost base, and push more distance between us and our competition. So looking forward to bringing this online, and I'll just add that the test work that ultimately drove this FID and this build that you see today, a lot of that happened that test work happened during the downturn. And a credit to the board that although times were tough and every penny was saved, the board in their wisdom, continued to approve that important test work, which is ultimately flowing through to this project and other test works, such as our midstream project. A lot of that key work actually happened during the depths of the downturn, so the fruits of that are being borne out today.
On the P1000 project, you can see the schematic there on the left-hand side. You can see again, it's another brownfields expansion, with the blue sort of wrapping around the existing infrastructure. Right-hand side, concrete's underway. I'm not sure what it is. Paul, what is it? Tank?
Uh, yeah.
That's a thickener. Thanks, mate. So it's underway, but it's a longer build there to come online mid-2025. Now, moving to the resource outcomes. Good year of drilling, which played through to a resource upgrade and then the reserve upgrade to the tune of 35%. I mentioned extending the mine life by nine years to 34 years, so a great outcome. And as I mentioned a moment ago, studies are underway to deliver PFS results in the June quarter. But more drilling to come. Hot off the press, the board's approved the next wave of drilling, which will get underway both this financial year and rolling into next year. The light red shade that you can see to your left is effectively prospective area, which the team will be moving the rigs to.
So as I mentioned, we like the idea of continuing to drill out the resource. Why wouldn't we? It's cheap tons. The more we can grow the resource, make the most of the resource, we can then bolt on more production capacity, bring more lithium units to market. And if done the right way, we should be able to reduce our unit cost through that scale as well. So without question, the Pilgangoora operation is one of the largest globally and will be one of the largest globally for many years to come. So pretty exciting stuff and be great if we can find a few more tons in the ground. Moving now to chemicals. A quick reminder here, upstream is what we do today. This is effectively the production of our spodumene concentrate.
Downstream, on the right-hand side, relates to the production of battery-grade chemicals product. And midstream, as the name suggests, is in the middle. It's about value-adding our spodumene concentrate further, producing an upgraded, chemical product. The idea around midstream is add more processing steps at the mine site to increase the concentration of lithium and improve the purification through dropping other waste, and what's more, do it through more sustainable methods. And this is where our joint venture with Calix comes in, whom, another great Aussie company, East Coast-based, who's developed an electric calciner. So we've joint ventured with them for the application of that tech, in lithium, and we think it's great. We think it's pretty neat. And through using that, electric process, we should be able to materially reduce the carbon energy intensity.
So the goal here is a more concentrated lithium product for market, more value-adding at the mine site, plus a more sustainable method. To downstream, our key entrée here is through our joint venture with POSCO. And as I mentioned, we're looking forward to getting over there very shortly to check out progress and see how that's going on. And that is a picture of the plant. This is not many weeks ago, so this is in Gwangyang, South Korea. Two-train, 43,000-ton lithium hydroxide plant. In the background, those big white buildings is POSCO Chem, an existing cathode manufacturing facility they built in the last couple of years. So you can see very, very much on construction land at the moment.
Paul had the pleasure of being over there a couple of weeks back to check out construction progress. And the team, the POSCO team, is busy finishing the build, looking to commence commissioning of the first train actually this quarter. So as I say, we're pretty excited to get over there and take a closer look. And this, I should just highlight, this is the, I guess, an objective the company has had since inception. The bones of the POSCO deal were signed in early 2018, and here it is now coming to life, so fantastic. And I think the world is actually waking up to South Korea as one of the best placed battery materials hubs outside of China. Firstly, it exists. There is a full ecosystem of battery materials manufacturing in South Korea.
LG Chem, EcoPro, to name but a few. The cathode manufacturing of POSCO Chem that I mentioned, it's existing today. They make batteries there. It's all there and we are in partnership with POSCO, building a chemical facility to support that existing industry. So we think strategically, it's a smart location. And furthermore, South Korea has a free trade agreement with the U.S. So for those who are familiar with the IRA, important requirement for IRA benefit is to ensure that the countries involved have free trade agreements, of which Australia does, South Korea does. So we think this, again, strategically, is well placed to serve the North American market, care of its location. So looking forward to seeing that come to life in the quarters to come.
As it relates to the strategic partnering process, what this is about is, this could be another POSCO-type deal. We went to market saying, "We've got a big mine. We've got a large volume of production capacity coming available," and we offered to market up to 300,000 tons per annum of spodumene concentrate for the purpose of doing a partnership together. So we're busy working through a process of evaluation of prospective opportunities, and there is some great offers there, and we're looking forward to updating the market in due course later in the March quarter. It's the timing for that. But as I say, it could be a POSCO-esque type deal, i.e., another downstream deal. But we'll update in due course where we take that one.
Lastly and finally, the markets, and I'll, I'll offer a little bit more, more commentary here just to fill out the picture, 'cause I appreciate that, it's been a rollercoaster and, unfortunately, I think the rollercoaster will continue. And I think what's behind this is, at, at the end of the day, this is the establishment of an industry. I think one of the most stark ways to represent this is, is just to look at the pricing for lithium chemicals products over the last 7-8 years. And what you can see is pretty modest pricing. All-time highs were in 2018 of $28,000 per ton. That was the world record for chemicals pricing in lithium, early 2018.
What followed shortly thereafter, during 2019, 2020, was the lithium winter, as we characterized it. What was behind that was effectively the pullback of demand in China, courtesy of pulling back the Chinese EV subsidies. Fast-forward to around the time of Covid, the lithium industry went from a China demand story to a global one. And coincident around the time of Covid, there was a lot of economy stimulus in response to Covid. Europe launched a lot of EV subsidies. North America followed shortly thereafter, including the release of the Inflation Reduction Act, courtesy of the Biden administration. The combination of those efforts have fueled demand, and where the market's moved to today, it's very much a global demand story.
So for those who look back at pricing to try and explain what the future will look like, I'd caution you against that, given that the demand landscape has changed significantly. It is genuinely the birth of a new industry, and when you consider the EV penetration numbers, we are still at the toe of adoption. There's still a long way to go, so the industry is very much, in my view, still in the throes of establishing itself. Now, coming out of that stimulus period, we had these new highs, well beyond the highs of the $28,000 a ton, up to more than $80,000 per ton of lithium hydroxide. And I can assure you, there was no analyst predicting that. All-time highs, and as it related to spodumene concentrate, all-time highs exceeded $8,000 a ton so...
And that was as recent as the December quarter last year, so, less than a year ago. So a remarkable change, in the pricing landscape, which of course has ignited a lithium fever around, participating in the supply chain in all forms, whether it's raw materials, cathode-making, battery-making, or EV companies, or former combustion car companies now converting to EV companies. It appears to be all on for young and old to establish a position. But bringing that to the last year, well, yeah, we've seen this pullback.... from those all-time highs above $80,000, it's now trailed down to sort of the $1,500 mark, that you can see. And so then the question becomes, well, where to from here? And this is the crystal ball gazing aspect.
Now, to share with you our perspective, look, we took a visit to China only three weeks ago and caught up with all of our customers. And the reason I mention that is nobody's better placed to have visibility on the landscape of the evolving market than the chemical converters and the participants of the industry, whom are, in the main, resided in China. So we had a full week there, did a round robin around all of those customers and queried them on where do they see the market heading, both long term, short term, and what is their conviction or worries in the space. Now, the really pleasing feedback from this is they remain foot down around the long-term proposition for the market. All of the customers we met, in different forms, have continued to expand.
All of the customers we've met with continued to ask Pilbara about collaborating further and providing more production. They all remain resolute on the long-term opportunity for the market. Who could blame them, given all of the commitments, the various subsidies, the energy transition commitments globally? It's a remarkable point in time. But when we turn the conversation to what does the short-term outlook like, they're far more conservative and more subdued on the short-term outlook. What they speak to here is they wonder about those macro backdrop pressures I mentioned. Inflation broadly has tempered some demand in some markets, in particular North America, to a lesser extent, Europe. There are growing pains, particularly some of these car companies whom are retooling from combustion to EVs.
Across the media, some of you may have read the growing pains, Europe, some of the big European car companies have struggled, and equally to the US, there's been some struggles with retooling, taking the form of unions, build-out of plants, you name it. Now, I put this all down to growing pains as part of the establishment of a new industry. Bringing it back to those customers, they, as I say, they remain bullish on the long-term prospects. They continue to build, but as I say, they're cautious around the short-term outlook. Now, what does this all mean for Pilbara? Well, we're the same. We have conviction on the long-term outlook, as we always have, as we did during 2019, 2020.
We remain focused on seeing through any short-term volatility to maximize this incredible opportunity, which is the birth of this new industry and new market. And what gives us comfort is our scale, our low-cost production base, positioning us at the low end of the cost curve, and our know-how. It's the combination of those things, and I'd also add our Tier One jurisdiction. We are placed like no other to weather the storm, see... if it is to be a storm, see through it and enjoy the prospects on the other side. So if anyone gets wobbly around you, you can talk to those points. And in the meantime, could there be more more volatility? Probably. As you've seen to date, we've had some lows, we've had some massive highs, we've seen a pullback. There's probably more volatility to come, but truth is, nobody knows.
So appreciate that was an expanded explanation, but I did want to paint the picture of the landscape because there's some very conflicting opinions out there which are not always helpful. So hopefully, I've helped you with that, and after the presentation, certainly welcome questions, either here or outside. So lastly, to finish, Pilbara is powering forward to make the most of this incredible emerging market care of our scale, our low-cost position, and our Tier One asset. So thank you, all. Thank you for your time, and we'll now move to questions.
Thanks, Dale. I think, first things, we'll start with some questions from the floor, if anyone has some questions from the floor. There's a gentleman over there, Patricia and third row.
Hi, Linda Newland from the ASA, and I'm also a shareholder. I'm just... Pilbara Minerals has had a great year, but I was just wondering about the shorting, which seems to have just been peaking today. And you have talked to some of this, I think, with inflation measures and, and, growing pains, but just wondering why it's shorting so strongly today in particular. Thank you.
Yes. Yeah. So... There we go. Sorry. Yeah, the short position in Pilbara has accrued over probably at least 6, sort of, 6 months period, and unfortunately, we are the leader in the most shorted stocks on the ASX. The reasoning behind that, ultimately, it's in the decision of the shorter as to why they're shorting Pilbara, but what we've rationalized is that those whom are shorting Pilbara are actually betting on pricing coming down. And if you... in the market and you want to bet pricing's coming down, there's actually very few financial instruments in order to do that because the industry is so small. But Pilbara is a means by which you can do it for a couple of reasons. One, we've got a large market cap.
Two, we've got a liquid stock, in that shares can trade easily given the volume of movement. And thirdly, we're a pure play lithium producer in a Tier One jurisdiction. So for those who are wanting to just play a price movement, we are one of the few options to bet downward movement. So this is what we've rationalized from it. And for those who have shorted Pilbara, you'd have to be brave, I'd say. You'd have to be very, very brave for two reasons. Pilbara takes delivering on our promises really seriously, so we are hell-bent on delivering our promises and continuing to perform well.
The second thing, I think, the shorters should think about is when the lithium market turns, it turns quickly, and the pricing curve I showed you a minute ago, nobody predicted that turnaround to occur as quickly as it did, and nobody predicted to reach the highs they did. So, for those whom are betting against this structural new industry, which is unfolding, they're pretty brave, and they better, they better be ready for when it turns, because I think it will be swift.
Good afternoon. Barry Sanders, shareholder. Just like to ask a question about the alternatives to a lithium battery. You hear- you read these articles in the press every now and again about possible alternatives which would be cost effective, including an article yesterday in the Fin Review about a Swedish company who have made a breakthrough in the development of this battery. It's got no cobalt, no nickel, and no lithium. I think it's an actual sodium-based battery. Your comments, please, about whether you think this, these alternative batteries are going to be viable or, this won't happen?
Yeah. No, the race is on to bring to market as many energy storage solutions as possible, of which, you know, batteries is part of that race. And for yeah, a long time there's been different chemistries being worked on and mooted around that that either use lithium or don't use lithium, including the sodium ion battery. There's a couple of. And look, ultimately, where does it all end up? You know, my crystal ball says fast-forward 10 or 20 years, there'll be a spectrum of energy storage devices, of which but I think the lithium product type is pretty hard to beat for two key reasons. One, it's had a long head start on a lot of the other technologies.
You know, the lithium-ion battery was invented in the 1970s. It has really been perfected through camcorders and other batteries, et cetera. And then ultimately, it took someone, you know, bolting them together to really leverage that up and then go and apply it into other use cases. And then from that point forward, the industry's continued to build out at scale. Which brings me to sort of the second key advantage, the lithium-ion battery has, is that it's moved down the cost curve quite rapidly. So it's got a long head start, both in the technology development, and 2, it's further down the cost curve. And I think the third thing, probably just to add, is that, the lithium-ion battery seems to have carved out a space which is hard to compete with as it relates to e-mobility.
And just to offer a bit more detail here, the reason is that the lithium-ion battery offers sufficient energy density with a high efficiency rate, charge, recharge efficiency, plus safety, plus cost. The combination of those particular metrics, when I ask the experts, they talk about that's going to be hard to beat. In other use cases, for example, mass energy storage, a whole different story. I think in time, it's probably likely better tech will come into place, which may be sodium ion, it may be vanadium, it may be zinc bromide. There's a whole heap. But their combination of needing larger volume or, or safety or other cases, so they come to bear. So anyways, we'll wait and see. But as I say, lithium ion has got a fantastic head start.
Hi, Stuart. I'll just two questions. In spodumene, both related to spodumene. Spodumene generally has other minerals like tantalum and cassiterite. Do your deposits have these, and do you consider them to be products that you can count on down the track?
Short answer is yes. So we do have tantalum, which varies through the ore body in on different concentrations, and we do have a tantalum circuit, so we extract that. But that's about it in terms of minerals. It's tantalum and lithium, effectively.
The other question is, are you aware of the new process developed by the CSIRO, which uses caustic soda under temperature and pressure to extract lithium? It appears that it's a lot more energy efficient.
Yeah, no, we're, we're aware of that one. There's a, there's a number of different flow sheets being progressed, not only with the extraction of lithium from spodumene, but also further into the hydroxide manufacturing. The race is on around working out what is the optimal, optimal flow sheet. Yeah, we take a look at all of these flow sheets as they come along, and we watch with interest, and we also, of course, talk to our partners whom have done deep work in the space, and I would sort of cite POSCO in this regard. They've done a lot of work in the case of hydroxide manufacturing on bipolar electrodialysis. And in fact, our joint venture plant incorporates that process.
So I just mentioned that as an example of a different technique being deployed. Ultimately, I think what happens as the industry evolves is the optimal process will win out, and that will be lowest cost, highest quality. But I think the jury's not out on which processes ultimately win.
Can I ask one last question? I know Toyota are developing a solid-state battery system, which uses, probably uses a lithium sulfide process. Can you make a comment on that? Because that'll be a real game changer.
Yes, I understand Toyota's going to solid-state lithium, which is brilliant because they need more lithium. So we're happy about that. But good on Toyota for getting on with it, because for a long time, they were talking about hydrogen, and they weren't giving the batteries much love, but they seem to have pivoted fairly severely in that direction. As I understand, the solid-state battery is, it's complex to manufacture the actual metal and the, I understand that the batteries are quite complex as well. But the key benefit is, of course, much more energy density within the battery. But as I say, most importantly, they need a lot more lithium, so all power to them.
The contract with Calix, how is that going to operate? Do they? I, They're a small company, yeah?
They are, they are. Alex, do you want to-
Yeah, so the contract with Calix is essentially a joint venture to jointly develop a demonstration plant, which will produce an intermediary product. And we see that as a potential future, you know, for a number of reasons. One, it can produce a higher grade value-add product for the company, and also it, it's more, reduces carbon emissions and more sustainable because you're shipping a lot less waste. If you think about you're shipping a 5.5% spodumene concentrate, then you're obviously, you know, shipping nearly 94.5% waste. So I think it's a joint venture. At this stage, it's just to do a development or a demonstration plant.
Subject to the success of that, then the company will, has the rights to commercialize the technology and use it in its own processing facilities.
David Hayes, a shareholder. Given the outcome of the Liontown and Albemarle takeover, has Pilbara Minerals experienced any similar takeover offers at all?
You just heard from the chair. That's a, that's a hard no.
Okay, we've got one more question from a gentleman here, I think. It's in the blue shirt down there.
With the Calix JV, has there been any movement with the pilot plant as yet, or is it still in discussion?
Yep. No, it's more than, more than movement. We did the FID on that demonstration project. That's done. The project's underway, so the teams are busy getting designs done, ordering the equipment, and we'll be constructing next calendar year and commissioning early calendar year 2025. So, yeah, looking forward to bringing that to life.
With respect to it, is it, like, scalable if that's successful?
Yes. Yeah. In fact, the size of the demonstration plant is fairly large for a demonstration plant, and part of the rationale there is the point that you mentioned of, that we want to create effectively one train, or at least some of the unit step process are the equivalent of what you'd use at a commercial scale, and we want to be able to effectively replicate that. So part of the rationale is make it large enough to model that, demonstrate unit cost performance, and also be able to produce enough product that we can test the market for pricing. All right, so I might do one more and then go online. Yeah, so one more.
Can I just follow on that question with regard to Calix? So I've seen over the past couple of reports, and I think even yourself, Alex, just recently, we've seen a bit of variance in respect to the target purity output of this project. So I think I've seen 16%, 35%, and this is from your own data, I think. Then, and Alex, you mentioned... Did I just hear you correctly at 94%? No. Okay.
So yeah. No, so there's a few. Yeah, with, with the midstream project, a number of percentages get talked about. As it relates to the spodumene concentrate, which then goes into the midstream demonstration plant, we talk about the fact that the spodumene concentrate has approximately 5%-6% lithium oxide. The balance of that being 94% is effectively aluminosilicate waste. So that's probably the first percentage you hear. Then, the next percentage you hear is, relates to the product, which gets produced on the other side of the midstream process, the lithium phosphate. And some of the percentages the team's quoted as being related to sometimes lithium metal units and sometimes lithium oxide units. And therefore, sometimes you're seeing some different percentages, but they're actually the same percentage.
It's just lithium oxide or lithium metal, on a percentage basis is different.
So to finish that off, then, percentage of waste that we're shipping. At the end of the Calix process, how much of a reduction in waste could we expect it to remove?
It's in the order of, we're going to sort of 7/8 is waste, which gets left at the mine site. So if you imagine how many trucks head up the road today, only 1 in every 8 would be the way to think about it. So it's a huge, huge volumetric reduction.
Yeah, I got-
Yeah.
I'm trying to get a feel for how much of a volumetric reduction we can expect. Would it be a 50% reduction in waste?
No, more than that. It's... Yeah, yeah. 7, 7/8. 7 on 8, whatever that is. A lot.
So, you're expecting a better than 80% reduction in waste that's being shipped?
Yeah.
So theoretically, we could transpose that across to the sell price of your product being an improved return?
Yeah, that's it, that's it. So, yeah, so there's a whole... There's a series of benefits which should play through to a more valuable product.
Yeah.
One of which is the one you mentioned, around volumetrically, you've got rid of a whole bunch of stuff-
Yeah
that frankly, the customer didn't want. Two, you've reduced the transport cost, 'cause what you're shipping is far more concentrated on lithium units. But a third benefit, actually relates to you—we've actually purified the product further. Not to the level of battery grade, but we've taken it a long way there. There's value in that. And then lastly, and this will be the really interesting one in the years to come, is it's through more sustainable methods. And ultimately, will that help with a carbon premium or a carbon penalty? Well, time will tell, but directionally, there could be value there as well. So the combination of those things should play through to a more valuable product. Thank you. Well, we might go online.
Yeah.
Yeah, 3,000 tons per annum, approximately, for the demonstration plant.
Okay, I think we'll give some of the online shareholders an opportunity to ask some questions. So the first question is: Dale, can you expand on the company's plans to diversify the operations, whether by acquisition or mergers or anything else?
Not really. It's a short answer. Yeah, we... As, as we've talked about, I talked about in the presentation, it's the fourth plank of our strategy, an important fourth plank. But what I'm at pains to reassure shareholders is, we're, we're in no rush around inorganic growth. But that being said, we, if the right thing comes along, well, well Pilbara, of course, likes the idea of creating more value for our shareholders, but we won't grow for growth's sake. It needs to be the right proposition. And, we've got, John Stanning employed, and his team employed, whom are building out this muscle in the business.
Okay, thanks, Dale. There's a few questions where we might struggle to answer, but we'll do our best. There's a shareholder who's keen to know what are our predictions for next year's dividend?
That's a function of the pricing. Pricing, of course, is the big uncertainty. As we've seen, with the financials in the year just passed, some incredible returns, care of strong volume, strong pricing. That's what enabled the dividends that we had for the year just passed. As it relates to the year ahead, as I say, it's really a function of pricing outcomes and in consideration of the other capital needs of the business, as outlined in our capital management framework.
I've got a question about offtakes, which I might be able to answer that one. It's: When are the majority of offtake contracts up for renegotiation? I think, the best way to answer that is you look at page 33 of the annual report. It's all clearly set out. There's a table which tells you when each offtake comes to expiring. There are two offtakes in the short term that will come to an end next calendar year, and the company hasn't decided whether it'll renew those or not. Okay, question related to the BMX auction. Is that still being utilized and even if it's not being announced to the market?
The BMX auction platform remains available to Pilbara, but we haven't been using it. If and when we use it, it will be very much public knowledge. Historically, when we've used the BMX platform, it gets reported on the market very, very quickly. So I can assure you, we have not been running any BMX auctions, and we haven't run one since late last calendar year. But it remains available to us, and if we think we can realize a better outcome for our shareholders, we'll look to deploy that platform again.
Okay, Dale, we've got a question about POSCO. Train 2 is, if that's commissioned next quarter, how long will it take to ramp up? I think to nameplate. I think that's probably a bit difficult since it's still in construction, but we have allowed a conservative ramp up of 12-18 months for both plants. But unless you want to add something to that?
No.
Question, has PLS looked into updating their pricing formulas so it's not heavily weighted or in favor of Chinese pricing?
Yeah, the short answer is yes. The offtakes that we have with our customers, of course, contemplate pricing mechanisms. Those pricing mechanisms utilize different combinations of price reference points, and broadly, sort of speaking, as a company, we've tried to take a portfolio approach to spread those references and combinations. In the knowledge that historically we've seen some quite different movements across those different indices, both the price reporting agencies and the movements between lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide. It has varied, so, being a major operator, as I say, we've taken a balanced portfolio approach to that.
Okay, was wondering what the likely CapEx spend will be for next financial year, given the guidance for this current financial year? Again, I think we haven't given any guidance for next financial year.
No, we haven't guided on that, and we will in due course.
Question. Recent battery energy projects have seen those assets push out beyond eight hours duration. How do you weigh this up when considering new energy provisions for the Pilgangoora plant versus gas plant?
Yeah, yeah, great question. So mass energy storage, I think, is what's been spoken to here. So long duration, mass energy storage, a lot of groups working on it. And it's, they've not been deployed broadly as yet, and we watch with interest, 'cause ultimately the world needs some quality mass energy storage solutions. What we are doing, however, as it relates to our power strategy at the mine site, is ensuring that we have flexibility such that when that tech is available and appropriate, we can migrate to it. But we are not looking to be a leader in the deployment of some of these newer techs. I think we're happy to be a follower, or better, a fast follower, 'cause we would not want to jeopardize our operation.
But we certainly have the ambition to move to those types of technologies in due course to drive out carbon from our system.
Okay, thanks, Dale. This is the last question from online. And then I'll follow up with some questions that shareholders asked prior to the meeting during the course of the week. Dale, how advanced are discussions with potential JV partners with regards to the excess 300,000 tons under P1000?
Yeah, the partnering discussions are well underway, and we are talking with a very short list, and we will update on that in the March quarter. But it's fair to say we're very busy in that space.
Okay. Now, we received a couple of questions, from on our shareholder inquiry line before the meeting started. Why has there been a material change between last quarter and this quarter in terms of production and sales volumes? Presentation materials provide no guidance as to restoration or previous performance over the preceding three quarters, which was generally on a positive compound annual growth rate trend.
Yeah, no, thanks for the question. So, I did cover this a little bit, when I flashed up the graph of the production curves, and I noted that, quarter four for last financial year was a bit of a bumper quarter care of less shutdowns, good grade coming from the mine, et cetera. The Q1 of this financial year was less, largely due to the tie-ins that we were doing for the P680 project. So as I mentioned, the financial year we're in is very much another ramp-up year, where the first half of the year has been about, tying in, the new expansion project, the P680 that I showed the photo of. The second half of this financial year, we'll enjoy the benefits of that installed capacity.
So all going well, the back half of the year, you'll see those stronger volumes.
Okay, thanks, Dale. I think you might have answered this question, but please provide both the company's guidance and expert guidance on the outlook for spodumene prices as well as lithium chemical prices over the next twelve months.
I would love to provide guidance if we could. We don't provide guidance on pricing, as you'd expect, given the volatility you've seen. So sorry about that.
Please provide an indication as to whether the company's option to increase from 18 to 30% in the POSCO joint venture will be exercised during the current financial year, and how much cash will be required to do so?
Yeah, the provisions around this decision for the Pilbara are fantastic. The ball is in Pilbara's court as it relates to the decision on that step up. And the first, the sort of key criterion we think through is making sure that the operation ramps up and is performing well. So that's really the first criterion by which we will think that through. So in which case, as it relates to timing, unlikely that it's in this financial year. We'll wait to see how that ramp up goes before we make the decision on whether to elect to go up or not. And when we do, the value would be circa AUD 60 million to go from the 18 to the 30. 60.
Okay. Please provide an update on the progress of P1000 project, which I think you have done in your presentation. And comparing the case presented to the board, both in terms of cost and schedule, and can you outline any material departures, or mitigation measures?
For P1000, Paul Laybourn, our project director, assures me it's going really, really well. So we're on track for schedule and CapEx. And so the dates that we've disclosed to market, we're on track for. So, March quarter 2025 commissioning and first product targeting June quarter 2025.
Okay, final question. Please provide an update on the progress of Calix PLS demonstration plant, which again, I think we've already... we've covered.
Yep. Yep, on, on track, foot down.
Okay, that concludes questions. There's no more online, so I think that's probably a wrap up.
Yeah. No, thanks, everyone. Thanks for those who've dialed in. Thanks, everyone, for gathering. I think we'll be moving outside now for Tim Tams and a coffee for those who are okay. Thank you for your time.