Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Pilbara Minerals March 2022 quarterly investor conference call and webcast. All participants are in listen only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Ken Brinsden, Managing Director and CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Gaylene, and thanks to everyone joining on the Chorus Call line and a special thank you to shareholders that might yet be participating on the web host. Welcome to everybody. I'm joined in the Pilbara Minerals boardroom by Dale Henderson, our Chief Operating Officer, Brian Lynn, Chief Financial Officer, David Hand, Investor Relations Specialist, and Alex Eastwood, Chief Commercial Officer. We're all very happy to be with you this morning and give you a further update on site activities and events arising and post the March quarter. Thanks for joining. Well, I guess the backdrop to the March quarter is the same or very similar to the December quarter. Accelerating price, strong demand, and I'm sure that if we could produce more spodumene, we would easily be selling more spodumene for a very healthy price.
The acceleration in price, in essence, continued from the December quarter into the March quarter and now flowing through to the June quarter. The most recent piece of evidence to indicate just how strong the demand conditions are is the fact that Pilbara Minerals held another BMX sales trading platform auction close of business yesterday and settled on another record price as it relates to spodumene in the market. The equivalent price for a 6% spodumene ton landed in China was approximately $6,250 a ton. It represents another high watermark as it relates to pricing in the market and further clear evidence as to how short the market is.
I'm pleased to say that Pilbara Minerals is very, very well placed to participate in this strong price environment as a function of, well, obviously what we're achieving via the BMX sales platform, but also more generally as a result of the growth that's going on in production, and especially our expectation is during the June quarter. Yeah, the conditions are very, very strong. As it relates to the work underway, Dale's gonna give you a much more detailed rundown with respect to mining and processing activity, the work that's been underway on the Ngungaju plant. Again, more broadly, there are some challenges and I'm sure they're no different to the experience of just about every mining company, well, not even just in Western Australia, but Australia wide.
The effects of COVID are being felt, and that's our experience. Previously it was the effect of the border closure constraining the pool of available labor. I would like to think that some of that has been relieved as a function of the borders being opened. However, now we're experiencing the direct impact of COVID transmission in the community that results in the combination of either, you know, illness and inability to present to work and/or the effect of isolation. That has been another source of frustration. I think that broadly you would say the net effect of what we've experienced with respect to COVID and the delays and some of those people issues means that in reality, we are about two to three months behind in production where we would like to be.
Nonetheless, still confident in the capacity of the various plants and the ramp up that occurs between now and the end of September. As a result, we continue to target the 580,000 spodumene concentrate run rate, and we expect that to arise during the September quarter. It's also fair to say that the June quarter is an important step along that path, in which case we will see higher production and sales during the June quarter, as compared to the March quarter. As a result, I think it's also fair to say the costs are a bit higher than we would like and/or expect.
Basically the big picture story there is that we are carrying costs as it relates to the additional tons, but as yet, we haven't delivered the additional tons, albeit that's coming. That results in a slightly higher cost result for the March quarter. Elsewhere in the business, post the quarter end, we've completed the formation of the POSCO Downstream joint venture, and POSCO themselves are now deep into the delivery aspects around the large scale hydroxide plant that's being built in Gwangyang in South Korea. We're really pleased to be working with POSCO in that endeavor. It's an important part of the future growth inside Pilbara Minerals, our ability to sell spodumene into South Korea, and also to pick up that economic participation in the downstream facilities alongside a partner like POSCO.
It's a fantastic outcome for the company and a very important part of our future growth. In a similar vein, we've continued to progress the midstream project and the work with Calix on the proposed joint venture. We're also really pleased with results there. The midstream project is also gonna be an important part of Pilbara Minerals' future as we value-add product at Pilgangoora and change the current spodumene supply chain, at least in part, with the expectation that we're going to be able to access markets beyond China with that midstream product, but in particular, targeting the European market in the first instance and likely North America over time.
They're all important initiatives that relate to the midterm and longer-term growth at Pilbara Minerals, and in my view, represent the next leg or leg up in growth for the company by evaluating product and creating different jurisdictions for participation with those value-added products. They're all important steps for the future growth of the company. That's it for introductory comments. I'll come back and talk about the market in a bit more detail and the BMX auction. In the intervening period, I'm going to hand to Dale, who will talk about ops and projects. Then, after Dale, Brian will backfill a bit more of the cost detail and financing detail. Over to you, Dale. Thank you.
Thanks, Ken, and good morning, everyone. So I'll speak to, as Ken mentioned, a piece on ops, then projects, and lastly, touch on a little bit on exploration. Starting with ops, yeah, the general comments, as Ken's kinda covered, is, absolutely it's been a quarter where we've had COVID headwinds, and that's played through to an operational impact, really in the form of some pressures around personnel resource levels. Generally, that's been, at different points in time, felt in every corner of the operation. I appreciate we're not alone with this challenge, and we were anticipating some effects, and we certainly felt that during the March quarter. As I say, of course, that's played through to an operational impact.
Yes, we've met guidance, but yeah, it's not been without some challenges there. Just want to acknowledge the huge effort across our team and our contracting partners who had to contend with what's been a very dynamic environment. We're reacting to, unfortunately, challenges in this space. By way of a little anecdote, we had a charter plane for a shutdown which got canceled at the last minute due to pilots being taken out for the count with COVID. That sort of knocked out 70+ people at the last minute for a shutdown. That in itself is not really a material issue, but in aggregate, these types of sort of incidents have obviously summed through to an operational impact.
Anyways, looking forward to moving through this period, and it certainly is, it's certainly well underway within the WA state now. Looking forward to getting on the other side of it, as everyone else is. Moving from those sort of general comments around the macro picture and stepping into the vital signs of the operation. From a safety perspective, a step forward in safety with a 20% drop in TRIFR down to 3.5. We did have one hand injury for the quarter. Yeah, not without one incident, disappointing in that, but at least the trend is heading down. From a production standpoint, 81,000 tons for the quarter, meeting guidance, not shooting the lights out, but as I say, meeting guidance against those COVID headwinds.
From a cost perspective, higher on a unit cost basis, principally due to the lower production volumes. We had some extended shutdowns and runtime challenges there in conjunction with some suboptimal ore feed, which was a function of needing to change ore sources fairly frequently, which plays through to recovery impact. Brian Lynn will offer a few more details around the cost performance when I hand over to him shortly. Those are the vital signs for the operation. Offering a little bit more detail around the activities within the operation for the quarter. Mining was, in fact, a continued step up in outright mine movement, so a 30% increase from last quarter to 6.1 million wet metric tons.
Despite that big step up, we wanted to be doing a bit higher than that, so we were a little bit under. But again, really a function of the manning challenges across that part of the business. In the mining space, March quarter, we ramped up our own operate fleet in conjunction with MACA, our mining contractor. The own operate fleet there is principally focused around serving the Ngungaju operation off the south pit. There, meanwhile, we've kept MACA focused on the central pit. Those two operations combined have played through to that big step up. Big increase in manpower and ramp up across both those teams and all going well.
A shout-out to SMS, Murchison Blasting Services, and Goldfields Services who have been working with us on the own operate fleet that we certainly hit the ground running, and it's been a safe and very successful start to date. Thank you to you guys. Within the mining category, yeah, that focus remains. We're working very closely with those contracting partners. We wanna continue to increase these high rates of volume movement as we move forward. Of course, that's all about setting us up for the expansion cases, which I'll update on in a second. Moving from mining and then stepping into the process plant area, starting with Pilgangoora. Recoveries were broadly in line with what we were targeting, 61% versus 64%.
Of course, a lot lower than historically what we've had in the past. We knew that, we knew this going into that as a function, especially around the chopping and changing of ore feed that we were anticipating for that particular quarter. That plus the outages, plus a period of training new operators all played to a more modest recovery target for that quarter. As we look forward, we'll definitely be stepping that up through the June quarter as we move into what we think should be a more stable period in terms of ore feed, operator stability, and all going well, less impacts from COVID. Touch wood. That's in the Pilgangoora plant area. Now to Ngungaju. Reminder about the Ngungaju operation.
This was always about a staged recommencement of that operation. The stage one being bringing the core circuit online and then a stage two around bringing the float circuit online. Just to remind everyone, the investment proposition to Ngungaju for Pilbara was always about giving that operation a significant birthday in terms of investment in that plant, bringing it back up to spec, plus also deploying a bunch of operational improvements with the aim of achieving a higher operating performance from that asset in terms of runtime and recoveries. Where we're at is core circuit. We kicked that back into life in October last year. I'm pleased to report during the March quarter that part of the circuit's been running well.
It's really hitting its straps now and that equals basically approximately 40% of the expected run rate from that operation. Meanwhile, during the March quarter, for the flotation circuit, being the other part of the circuit, the team was busy completing the construction works, which were not insignificant. This was in the form of a new flotation addition. New tanks, pumps, a complete retrofit through all the flotation circuits, new rotors and stators, rubber lining. You name it. Quite a significant piece of works executed. Now construction complete in the March quarter. During the March quarter, we started the no-load commissioning, which is the commissioning of the circuit without ore feed.
Where we're at today and the month we are, we are deeply in the throes of actually now introducing that ore. From this point forward, it will be about ramping up that float circuit with a view to be exiting the quarter at a much more healthy run rate across both the combined core and float circuit. As Ken mentioned, it's during that September quarter that we wanna be getting up to nameplate and really hitting our straps across the combined core and float circuit. Bit of detail there around Ngungaju, but just wanted to remind everyone about the journey there and how we're traveling. Yeah, of course, we're looking forward to those extra tons coming out the back and getting those onto the exchange, all going well.
That completes the sort of ops kind of category, there. Now, stepping into the projects land, really, really busy area for the projects team and getting more busy as we look to gear up and capitalize on this incredible pricing environment. In the projects space, starting with the improvement projects, to remind everyone, that was a debottlenecking package for the Pilgangoora plant to offer another 10%-15% uplift. That's all done and dusted, ramped up, and built into the plant, and that's A-okay. Ticking the box there. The next piece of incremental expansion relates to what we call the P680 project. That's another 100,000-ton increase to bring us up to 680,000 tons aggregate production run rate.
Where we're at with that is the team are busy finalizing the docs to support the FID decision, which we're looking to get that squared up, this quarter. Looking forward to announcing that in the coming weeks, all going well, obviously subject to board approval. Beyond the P680, of course, there's the P1000, so a separate stream of activity getting busy. Well, it's really busy on that. Working towards an FID for the back of the calendar year, December quarter. That will of course, as the name suggests, P1000 bring us up to 1,000 tons in aggregate, out the gate, from the Pilbara operation. Other projects from the projects category, the solar farm, that we awarded some time back to Contract Power.
They hit the ground during the quarter, and they're underway to get on with the construction for that. Good to have those guys out there and underway on that package. Lifecycle assessment was completed. Another key package of work as part of our obligations to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. That's all gone well. Thank you to Minviro, who's a specialist in this area, who's helped us out with that package of work. Looking forward to releasing some of that information as part of the annual report coming up. Lastly, in the projects category, the midstream project that Ken touched on. Scoping study was finalized. We like what we see, and it all supports moving forward.
We're looking forward to progressing that with Calix and, yeah, we're busy working with them. As Ken mentioned, we see this as a key proposition for the future of Pilbara Minerals as we look to value-add and create more value for our shareholders moving further downstream. That completes the sort of projects category. Lastly, to finish, a couple of quick ones on the exploration category. Johnny Holmes, our exploration manager, has been out with the drill rig again, doing some sterilization drilling, and he's gone and found more ore. It's another great intercept. Long story short, it's just more evidence which underscores just this incredible system that we have at Pilgangoora.
The more we drill, the more we find, then we have the good problem of thinking through, "Gee, how do we develop all of this?" If we give him half a chance, he'll be doing more holes, surely, for John. Well done, John. Thank you for the new ore. Lastly, Mount York, a couple of gold intercepts. Of course, we're not a gold company, but we like to find value and create value for our shareholders. We're looking forward to seeing how we progress that piece. That, that's a wrap across the ops, projects, and exploration. At this point, I'll hand over to Brian Lynn, our CFO.
Great. Thanks. Thanks, Dale, and good morning, everyone. I'm just gonna give some key highlights from a financial perspective on the quarterly results. In summary, I'd say, you know, we're obviously operating in a very positive price environment, and that led to a strong operating margin being generated. That strong operating margin then flowed through into an improved cash position at the end of the quarter. As I think Dale mentioned, we have been constrained operationally. There's clearly been some issues around manning shortages, and that has had an impact on our production levels, and that flows through to ultimately having an impact on our unit costs.
The unit costs for the quarter were up compared to both guidance and compared to the previous quarter. With respect to price and operating margins, the price, there was a significant increase. We generated or we managed to achieve an average price of $2,650 on an SC6 basis for the quarter, and that compared to a price of $1,750 that we achieved for the December quarter. It's a significant increase during the quarter. That ultimately meant that we generated an operating margin for the tons from the Pilgangoora plant of $1,800 a ton. That's a fairly significant margin on the 50,000 tons that we sold from the Pilgangoora plant.
That strong operating margin led to a strong cash margin being generated. The cash generation from the Pilgangoora operation was just shy of, in Australian dollar terms, AUD 115 million for the quarter. Interestingly, that compares to about a similar number for the December quarter, but we actually sold about 25,000 tons less this quarter compared to the previous quarter. Clearly, that higher price had a significant impact on the margin our operation has generated. Cash position at the end of the quarter, including the irrevocable letters of credit that we count towards cash, was AUD 285 million, so that's about a AUD 40 million increase from the AUD 245 million at the end of December. Just running through the major movements in the cash balance.
As I mentioned, we had about AUD 115 million of margins being generated from the Pilgangoora operation on lower tons. We also generated, even though Ngungaju is still in the commissioning and ramp-up phase, it was able to generate about an operating margin of about AUD 7 million. Clearly the high price is allowing that operation, even during ramp-up and commissioning, to cover its costs and make additional money as well. The result of the positive pricing environment has meant that we had to repay some debt back. There's a cash sweep mechanism within the syndicated facility agreement that we have, and the result of that is that we paid back AUD 25 million of debt during the quarter. We spent about AUD 38 million on capital.
That's a combination of the work we did on improving the Pilgangoora plant, the restart of the Ngungaju operation, as well as the waste movements that's required to open up the various ore bodies to allow us to provide the correct blend of ore to the plants. Interest costs, about AUD 3 million. Corporate administration costs, about AUD 4 million. It's probably worth also just noting that we noted in the quarterly that we just missed out on a shipment of about 20,000 tons that was meant to have gone out in March, and it was planned to go out in March, but due to port constraints, it actually ultimately sailed on the seventh of April.
That ship had actually, if we'd managed to get that out by the end of March, that would have actually added about another 67, in Australian dollar terms, about AUD 57 million to both the cash balance as well as the operating margin. The operating margin, it would have been at about AUD 180 million for the quarter if that ship had sailed by 31 March. Clearly, we will get the benefit of that when we talk about the June quarter. Just turning to the unit operating costs for the quarter. It's been the challenges that we were experiencing at the operations in December continued just certainly for the first half of the March quarter.
In fact, they were probably compounded just because of the fact that we had a sort of major impact as a result of these manpower shortages. Those, you know, as I mentioned, we had some significant challenges around COVID transmissions, as well as that the mining industry in WA is now experiencing some fairly tight labor markets as well. All in all, the manning shortages we had really had a significant impact on our operations. Now, the result of that is that if you don't have all the right people in place, you have reduced ore tons, you have less optimal ore being fed into the plant.
Your plant shutdowns are extended, and sometimes they actually end up being unplanned because you can't get into the battle rhythm of making sure the maintenance program is working properly, and you end up with lower lithium recovery. The sum of all that is that the result is that you end up putting in the same number of ore feed into the plant for the same cost, but you get less lithium coming out the other end, and that ultimately leads to a higher unit cost. The unit cost for the Pilgangoora operation, in Australian dollar terms, FOB before royalties was AUD 632 a ton.
That's about AUD 55 higher than the December quarter of AUD 577 a ton and also ahead of our guidance, which was around about AUD 490 a ton. The increase from the December quarter, yeah, that is largely just driven by the fact that we just didn't generate the same number of spodumene concentrate tons. We're probably, I think about 12%, lower in terms of concentrate tons. Interestingly, the unit costs went up by a similar number. It's all relative to the concentrate tons that we're we ultimately generated. A couple of other cost increases which came through during the quarter. Fuel, obviously, I think everyone's aware that CPI has obviously been significantly higher than it was in the back half of last year.
Fuel probably has added another AUD 16 per ton. Tantalum also, we didn't quite get as many tantalum byproduct credits this quarter, largely as a result of mining more ore out of the south pit, which doesn't have as much tantalum in it. That would account for about AUD 7 per ton. We also introduced a bonus during the quarter. This bonus was introduced to try and help us attract and retain more people. I think it was actually, you know, a reaction, if you like, to the labor market that we find ourselves in.
That bonus, which I think, you know, is a good idea and has actually helped stabilize the workforce towards the back end of the March quarter, added about AUD 7 a ton to the cost. If we add on royalties and freights, in Australian dollar terms, we ended up at about AUD 949 a ton, which compares to AUD 805 a ton for the December quarter. Main increase has been about AUD 12 as a result of freight increases. Freight costs during the quarter averaged about $70 a ton, and the prior quarter was about, I think, $60 a ton. The freight market is still very, very tight and those costs have continued to increase.
Clearly our royalty cost, which is just a function of the price that we sell the product for, has gone up in line with the higher selling price that we received. Clearly costs were disappointing for the March quarter, but we are confident that production levels will improve during the June quarter. We feel like we have made some inroads into improving our workforce numbers and making sure that we've got a consistent workforce as well. This should lead to us providing better quality ores to the plant, having a better maintenance regime. This in turn should result in improved production levels, therefore more spodumene concentrate and therefore a better unit cost outcome compared to the March quarter. This is for the June quarter.
As a result, we've guided to unit cost for the June quarter, FOB excluding royalties, in the range of AUD 490-AUD 500 a ton. One final matter of note is just a point around the cash sweep mechanism. I mentioned that during the quarter, we paid back in Australian dollar terms about AUD 25 million of debt as a result of this cash sweep mechanism. Now, we've been in discussions with our lenders during the quarter. It became evident to everyone that in this pricing environment, if we continue to allow that cash sweep mechanism to work the way it's designed, the debt would probably be repaid by about August of this year.
That clearly is not an outcome the lenders wanted and not an outcome that we, the company, wanted. We have worked with our lenders, and they have just in the last day, actually confirmed that they will agree to a waiver of that cash sweep mechanism for the remainder of this calendar year. I think that's very important for us. Obviously it allows us then to direct the cash flow being generated both to our operations but also we'll be able to also direct it to any of the expansion programs that Dale referred to as well.
I think that's very important for us and we're very pleased how the lenders have worked with us to achieve that result. I think that's everything I wanted to go through, so I might hand back to Ken.
Okay. Thanks, Brian. Thanks, Dale. I'm gonna touch base on the nature of the market, a little bit more color around the BMX platform and a quick reference to the structure in the market and how conditions today, you know, are clearly different to historical norms. The BMX platform, I've alluded to the fact that we finished another auction yesterday and achieved another record price. The BMX platform has turned out to be, I think, quite an important innovation to the industry, and Pilbara Minerals is genuinely leading the charge in this regard. Mainly because we're very pleased with the levels of participation in the platform itself. We've had now about 50 inquiries with respect to participation. We've screened over 30 applicant participants for access to the platform.
Each time we run an auction, we're receiving bids from many, many counterparties. The bidding itself is aggressive. The other point I'd make is that, you know, quite often we're asked, "Okay, but who is actually bidding?" You know, for example, "Is it traders?" Well, I can tell you that almost universally, participation and active bidding is represented by end users. Again, it clearly shows that there is a key issue in the market in the sense that there is not enough lithium raw material supply because it's the end users that are bidding up the price, not traders.
I think that's an important distinction to draw, and in fact, you know, demonstrates how successful in fact the BMX platform is and hopefully can be over time as we continue to grow production from Pilgangoora and start to place more product on the platform. The other point I'd make is just about absolute price received. Pilbara Minerals is a leader in respect of price received against benchmark concentrate sales and has been for quite some time. Part of that is motivated by tools like the BMX platform, but the other part of it is the combination of contractual arrangements around offtake and the relationships with our customers. The net effect of all that is that Pilbara Minerals it clearly outperforms its peers in respect of price received quarter-on-quarter.
Yeah, I'm really pleased with the work that the team has done to get us into that position. Honestly, I think it augurs well for the future. What are the conditions today? We haven't been definitive about our expectations around price received during the June quarter. But broadly speaking, there is going to be another material step up in price received. We've alluded to the fact that the SC6 price reference to the March quarter was $2,650 odd a ton. That is easily going to be $4,000 a ton plus in the June quarter, because of the effect of the chemicals price movement, quarter on quarter. As to what you achieve with the BMX platform, we've also been clear about that.
Obviously, it's materially higher. That's another important distinction to draw. When people reference pricing, it's now also important I think to be clear about what's being referenced. Is it a contractual price for longer dated offtake arrangements, or is it something that's representative more of spot market conditions? That is an important distinction to draw, because the two prices now are reasonably materially different. The last point to make in this area is about the structure of the market. Again, I think this is potentially something that's been missed as people think about the future of the industry.
Historical norms are being broken down, and the net effect of what's happening is and I think clearly demonstrated by our BMX sales, that the miners are going to win more of the margin into the future because it's likely that there will continue to be lithium raw material supply shortages. In effect, margin that might have been available downstream is going to be passed upstream. That's point one that I would make about price. Now, what I think that means is that, you know, I don't have a crystal ball. I don't know what the price is going to be, but I can assure you it is going to be materially higher than historical norms. The second point I'd make is about the structure of the cost base in the market.
That's not well understood. When you think about how much new lithium raw material supply has to come to market, it is going to build out the right-hand side of the cost curve. I have no doubt about that. The combination of novel lithium sources and projects that are either in lesser grade or in more difficult jurisdictions, subject to transport limitations. All those things mean that the cost curve is going to be built out on the right-hand side. What that means is you should not rely on historical norms when you think about future price. Out of all that, you know, in the end, I think Pilbara Minerals is incredibly well-placed because we've got flexibility with respect to our sales platforms and/or participation in the market.
We've got a project that's very, very large in scale and in the right jurisdiction and the right proximity to key ports. Out of all those things, Pilbara Minerals is, for all of you analysts in the room, Pilgangoora is the Andina of the lithium industry. How about that?
All right, I think that's enough, and I'm sure there's going to be some fantastic questions. In summary, it is a challenging quarter. The March quarter, I think, represents another difficult kind of, period for the company as we bring on the two facilities, continue to ramp up capacity, and especially in light of the impacts of COVID-19 and a more recent community transmission. That's been difficult.
Again, you know, perhaps the irony in all that is that our experience is no different to just about everybody else's, and perversely, it probably supports price. I think, you know, out of all that, we can simply say we're headed in the right direction. We're a little bit behind where we would like to be, but nonetheless, still able to participate fully in the market because of the key pricing outcomes that we're achieving. Righto. Cai-Lan, I'll turn this back to you, and we'll take some questions from the Chorus Call line, and I encourage those on the webcast to submit their questions, and we'll get to them shortly. Thank you, Cai-Lan.
Your first question comes from Hayden Bairstow with Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Ken, just a couple from me, just firstly on the longer term, Ken. Just interested to understand, you know, how quickly you think you could accelerate. I mean, you sort of talk about the next 100,000 tons of spodumene, but what is the scope to, you know, target that ultimate sort of, you know, 1 million tons a year, whatever the ultimate potential here is, at least of Pilgangoora. Just given where the market is now, the speed of EVs and everything, can you really accelerate that base expansion plan?
Yeah. It's not as easy as it might sound, but nonetheless, we're working about as hard and fast as we can. I'll get Dale to jump on and just explain a little bit more detail about how he sees those projects unfolding.
Yeah. Thanks, Hayden. Yeah, as it relates to growing the production base, absolutely we're trying to do it as rapidly as we can. As to how long, this is the very question we've been grappling with the team. 'Cause what we're observing is there is pressure around long leads and supply chain challenges, everything tending to the right. Historically, as it relates to that 100,000 tons, we've had a target of sort of nine months from FID. However, depending how we go with finalization of long lead times, that might be more like 12 months. We'll see how we go, but of course, we'll be doing everything we can to bring that to the left. That, that's as it relates to that P680 project.
The P1000 again is in the sort of category of evaluating the long leads to see what we can do. As you could probably appreciate, it's like we've got the same pressures. We're looking at anywhere around sort of the 18-month mark from FID. I'd like to say that that's gonna be something to the left of that. At this point, I'm not able to confirm that.
Thanks, mate. Just on the overall product, I mean, can you give us an idea of just what the average grade is at the moment? Just wanna compare that to where recoveries are, and then how much work have you done on with customers on dropping the average grade to improve recoveries over time, just given how, you know, we're seeing that from some of the other producers out there for materially dropping grades really on product quality.
Yeah, that's a current question, Hayden. Yeah, so we've alluded to that in the quarterly. Basically up to this time, we've continued to target the SC 6 product suite. That's been. The net effect of that is that you're typically shipping a product between about, let's say, 5.7%-6.1% or something like that. You would be in that range. However, in the last three to four months, we've continued to test with customers the ability to ship at a lower grade, and in particular, targeting something that's more akin to an SC 5.5 product. You can see that as it relates to our BMX sales, where in fact each of those has targeted basically SC 5.5 as compared to SC 6.
Our customers on the face of it are demonstrating some flexibility because, you know, as you've alluded to, they really want the lithium units, and if it translates to more lithium units, they are prepared to accept a lower grade. In summary, what does that mean? I think a highly likely trend, as it relates to Pilbara Minerals, but arguably to the industry more broadly, is that the trend is from SC 6 to SC 5.5. We might even yet look at special cases where it's SC 5. The logic in doing that is that, you know, still price competitive, but ultimately it should deliver a step up in site-based recovery and more per year units to customers.
Okay. On recovery rates, is that still if you went to those grades, is 70%-75% still the range or could it be better than that?
No, it should be better than that, Hayden. Yep.
Yeah.
Yep.
I'll leave it there. Thanks, guys.
Our next question is from Alexander Papaioanou , you know, from Citi. Please go ahead.
Morning, Ken and team. Two questions. We read in the news that EV manufacturers in China had to shut down due to COVID restrictions. Are you seeing this impact on feedstock pricing? For the Ngungaju plant restart and a ramp up, are you comfortable with full run rates at the end of this CY?
Yeah. Alex, both good questions. With respect to China and the impact of car plants being shut down, we have not seen any impact in demand. In fact, demand has been consistent now with respect to our ability to sell for the best part of 12 months, and we haven't seen any change. Now there's been a little bit of softness in pricing, but in part that doesn't surprise me because the market had obviously run very, very hard and fast in the period prior. The fact that it's taking a breather really is no surprise. What happens from here? Well, there is some uncertainty. That's why it's a good question, Alex. You know, we don't know how the COVID situation might yet play out in China.
My sense is that the market is so short in respect of, you know, carbonate and/or hydroxide, especially domestically in China, to indicate that they will take all the product that they can. In which case, you know, we should not see any particular impact as it relates to demand. Should you keep an eye on it? Absolutely. Do we expect it to impact demand in the short and the medium term? Not really, because the market is critically short. On the question of Ngungaju, well, really at Ngungaju, it's the, you know, the outstanding item now is the ramp up of the flotation circuit. We've modified the circuit. That's quite an extensive project that Dale alluded to there. So that replicates or largely replicates the Pilgangoora plant in respect of flotation technique.
That's quite a big job, but nonetheless we understand the flotation process pretty well as a function of what we've done at Pilgangoora historically. Therefore we remain confident about ramping up the flotation circuit at Ngungaju and ultimately hitting the overall Pilgangoora production run rates of 580,000 tonnes per annum by the September quarter. That's basically current. As per the ops targets, in which case, yeah, from the latter part of the September quarter, we should be running at 580,000 tonnes per annum.
Okay. Thanks for that. I'll pass it on.
Your next question is from Timothy Hoff with Canaccord. Please go ahead.
Morning, gents. I was just wondering if you had any commentary for us on the current inventory levels inside China. I mean, the pricing implies that there's not a lot around. Is there any additional insight you can give us around that?
Yeah, Tim, there was a bit of commentary about some inventory being released from the brine operations in the west of China. That commentary sort of arose, you know, at the back end of the summer season there, to try and help with, you know, price relief in the market. As I understand it, not particularly large volumes. I think you're right. The price indicates that the you know the inventory levels across the board are very small. I'd go one step further than that, Tim, and say there is already customers that are contractually bound to the delivery of chemicals in China that don't have raw materials. So yeah, I mean, that tells you that the whole market, it's not even really price dependent. There is just no product.
You know, I think the situation is pretty acute there and, indicative of what's yet to come in the industry. It's a big problem.
Yep. Sure. Could you give us an update on the executive search and how that's going, finding the next Ken?
Yeah, Tim, good question. Sorry, I should have addressed that in my commentary. Yeah, well, the process is obviously ongoing. The latest advice from Tony, our chairman, is that the company's been through the process of shortlisting and that basically represents the current status. In which case we're, you know, we're on target to make it clear to the market as to the new CEO over approximately the next two to three months would be my suggestion.
Excellent. Fantastic. Just on the midstream product, I think I guess that came out mid-quarter and we didn't get too much of a chance to chat around it. Just to confirm that what you're looking to produce can actually go straight into an LFP cathode?
Yeah. Well, the first of the salts that we're targeting there is lithium phosphate. Yeah, there's a natural kind of propensity to say, okay, well, that might yet can become feedstock for LFP cathode materials. It's not yet completely clear, Tim, that that can be the case, at least not directly. Indirectly, yes. I think that is absolutely true, the idea that the combination of lithium and phosphate is a key value add to that supply chain. But can it be done directly? That's to be determined. It's one of the reasons, by the way, that we in fact are going to work on a demonstration plant of reasonably serious scale, to help in the definition of the combination of product and the end users.
I think the answer is maybe, but subject to more work. In any case, Tim, whether it's direct to LFP or just the component feedstocks, the message coming from the market is how soon can you do it, and how much can you deliver? That's basically, you know, what the combination of end users of that particular product are saying.
Yeah, great. Thank you. It sounds interesting. It'd be great to see higher realizations flow through this anyway.
Yeah. An important consideration there too is the success we're generating with the BMX platform would indicate we should be able to do it with multiple products and help with respect to price transparency over time. It feels like that's gonna be a very important tool for the company in the future as well.
Perhaps finally, around BMX platform. Have you had much more interest on placing third-party volumes onto that yet?
They're still a subject of discussion, for sure. Yeah, look, I think broadly speaking, the answer is yes, there is interest in a model like that. To be clear, from Pilbara Minerals' point of view, we are also supportive of that objective because, you know, we think that the idea that more product, more users, more customers, and varying products is an important development for the industry. It's one of those situations where the rising tide should float all boats.
Excellent. Thank you. I might hand it over. Cheers.
Your next question is from Al Harvey with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
G'day, Ken and team. Just one from me. Dale, you mentioned the sterilization drilling actually turned up some decent results. I was just wondering if you could indicate roughly where that is with respect to the two pits and if that does have any impact on the space to build out both your for your expansion plans. Cheers.
No, thanks, Al. Yeah, no, the location of that sterilization drilling just out to the west of Central Pit, so you can see, there's a figure in the announcement there. As to its inclusion in the pits, yeah, it looks like we should be able to bring some out, which is good.
Yeah. Thanks, mate.
The next question is from Glyn Lawcock from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Morning, Ken. Ken, I was just wondering if you could maybe help provide some guidance on how you plan to price and sell the Ngungaju volume when it comes online this quarter now. I mean, I assume it's all uncontracted. Are you planning to put a lot of it into the spot market versus via the BMX or it'll be sold against a particular index? Or just any? 'Cause I know you gave us color around greater than $4,000 for the quarter. Just curious how you're gonna plan to put Ngungaju in and in answering that as well, just are you carrying any legacy tons through into the June quarter now, or should we really be thinking you get closer to some index? Thanks.
Thanks, Glyn. Broadly speaking, the additional production that's represented by the Ngungaju plant is destined for the BMX platform. Broadly speaking, that's the intent. But it goes, it's all blended together. Whether it's Ngungaju plant's production or Pilgangoora plant production, it defines basically a single product. It's really just the incremental growth that comes out of Ngungaju that represents unallocated offtake and therefore is available to trade on the BMX platform. An interesting side note, Glyn, is that we still get pitched purchasing the product outright, so people basically give us unsolicited bids to try and access the product.
Our preference, I think broadly speaking, our preference is to help with price transparency by getting these options up and running and doing that on a more regular basis to ultimately build transparency and who knows, even over time, an index based on the frequency of those trades from multiple sellers and multiple buyers. What does that all mean? Well, in summary, it means that the frequency of the options should be growing from here. We like the success that we've generated so far, albeit sporadically. Our intent leading into the end of the year is that they become much more frequent and a more you know, sort of built-in part of our business model and becomes a bit more normal as compared to what is currently you know, pretty exceptional.
What else to share? Where the pricing lands this quarter, we have that one shipment that's going to go, you know, that sailed this quarter, albeit priced last quarter. Other than that, the balance of the tons shipped will represent what is in effect the current price, but at least with only a small amount of lag, maybe a month or six weeks. What do we reference? That they're typically sold in offtake. Offtake in the current market will go for between, you know, $4,300 and $4,700 a ton, roughly.
Oh, okay. You're selling against a number of indices, I assume then, depending on what the customer wants.
Well, actually the pricing models for each of the customers are very similar. They're not exactly the same, but they're very similar. They rely on typically China domestic pricing for chemicals. Pilbara is a bit unique, Glyn. I think you've raised a good point. Pilbara is one of the only Western stocks that you can say is wholly exposed to the domestic price in China, which has clearly been a price leader as it relates to price discovery or, you know, pricing references for lithium raw materials. You can see our peers globally. I would consider pricing their chemicals, you know, very low in comparison to the prevailing shorter-dated pricing mechanisms like those in China.
Now, the good news is that Pilbara Minerals is in effect, you know, largely if not fully exposed to that market. We're one of the few that gets the ability to you know, fully participate in that amazing price outcome.
Okay. Just to clarify then. You know, when you get Ngungaju up at sort of 200,000 tons per annum, I guess we're looking at sort of 16,000-17,000 tons a month, roughly. You know, would you do that in one auction or would you be running sort of a couple a month? Just trying to see how you might try and judge the liquidity, because obviously it's a liquidity versus price, which has an impact as well.
Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree with that. We have basically looked to parcel the cargo consistent with what we're trying to achieve on the shipping front. What that means is that an auction would probably be in the range of, you know, 5,000-10,000 tons per cargo. The benefit that we get in that is to be able to either parcel it as a hold, so it lowers the cost of freight or parcel it with another vessel that we're already sending, you know, north anyway. Logically in the range of 5,000-10,000 tons per auction. Yes, they would become more frequent as you described when the Ngungaju production hits its straps.
Okay. Thanks very much for the color, Ken. Appreciate it.
Good on you, Glyn.
There are no further questions on the phone lines at this time. I'll hand the call back over to the Pilbara Minerals team for any questions from webcast viewers.
Yeah, thank you, Caroline. I'm just gonna quiz Nicholas to see whether we've got any additional questions.
Thanks very much, Ken. Good morning, everyone. We do have lots of web-based questions. I'm just gonna skip through the ones that have been dealt with. We had a few on production run rates and COVID impacts in China, which I think have been dealt with. The first question here is from James Edmunds from Gilchrist & Co. He says, "Ken, I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on the long-term pricing of spodumene. Analysts seem to be getting closer to the mark with short-term prices, but one in particular has left their long-term pricing at $800 a ton despite the success with recent auctions and strong market demand for the foreseeable future. Can you give us your thoughts on the longer term outlook?
Yeah. Well, we're obviously dealing with two different things there, I think, in part. Short to medium-term pricing is a function of the critical shortage in the market. It's not unreasonable to expect that at some point in time in the future, we obviously don't know when, but at some point in time, there is going to be a normalization in the supply-demand dynamic, in which case pricing will more than likely reflect cost base. That's an issue, if you like, that's yet to be resolved by the analyst community and those keen observers of the market. Now, I think that probably the key point I would leave with you there is to say historical norms are going to be well and truly broken down.
The idea that spodumene long-run pricing might be $600-$650 a ton is long gone. That's because the industry, lithium raw materials industry needs to grow about tenfold between now and 2030. To do so, projects are going to be built that are nothing like historical norms with respect to cost. The right-hand side of the cost curve gets built out, and by implication, the long-run price must be higher. Now, you know, that doesn't happen often in a, you know, in industry, and in natural resources. But it's clearly going to happen here in lithium. I hate to draw the analogy of iron ore, but to describe the dynamic I'm talking about here.
You look at iron ore and the price back in 2003, iron ore was priced at $30 a ton. Here we are today with iron ore priced between $100 and $200 a ton over the last couple of years. It's happened because the projects have been built to deal with very rapid escalation in demand growth. In that same period of time, iron ore probably tripled. Here we're talking about an industry that has to grow by tenfold. Clearly, the price, the long run price has to be materially higher than historical norms to support the industry, otherwise it won't grow. What does that actually result in?
I don't have a crystal ball, but I can assure you it's much higher than what people thought it might have been even just three or four years ago.
Great. Thank you, Ken. Next question is from Mark Budgen, and it's for Brian. He says, "Am I right in assuming that the syndicated facility now has a principal component of between $100 million and $105 million?
Thanks for the question. Yeah, it's a little bit higher than that. Currently the principal component is $110 million.
Thanks, Brian. The next question comes from Matthew Sticks, and it's a three-part question. He says, "Can you give us an update on how you are progressing exploration on your other tenements? Also, how long will Mt Francisco go unexplored, and how confident are you that it could be developed in the future?" And the third part was, "How likely is a second POSCO-type deal, perhaps in Europe?
Okay. Thanks for the questions. Well, on exploration, I think Dale hit the nail on the head saying the more we drill, the more likely we are to grow the resource and ultimately the pit inventory. The Pilgangoora pegmatite system that hosts the spodumene is incredible. It stretches over approximately 14 km north to south, a decent chunk of which is still yet to be explored in any detail. That's why when we do things like sterilization drill holes because we want to expand the waste dump means that we trip over some spodumene. It's fair to say that as we continue to drill, there will be more discoveries.
The other thing that helps in that regard is in fact the form, you know, acquisition of the former Altura operations because it opens up areas that may not have been explored historically that can now be explored. The combination of all those things means that the resource is in our view highly likely to grow over time. On the question of other projects, we do continue to chip away at them, but I guess the biggest review is to say that the Pilgangoora system is that good that it has to be your focus. That's why we typically explore there, and we do, you know, in the scheme of things, relatively little elsewhere. That doesn't mean that they won't be explored. It's just that they're not a priority.
Pilgangoora itself is a priority because of its enormous exploration potential. With respect to the downstream interests, well, the POSCO joint venture represents, you know, let's just say it's the start of our downstream participation because strategically what we're trying to do is more deeply align our lithium raw material into a more sophisticated supply chain, and do it in relationships with people that are key to the future of the industry. We would definitely put POSCO, you know, in that category because of the combination of the skill inside their organization, the scale and ultimately being a key entry to the Korean market.
Korea being the next big mover beyond China in lithium-ion battery making capacity and a strategic entry to especially North America because of the geopolitical interaction and you know, important relationship between the U.S. and South Korea. Where do we do that elsewhere? Well, yeah, Europe is a key target. We would say that the midstream product is a really important development for the European market. Hence our focus there. What we think we can offer with the combination of the Calix technology and evolved lithium salts is direct entry to European markets and playing with sophisticated players downstream to make that happen. Definitely an important objective for the company.
Thanks, Ken. The next one is from Trent Barnett from Euroz Hartleys. How often are BMX options likely to be now every month? Yeah.
Yeah. Well, we ran the option yesterday for approximately mid-June delivery. We'll obviously be keeping an eye on how Ngungaju production's unfolding during the June quarter to then subsequently lock in other options. I don't think it, Trent, directly translates to necessarily monthly options from here. They will definitely be getting more frequent leading into the end of the year. I think that's the way to think about it. We're motivated to establish, you know, price reference as frequently as we can because it helps with all of our marketing efforts, in which case, I would like to think that we're aligned with, you know, shareholders about making that happen, and we're working incredibly hard to make them more frequent.
Thank you, Ken. The next one is from Victor Gomes from Eiger Capital. He says, "Can you provide any early estimates of CapEx for the P680 and P1000 expansion projects and the likely phasing of the CapEx spend, please?
Yeah, Victor Gomes, we historically talked about spending about AUD 300 million on the combined projects that get us towards that 1 million ton per annum mark. That was the previous print on what we used to call the stage two project. Broadly speaking, for that scope, that hasn't materially changed. However, we'll likely have more to say about it in the coming months, but we are looking to increase the scope of the project to include potentially new crushing capacity and ore sorting capacity. The net effect of that will be to increase the project. That's part of the feasibility work and the FID that's in progress. We'll have more to say about that in the coming month or two.
Thanks, Ken. Just one final one from an investor here. The dividend question always comes up every call. He says, "What conditions, market or operating conditions, would the company consider appropriate before dividends are paid?
I love the dividend question. I guess it's a nice problem to have when the question keeps coming up in each meeting. Well, you know, the answer there is that, you know, cash and operating cash flow is going to be focused initially on what's required within the business to grow, because clearly, given today's market conditions, that represents the best way to add value to shareholders. The first cab off the rank is to be very clear about how we fund our expansion initiatives. That's number one. Number two, the idea that you hand back some cash to shareholders, I think is something that would be, you know, fairly close to our chairman's heart.
you would only do it in a circumstance where you've been very careful about how you otherwise fund the business for the purpose of growth, because that's where the priority should be.
Thanks, Ken. That's it for the webcast questions.
Okay. Thanks, Nick. Gaylene, I think we're done. Thanks for everyone's participation. Really appreciate the time on the call today, whether it was via the Chorus Call line or the webcast. Thanks, Dale and Brian, for your input. We're done, Gaylene, so back to you. Thank you.
Thank you. That does conclude our conference call for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.