Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Pilbara Minerals June 2022 Quarterly Investor Conference Call and Webcast. All participants are in listen only mode. There'll be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you'll need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I will now hand the conference over to Mr. Dale Henderson, Managing Director and CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Darcy, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for those participating on the call and also for the shareholders that we have tuning in through the webcast. Within the room today, we've got a few of the team. We've got Brian Lynn, our CFO, Alex Eastwood, our Chief Commercial Officer and General Counsel. We've got Brad Milne, who's our acting COO, David Hahn, our Investor Relations Advisor, Jane Aberdeen, our Sustainability Lead. We've also got Ken Brinsden, who needs no introduction, and Nicholas Read from Read Corporate. Just to start with, to acknowledge just excited to take on the role and excited to be taking the baton forward after the amazing work that Ken's done.
6.5 years at the helm, it's been an incredible chapter for the company, going from the tin shed in Freo to an ASX 100, as we've talked about a few times. Through that journey, just amazing period from raising the capital, the survival period, the Altura acquisition, the downstream joint venture with POSCO. It's been an incredibly amazing journey for our company. Ken has been at the helm, stewarding it, of course, with us, the executive team, the board, and the broader team. It's just been a monumental chapter, and here we are, having the most incredible quarter in our history to date.
Ken, on behalf of the board, staff, investors and Nyamal and all those connected to the business, just wanted to say a big well done and thank you, mate. It's been incredible, and you've left me big shoes to fill. Before we get into any of the detail on the quarter, mate, just like to hand over to you for a few comments for your last quarterly call.
Oh, thanks very much, Dale. Thank you for those kind words. It's really been all my pleasure. I consider myself incredibly lucky to have been working with an amazing team of people from those building a mine and operating a mine to the board. A deeply integrated team dealing with pretty remarkable market conditions with some amazing highs but also a couple of hellish lows. It's through that team that we've come as far as we have. The business is in, you know, in great health today. I've no doubt that that same team, Dale, your team, the board ensures that the company is in really capable hands. As for the industry, I've still no doubt that people underestimate the significance of the battery raw material thematic for the mining industry.
It's with that that I'll be continuing to watch Pilbara's incredibly important part in backfilling that demand. Yeah, my sense is that Pilbara sits within almost the perfect storm to create an incredible business that becomes larger and larger and more deeply vertically integrated over time. Well done, Dale, for taking over, and I wish you and the rest of the team all the success for the future. If David Southam finishing up at Mincor can be the Ash Barty of the nickel world, well, I'm gonna be the Lazarus with a triple bypass in the lithium world. It's on that note that I leave you in the guys' capable hands. Thank you. Thanks to everyone for your participation in our business. It's all yours, Dale.
Thanks, Ken. I'm not sure about the triple bypass. Thanks, mate, and well done again to you. In terms of the call today, we'll follow the traditional flow we've done in the past. I'll offer a few summary comments and then a deeper dive into ops and projects and downstream. I'll then hand to Brian for an update in the finance category. Lastly, to finish a couple of closing comments from myself on the market before we move over to Q&A. In a nutshell, the June quarter was a ramp-up quarter. Your production sales and pricing all on the up, and that's translated to a huge step up in the balance sheet, just great to see. The market backdrop, of course, has remained solid through the period.
AUD 30 per kilo and plus for chemicals and of course our Pilbara has benefited from that as it's translated through to our product pricing. Within the business, as I said, strong step-up in production, 56% increase from the previous quarter and a 30% increase year- to- date compared to the prior year. Shipments also very strong, being a 127% increase from the previous quarter. Some of that's explained by the 20,000 tons which moved from March quarter to June quarter. Again, on an annual basis, almost a 30% step-up on the previous year. Big volume stepping up as we ramp up the Ngungaju operations.
In the activities category, a quarter of more mining, the ramp up on Ngungaju, as I mentioned, and it's also been a quarter we have been contending with COVID, which I appreciate everyone else has as well, but that's certainly been presenting challenges for the operation and the team. In the projects category, the big update was the approval of our P680 project, which includes two sub-components. One, the 100,000 incremental step up, the other being the large integrated crushing and ore-sorting solution, which is pre-investment for the P1000 project. In sustainability, solar farm is well underway, so it's great to share a couple of photos showing the progress there.
The downstream category, POSCO is underway, and Ken and Alex actually did a trip a couple of weeks back to check out the progress on that front. Good to see POSCO, our partner moving forward there. In a nutshell, very busy quarter, and probably really the highlight is how the balance sheet's going. That step up in production coupled with a step up in pricing translated to, you know, an AUD 500 million + increase to the balance sheet, AUD 874 million. Absolutely we're of course aware we're accumulating cash at this point. Brilliant to see, those uses of cash. Obviously the things that come to mind are the expansion that we just mentioned, the upcoming expansion decision, the P1000 timed for the December quarter.
We've got the midstream project, share buyback dividends, all of the above are of course potential uses of capital, and we expect to provide some guidance on our capital management before the end of the year. As we think about that capital management plan, considerations within that for management and the board relate to existing debt instruments. There are some limitations with those around how we can channel funds. Nothing out of the ordinary, but there are some considerations around that. There's considerations around franking credits. Given we don't have any franking credits at this time, we will start to accrue these commencing next year when we start paying tax. Those are a couple of sub points which will feed into our capital management plan.
As I say, we'll update on that before the end of the calendar year. Moving from those sort of summary comments into deeper dive into operations. The vital signs from a safety perspective, three recordable injuries for the quarter, not great. Translating to a TRIR of increase to 4.4 from 3.5 from the previous quarter. Production, as I mentioned, fairly solid for the quarter with the Ngungaju operation now coming to life. Those both parts of the operation in the flotation and crushing circuit. From a cost perspective, we came in at the low end of our guidance at AUD 648 per dry metric ton. However, those cost pressures remain, inflation, supply chain disruptions, et cetera.
I just remind everyone it was a ramp up quarter for us. We of course anticipated from an efficiency in that regard. Now Brian will offer a couple more comments around costs when I hand over to him shortly. As it relates to product grade, we've taken an intentional decision in consultation with our customers to start move down the grade curve slightly. The rationale there is all about increasing yield of product to deliver that additional product into what is an insatiable market clawing at us for more product. We're happy to answer that call and increase yield. However, as I say, this has been through close consultation with our customers. Average product grade for the quarter being up 5.4% this year.
Moving to a couple of the key activities in the operation. Mining for the quarter was all about, again, increasing volumes. Another 20% on the previous quarter, 7.3 million tons, and total material moved. The execution model that we have in mining is a combination of owner miner fleet and MACA. Save for the COVID challenges, that's gone okay, but COVID has definitely been an impact for the quarter. Yes, we had an increase in mined volumes, but we would have liked to have done more. Hasn't impacted the operation, but it hasn't quite delivered the volumes we were intending for the mine plan. No massive drama there, but as I say, we would have preferred to move a little bit more for that for the quarter.
As it relates to the processing plant, Pilgangoora on plan and happy with how that's been performing. Ngungaju, like as I mentioned earlier, has been really the big focus for the quarter, bringing up that operation and both parts of that operation, and bringing that to life. To remind everyone, we brought the core circuit on, so just take a step back. The Ngungaju plant comprises two circuits, the core circuit, float circuit. The recommencement plan we pursue was about bringing on a core circuit early, which we did last year, while we undertook construction and upgrade works to the float circuit. That was completed and the June quarter was about bringing that float circuit on such that the whole Ngungaju operation was brought back to life. I'm pleased to say that's happened.
We're happy with what we're seeing in terms of the flotation circuit performance. The month of June particularly was the month where both those two subcomponents, circuit subcomponents came to life and we like what we see. As we look forward into the September quarter, we're looking to achieve that 580,000-ton nameplate at some point during the September quarter as we look to really into the optimization phase for the circuit. 580, of course, being aggregate across the two plants, Ngungaju and Pilgangoora. That completes the ops sort of update. Moving to the projects category.
As I mentioned in my opening remarks, the big milestone for the quarter was the expansion FID, with the two capital sub-components being the 100,000-ton DMS circuit for the P680 project, and the second piece being the large integrated crushing ore sorter. Great to have that capital project approved. The board has made it clear to us to drop the clutch and get on with the expansion. In this market, it's money for jam, and we are positioned like none other to capitalize on this market. That's our plan, and that's what we're going to do. Moving from projects to downstream. Yeah, POSCO well underway. Great to see their focus and progress is well and truly underway in Gwangyang, building what will be a state-of-the-art plant.
POSCO Pilbara Lithium Solution, the name of the JV. Well, we're looking forward to becoming a major player in South Korea with that 43,000-ton lithium hydroxide plant. That really completes sort of the main update categories for the quarter across ops project downstream. At this point, I'll hand over to Brian.
Great. Thanks. Thanks very much, Dale, and good afternoon, everyone. My plan is just to give everyone an overview of the pricing and the margins that the business achieved for the quarter. Talk a little bit about the cash generation during the quarter, and then also a bit of focus on the cost for the business as well. From a financial point of view, it's fair to say that the June quarter has been transformational for the company. We had strong sales, strong production volumes, and those together with a positive pricing environment has meant that a strong operating margin has been delivered by the business. Strong operating margin transforms into a higher cash balance as well. That's that in a nutshell is a summary for the quarter.
In terms of pricing and operating margin, clearly we've had a significant increase in pricing during the quarter. The average price on SC6 basis was in U.S. dollars just under $4,300 a tonne, dry metric tonnes, which is just over 60% increase from what we achieved for the March quarter. As Dale mentioned, we deliberately targeted lower grade material in response to what the market required and what our customers demanded. Therefore, the average grade of the product that we sold was 5.4% lithium. As a result, there was a pro rata adjustment to the SC6 base price with a realized price for the business of $3,900.
At the Pilgangoora operation, a very strong operating margin as a result of those pricing outcomes. On the 98,000 odd tons that were produced by the Pilgangoora plant, a margin per ton of just over $3,000 a ton was generated. On the Ngungaju plant, even though it was still in ramp up and commissioning, clearly a lower margin but still fairly significant on the 34,000 tons that was produced out of the Ngungaju plant. All fairly good operating margins and largely driven by the pricing environment that we find ourselves in. Good operating margin has shown up in our cash positions.
Just a reminder to everyone, when we talk about cash, we also include the value of the letters of credit, which attach to shipments that have already left and for which a bill of lading is present, because we could, if we wanted to, draw that down into cash. The cash balance inclusive of the LCs at the end of the June quarter was AUD 874 million. That's a significant increase compared to what it was at the end of March. We've had about a AUD 590 million increase during the quarter, which, as I said, is quite transformational for the business. Where's most of that cash been generated?
The cash operating margin from the Pilgangoora operation was about just over AUD 500 million. The Ngungaju operation, even though it was still in ramp up and commissioning phase, generated AUD 145 million of cash. We spent about AUD 48 million on capital. Now, a lot of that was on the waste movement for mining, about AUD 30 million of that, which is clearly something that we've spoken about in the past, about the need for us to move more waste to help with the tons that we're presenting to the plant, but also to help with the expansion that we're planning, particularly the P680.
We also spent some capital on obviously the restart of the Ngungaju plant, a little bit on getting ready for the P680 project, and also some work on the tailings management facilities as well. Interest costs took about just over AUD 3 million of cash out of the business. Our corporate and administration function, about AUD 7 million. That largely accounts for the cash movement of AUD 590 million I mentioned. If we look at our position net of debt, we've got we're a net cash position of about just over AUD 700 million. Clearly a very strong position.
The other important thing to note during the quarter is that we reached an agreement with our lenders. Under the facility that we have, there is a cash sweep mechanism where we make excess cash. The facility has a sweep in cash back to the lenders. We worked with our lenders to get a waiver on that cash sweep mechanism given the cash that's been generated from the business. The lenders clearly didn't want all of the money paid back to them. We've got a waiver in place now, so we don't have any cash sweep going back to lenders until the end of the calendar year, until December. Which I think is a good result for the business and provides further flexibility for us.
Just turning to some comments on the unit operating costs. When I'm talking about unit operating costs, I'm referring to the Pilgangoora operations. We've always spoken about Pilgangoora up to now because Ngungaju has been in restart commissioning and ramp up. Clearly that's gonna change as of the September quarter. The first of the June quarter, the Pilgangoora plant's unit operating cost, excluding freight and royalty that Dale mentioned, was about AUD 648 a ton, which is sort of in line with what we achieved in March. You know, there is a recognition that we did produce more tons. Clearly there has been some cost increases through the business, which I'll talk a bit more about.
The unit cost has definitely been impacted by the level of investment that has been going into the mining activity of the business. This is largely around, you know, trying to catch up with some of the waste mining that we hadn't done in past years, when the price was obviously causing the business some pressures. As we also start preparing for the expansions now that we've given P680 the tick of approval to proceed with. There certainly has been some challenges that the business faced on costs. Certainly the operations have been impacted by COVID-19, particularly during April and May. We certainly saw a lot of absenteeism throughout the business, and that certainly impacted how efficiently we could run our operations.
When you can't run your operations efficiently, it certainly does have an impact on your unit cost. The extreme price-like pressures in the labor market in the mining sector of WA has certainly affected the business. The cost of people and just actually trying to retain your people as well has been a real challenge both for us as a company as well as our contractors that help us out on site. We certainly had to have been quite innovative in terms of how we attract people and retain people and those sorts of measures always come at an extra cost.
Clearly it's important that we do attract and retain the right people to allow us to produce the volumes to put into the market, given how strong pricing is at the moment. There's also just been general inflationary pressures which I know a lot of other mining companies have been highlighting as well. That's across the entire cost base. Particularly we found it in the areas of diesel and reagents and consumables. Just with the cost of diesel, we essentially had a double whammy during this quarter. We've had an increase in the cost of diesel outright, but then also there's been a short-term reduction in the fuel tax rebate which the government has put in place until the end of the September quarter.
The combination of the higher diesel cost and the lower fuel tax rebate has meant that the cost of our fuel has actually increased by 40% compared to the March quarter. That's a fairly significant cost. If we include freight and royalties in our costs, our average cost per ton was $780 a ton. That's an increase of about $93 a ton compared to the March quarter. Nearly all of that increase is in the royalty cost. Clearly the much higher pricing that we've received also translates into higher royalty costs as well. That's really explained that difference as well.
Just one final point to make in terms of unit cost is I mentioned that we haven't been talking about what the unit cost for Ngungaju operations has been because it's been a ramp-up in commissioning. Given the level of confidence that we now have on Ngungaju being able to reach nameplate capacity during the September quarter, the plan going ahead is that we'll now report a combined unit cost which is inclusive of both the Pilgangoora and Ngungaju costs, starting from FY 2023. In relation to guidance for FY 2023, we expect to have more to say on that when we issue our annual results for FY 2022, which is in August.
There'll be a little bit more around guidance on production costs and CapEx when we release our full year results, which will be, I think, around the third week of August. That's everything I wanted to say. I might hand it back to Dale now, and obviously if there's any questions, we can follow those up later after Dale. Thank you.
Thanks, Brian. Much appreciated. Just moving to some market commentary from Pilbara's perspective. Our view is the outlook in the near term to mid-term. It remains strong. Looking outwards, we obviously observe, as everyone else does, those strong demand indicators. You know, high points being the June sales EV in China at 500,000+ tons . Great to see. Of course, we see, you know, widespread activity throughout the supply chain. Notable mentions of course being all of the commitments Ford Motor Company has been up to, the PowerCo being the new arm of Volkswagen, charged with all elements of raw material supply and battery manufacture. You know, impressive to see the moves that they're starting to make.
There's our friends and partners, POSCO, who in their earnings call the other week spoke of their KRW 6 trillion commitment for the lithium business before 2030, which is, you know, $4.6 billion within lithium. Yeah, impressive to see POSCO making giant steps within the industry, and, you know, we're delighted to be obviously partners and effectively in their slipstream as they look to, as I say, make giant steps as they take their position within the industry. Great to see those demand indicators as the industry sort of establishes itself. Now, closer to home, the other indicators we would share are we remain pressured for tons from all corners, whether that's our customers or new inquiry.
Of course, the strongest indicator remains what we see through the auctions we've done on the BMX platform. All of the auctions remain incredibly strong. Of course, we had a new high watermark in the June quarter with the 7,000 tons per dry metric ton SC 6 equivalent pricing. Yeah, great to see the appetite, and it just speaks to the gulf which exists between the existing conversion capacity and the shortage of raw material supply, and of course, the demand on the other side of that. Pilbara feels incredibly positive and well-positioned given the circumstances we find ourselves in. We're feeling upbeat and looking forward to delivering more tons into market. Lastly, to finish, just a couple of closing comments.
As I said, a very positive ramp-up quarter, both in volume and pricing, flowing through to a big step-up in the balance sheet that Brian spoke to. This of course is symptomatic of the amazing market dynamic that Pilbara finds itself in. We're one of five producers who's able to deliver into this insatiable market. Production volume times pricing equals happiness. Well, equals a big step up the balance sheet. From there, it's really Pilbara's focus in parallel is keeping busy on those value add activities I mentioned. The midstream project, sorry I should have added, during the quarter, we were successful in the AUD 20 million grant fund for the demo plant. A big tick in the box for that project, and we're looking forward to progressing that.
The downstream piece with POSCO and the solar farm and the sustainability category, all value adds for the future for Pilbara. Here we find ourselves as a young company who survived the downturn, incredibly well positioned to capitalize on this amazing market dynamic. Thank you. Special thank you to those shareholders who toughed it out. The supporters, thank you for backing the team and backing our business. Yeah, we look forward to continuing to deliver more strong results in the coming quarters. With that completes sort of the overview of the quarterly outcomes, and I'll pass back to Darcy for questions.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask a question. Your first question comes from Hayden Bairstow of Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks, Dale. I just wanted to circle back on the change in the product grades. Just keen to understand the economics of how you think about, you know, obviously slightly lower realizations versus the recovery rates, just sort of the work you've done on that and, you know, what other range of outcomes that we could see on product grades going forward.
Well, thanks, Hayden. As to what is lithium processing, like many other mineral processing yields, it realizes a yield benefit for moving down the grade curve, which I think most on the call would know that. Just in case anyone out there is not familiar. As it relates to what's the value of moving down that grade curve, that's a function of the mineralogy that's being processed through the plant. The broad relationship is, yes, as you move down the grade curve, you get a corresponding yield increase. We haven't been specific, Hayden, as to quantifying the exact volume upgrade that we're getting there as it relates to recovery.
Just on the cost side of things, do you see sort of the increasing costs starting to taper off a little bit? What are you seeing in the shipping market as well? Is that starting to ease off as well?
Yeah. Hayden, it's Brian here. Look, I think generally on the shipping, that seems to have stabilized. It's come off a little bit, but not significantly. Hopefully we've seen the worst of it. On other costs, yeah, it feels like there's still a little bit more to go here on costs. Would be my take on things at the moment. I wouldn't be surprised if we still have some headwinds there for the next sort of three to six months.
Okay, great. I'll leave it there. Thanks, guys.
Sure.
Thank you. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your next question comes from Tim Hoff of Canaccord. Please go ahead.
Hello, Tim.
Sorry about that, guys. I was pressing on mute. Well done, Tim. You've built a fantastic company, and Dale, all the best and everything into the future. First one was just around, are you mining and are you grade streaming at the moment? And if so, I guess that a low-grade product, how much of that do you think you can build, and what the output support?
It's a bit hard to hear. I think I heard you're inquiring about are we streaming low-grade product? Is that correct?
Yeah. Yeah, that's right.
We do have. As it relates to the Ngungaju circuit, we have been maximizing production, throughput as you'd expect for that circuit. Within that circuit, we have what's called a middlings stream, which delivers feed to the float circuit. We have been peeling off a small volume there, which we're stockpiling, but we're not looking at this stage, at least as any sort of separate product category. What's been heading out the gate to date has been essentially our core products within the quarter.
Okay. In terms of Ngungaju and the product that's been sold from that already, is that going to be capitalized? Is that essentially still in commissioning phase?
Yeah, Tim, it's Brian here. Look, we've largely got through that phase where we capitalize costs. At this stage, you know, the costs that we are incurring there now are true operating costs.
Okay, excellent. Revenues won't be capitalized. They'll actually flow through to the P&L?
Yeah, correct.
Excellent. That's it for me. I'll end that. Thank you.
Thanks, Tim.
Thank you. As there are no longer any more phone questions, I will now hand back to the speakers to read any online questions.
Over to Nicholas.
Thanks, Dale. We've got a ton of online questions. I might just pick a few out of them here. First one is from Mark Budgen, Private Investor. It's about the P680 project. It says, "A AUD 194 million-dollar cost for the company-owned crushing facility and ore sorting facility is expected to deliver unit cost savings. If operating costs are $462 per ton as announced this quarter, how much are these facilities going to save PLS in OpEx in U.S. dollars per ton? What are the estimated OpEx savings from that CapEx?
Yeah, sure. No, thank you, Mark. As it relates to the OpEx savings for that expansion, we haven't been specific about the outlook given the uncertain pricing environment we're comparing to. What we can talk to is one of the more concrete savings which relates to displacing existing contract crushing. As you expect, self-performing your crushing and having no capitalization.
Thanks, Dale. The next question here is from Ben Lyons from Jarden. It's a three-part question. Firstly, congratulating you on your appointment and wishing Ken all the best. His first question is in regards to price realization. He says, simply put, you're in a privileged position with regards to price discovery on the BMX platform, where you reported SC6 equivalent prices of up to $6,350. Are you satisfied with the prices being reported by the price reporting agencies which average $4,267 a ton for the quarter? Can you remind us which agencies you're quoting for that reference price of $4,267?
Sure. Thanks for the congrats, Ben, and on behalf of Ken as well. Yeah, as it relates to price performance through the price reporting agencies, what the BMX platform has taught us all is there additional margin to be had through having a competitive marketplace for buyer-seller trading. That's what, of course, we can see has realized an additional premium above what we're seeing through some of the price reporting agencies. Really, the lesson to take from that is there's more to be done for the price reporting agencies. The bottom line is the BMX, to our knowledge, is basically the only efficient trading marketplace. We think it's certainly our view around the BMX is that it's been a great tool for the market.
We like the idea of obviously keeping that going for obvious reasons and we're bent on seeing where we take that as a business. For the second part of the question as to which of the price reporting agencies we use, we haven't historically been specific about that. The reason for that is it's very much related to the offtake agreements that we have in place with our core customers. That's as much as I can really share on that one.
Thanks, Dale. Second part of Ben's question is in regards to the market. He says, I note the commentary around multiple approaches from new customers seeking product. Are you able to make any comments around those approaches in respect to industry? Are they converters, or are you receiving inquiries from cathode cell or automakers? Geography, are any of these potential customers located outside of China? Are there reputable counterparties with established conversion plants, and are they well-capitalized? Can you comment around what volumes were sought and over what time period?
The short answer is yes. All of the above, and having been at the Fastmarkets conference in Phoenix last month, which was really the lithium industry getting together, plus all of those, both existing participants, groups wanting to participate. It was a good snapshot of the appetite. Yeah, I can share that. Yeah, all of the above are there are many different parties from many different corners of the globe, looking to stake a claim and get involved. It's exciting to see, and good luck to many of them, because this industry is going through a formative stage as it looks to establish itself and to serve that insatiable growth profile that we're observing.
As to the query on volumes, that's been a wide continuum in that category, ranging from small to large volumes over long periods of time and everything in between.
Thanks, Dale. Ben's final question relates to unit costs. He says every quarterly that I can recall in recent years has expressed confidence in an eventual reversion in costs to below AUD 400 a ton. He says he appreciates that you're going through a period of higher strip ratio to make up for the high grade during FY 2020, and that there is a significant cost in there at present from high royalties. But stripping out this temporary aberration, are you still confident in achieving this medium-term cost target?
Sure. No, a valid question. Ben, you rightly point out the history of many operations in this space. The way we think about our long-term unit costs is long-term and in the knowledge that we have a 20+ year mine life and in the knowledge that we're only very early into our journey of both ramp up and optimization. We will have an operating team which will continue to chisel down unit cost many years to come. The levers which are available around that are many in the sense that it's about ultimately delivering more scale and more accuracy in mining. i.e. more lithium recovery from the mine itself. Two, it's about the actual optimization within the processing itself with the aim of increasing recovery.
It's about the lowering of unit costs and all the contributing elements, whether that be moving to going from triples to quads for haulage or lower cost of power solutions and more automation. The list goes on. As we start to consider those types of pieces, yeah, there'll be much more to come out in the years to come as it relates to unit cost.
Thanks, Dale. Next question here is from John Kendall. When can we expect a minimum of two BMX auctions per month or 10,000 tons a month from Ngungaju?
Yeah, John, great question, and one we've been talking about a lot recently. We haven't guided on that front. Yeah, it's an obvious question to ask. Given the good ramp up we've seen with Ngungaju, that will give the business options as it relates to where do those tons go?
Okay. David Feng from China International Capital Corp has a question here about the Ngungaju plant. He says, "We understand the volume at Ngungaju is uncontracted, and we can estimate that the production volume was at least over 30,000 tons during the quarter. However, the volume sold through BMX during the quarter is not the same, so can you explain the difference? Are they sold through other sales channels?
Sure. The analysis David has performed is right and that there's a delta to explain. The way we think about production terms is we've got our off-take commitments, which largely speak to the Pilgangoora production profile. We have had some elements of catch-up to do through our off-take partners. Some of that has been taken care of through the production from the Ngungaju plant. That sort of makes up for the difference that David highlights. As we look forward, yeah, the lion's share of that Ngungaju operation in the near term is certainly up for grabs in terms of how the business considers allocation.
Thanks very much, Dale. Now there's a whole bunch of questions here for Brian about all that cash accumulating in the bank. Capital management questions. So I'll just group them all together. They all relate to are you considering either share buybacks or will there be a statement about dividend policy sometime this year, please?
Sure. I think Dale alluded to this. The plan is that we would be in a position to give the shareholders more information on that front by the end of this calendar year. December or maybe January. There are some restrictions right now in terms of how we can actually access the cash that's been generated in a form that allows us to pay a dividend or even undertake a share buyback. There's clearly also the question around franking credits. You know, up until very recently, we've had a lot of tax losses, which we've been utilizing and therefore not paying tax. We are going to start paying tax early next calendar year.
With that payment of tax, we'll start generating franking credits. Clearly that gives us an opportunity then to pay franked dividends. We're just going through that sort of thought process as we speak. The other things we throw into the mix is just the funding of the investments on the P680 project and also what cash might be required if we do go ahead with the P1000 project and with the midstream project as well. The expectation should be that we'll have something to say, if not December, January of next year.
Thanks, Brian. There is a question here from a shareholder, Eric. He says, "Why were there no tantalite concentrate sales during the quarter?
Yeah, sure. Thanks, Eric. The reason there relates to where we were drawing ore from the ore body, and we've concentrated the majority of ore feed from our southern pit, which is formerly Altura's pit, which is very low and contained tantalite volumes. That principally explains the shortfall in the tantalite volumes as a function of the mineral content.
Thanks, Dale. Next question here from Donald Payne. He's an investor. He says, "The Calix JV development of a demonstration plant, will this be built at the mine site or on the coast? And does POSCO have any involvement in that, in that venture?
Yeah, thanks, Donald. The plan is to build the demonstration plant at the mine site. The rationale for that is we want to observe and operate the plant at scale and integrate that into the mine site such that we can, A, accelerate the learnings and, B, become familiar with the operational elements required to run this sort of additional facility in conjunction with the mineral concentrator. As to part B of your question to POSCO's involvement, no, POSCO is not involved. I can share that all of our customers have indicated interest in this project and during the project and seeing that we take it.
Thanks, Dale. Next question is from Nili Eslah from Clarksons Securities. Could you please elaborate on production guidance for the coming quarters and the main challenges of achieving this?
Production guidance, as Brian had mentioned earlier, we will look to provide an update with the full year financials in August. As to the outlook of challenges, we're interested, as everyone are, to see how this COVID continue to manifest. As mentioned in the quarterly, we have seen a resurgence in the month of July. It's anyone's guess ultimately where COVID goes, but we think about that. We also think about the very buoyant mining market and which of course Pilbara is not immune to changes there. Pleased to report that in the main, Pilbara's certainly doing pretty well relative to others. Those two things are front of mind as we consider the outlook.
Thanks, Dale. Question from Kenneth Wong from Drummond North Asset Management. What recoveries did you achieve during the quarter, please?
We haven't been forthright around the recoveries in this quarterly. I can say that the Pilgangoora operation performed to plan, in fact on plan. We were happy with that. As it relates to Ngungaju, it was a ramp-up quarter. As I mentioned earlier, the two of the three months was coarse circuit only, while the commissioning of and ramp-up of the float circuit emerged. As you'd expect, recoveries outright across the Ngungaju platform were low, but expected to be low. As we of course move forward, now that we've got both operations stood up and we're in optimization phase of the Ngungaju, that's where the focus will now be around that continual tuning for Ngungaju to de-coke and move up that recovery curve.
Thanks, Dale. Question here from Ralph Rodal, who's a shareholder. He said, "Can you comment on your relationship with the traditional owners of the areas that you're operating in and what their expectations are of you? And secondly, can you tell us a bit more about the solar farms? Would you be able to meet all of your energy needs from this and potentially sell excess electricity to external customers?
Sure. No, thanks, Ralph. Yeah, to our relationship with the traditional landowners being Nyamal, that is all in good standing and has been throughout the course of the business. A big credit actually to Ken, who's always made this a key focus, investing his personal time. Yeah, we find the relationship, as I say, in really good standing, working with the community. Yeah, we're working with them to continue to find opportunities to work with them and integrate them into our business. As part of that, we're doing all the things you'd expect a professional operator to do. We do training and understanding across all of our staff.
Under our agreement with Nyamal, we have a meeting regime where we meet regularly to ensure that we have good communications, and we're supporting Nyamal as that agreement contemplates. That's all in good standing. To the second part of your question, Ralph, on the solar. 6 MW solar goes a long way to displace a fair chunk of our carbon-based power. That's great. We'll need every kilowatt of that with none left over for others. That's fair to say. As we think about where to take our power strategy for the future, we will definitely be looking to continue to scale up those forms of renewable energy.
As to the possibility of selling to others, we don't have many neighbors, or at least not that close where we're located in Pilbara. We've certainly been approached by some of the larger renewable energy solutions who are looking to network with Pilbara. We're absolutely open to those solutions 'cause it makes good sense to work together with others for a broader network solution. Who knows? We may end up one day plugging into a larger network, where we do sell some electrons into that through our facilities.
Thanks, Dale. I think I've picked the eyes out of the key ones there.
That's a good one.
I'll send it to you.
That's a good one. Thank you for that, Nicholas. Well, I think, Darcy, that completes the call from Pilbara's side. Lastly, thank you to all those who have remained on the call and we look forward to talking to you on our next quarter.
Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you, participating. You may now disconnect.