Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Pilbara Minerals June 2023 quarterly entities conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Pilbara Minerals Managing Director and CEO, Dale Henderson. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Andrew, and hello, everyone. Welcome to the Pilbara Minerals June quarterly call for 2023. I'd first like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which our businesses operate, the Wajarri Yamaji people, in Pilbara where we're holding our call today, and up north, where our operations are, in the Nyamal and Kariyarra people. We pay our respects to the elders, past, present, and emerging. For the call today, we'll have two other speakers to myself, being Luke Bortoli, our CFO, and Vince De Carolis, our Chief Operating Officer, and we'll also have some Q&A with Alex Eastwood, our Chief Commercial and Legal Officer. Also, within the room today, joined by a number of the team. Yeah, welcome to all.
As to the flow for today, same flow we've done typically. We're gonna try and keep to an hour, in the knowledge that others have got other calls to go to. We'll be stepping through a short presentation, then to 20 minutes of Q&A with the analysts, 10 minutes of webcast for questions. Moving to our presentation, slide 2. Just a quick recap on our strategy. Our aim in our business is to be a leader in the provision of sustainable battery materials products. We're absolutely getting on with the job. In many ways, we are a leader in this space, whether it be innovation we've done, whether that's BMX, our tolling arrangements and the improvements we've made in recovery, or just our scale, we are moving forward in leaps and bounds.
In service to our aim, our strategy comprises four key legs. The first and foremost is the operating platform. We want to make sure that operating platform is shooting the lights out quarter- after- quarter and shift- after- shift. I'm pleased to report, in this quarter, we've been doing exactly that. Beyond that, we're wanting to grow the operating platform and make the most of this incredible tier one asset, that we have the privilege of stewarding into life, the Pilgangoora asset. Third leg of our strategy is around chemicals. We're looking to participate more deeply into the chemical supply chain, such that we're extracting more value for the lithium unit and channeling those incremental value back through to our shareholders.
Lastly, is about diversification and being able to move beyond the Pilgangoora asset, which we're in no hurry to, and we'll obviously be able to do that, we'll do that in time. Moving from slide 2 to slide 3, touching on the quarter [audio distortion], w e have had a cracking quarter, topping off a cracking year. On the top line there, you'll see our operating performance. Production, a 10% increase on the prior quarter to 160,000+ tons, and that's a 64% increase year-on-year. Sales, another record broken, 22% increase on the prior quarter, and a 68% year-on-year increase. That's playing through to the balance sheet. A 24% step up in the balance sheet here of those stronger volumes and healthy pricing.
From a year-on-year basis, it's a 464% increase on the prior year. So, incredible set of numbers from the operating platform. Moving to the blue boxes, which speaks to those legs, two, three , and four of our strategy. As it relates to growth, expansion is well underway. I'm pleased to report that P680, a Primary Rejection expansion project, which delivers us the next 100,000 tons, is tracking well and on target and that will give us another 17% step up in produced volumes. Midstream, it's moving forward to an FID, the [audio distortion] POSCO Pilbara Lithium Hydroxide Joint Venture is on target, by CapEx and schedule. Looking forward to seeing that come to life in the back half of this year. Moving to diversify.
The permitting process well underway, we'll offer a couple more comments on that later. Exploration. We completed a 46,000 meter program. The mining team are busy crunching the numbers, we look forward to updating the results and reserves in due course. An absolutely cracking quarter, which is rounding off a cracking year. With that, I'd like to just thank the team at Pilbara Minerals and our contracting partners. It's not been easy. Growing is tough, and growing in lithium is particularly tough. Building and operating these lithium mines is really, really difficult, Pilbara has honed expertise and know-how in this regard, and it's on show today. Thank you to the team out there, for all the teamwork across the full Pilbara team, both the head office and site team.
I know it hasn't been easy, but well done to you guys. You deserve all the credit for this, in combination with our contracting partners. That completes a quick, quick summary. For that, I'll now hand to Vince, just for a bit of a quick update on the operations.
Thank you, Dale. Starting with on slide 5, we're starting with safety. You can see our lead indicator, safe interaction, continues to trend strongly. In the 4th quarter, we ramped up our critical risk management training and awareness, and we expect this to deliver improved safety performance in FY 2024. It does need to be noted that our focus and energy is yet to translate to one of our lag indicators being Total Recordable Injury Frequency Rate, which has increased from 3.5 in the March quarter to 4.7 June quarter, due to a higher frequency of low severity soft tissue injuries. This has, in part, been due to a rapid increase in new employees, particularly in mining expansion projects such as P680.
We have a strong and defined safety program for FY 2024, and we expect this will deliver positive improvements in safety, performance, and culture. We've also been delivering on our commitments flowing from our first cultural engagement survey, completing a number of improvements that support an enhanced work environment. Among recent improvements include new workshop facilities, a new administration precinct at a new operation, more than 400 additional new rooms, and a new and upgraded gym, just to mention a few, with others to come as we move into FY 2024. Pleasingly, our voluntary turnover continues reducing quarter-on-quarter, and our female employment is just under 23%. Moving on to the next slide. Moving on to volumes. Production was broadly in line with our expectations and a record for the quarter, with a strong performance from both processing plants, and sales delivered a record also.
I can also confirm that this production volume we achieved at the upper end of the previously reported production guidance. In processing, the strong quarterly performance was attributed to a combination of a number of improvements. Starting off with improved recoveries, 70% for the quarter vs Q3's 66%, due to the implementation of recovery projects and increased focus on ore handling practices. We also successfully achieved our first 10-week shutdown cycle from our previous eight-week cycle, which contributed to a combined improved availability for the quarter at 87%, which was on plan and improved on Q3's 85%. Processing rates were also strong and improved on Q3, and that's attributed to our ongoing asset management program and continued focus to improve our systems and processes. Moving on to mining.
We achieved a record in mining for the quarter, mining 8.5 million wet metric tons vs 7,798,000 wet metric tons last quarter, which was a 10.1% improvement quarter-on-quarter, which is a great result. Our mining with plan is gaining traction, inclusive of additional resources yielding improved utilization rates. Investment into new equipment resulting in improved availabilities and mining productivity. We've also implemented new mining facilities within the quarter, inclusive of a HME workshop and a drill and blast workshop, again, just to mention a few. Finishing with costs. Costs have fallen within the middle of the range of our cost guidance, at $ 613 per dry metric ton FOB, and our guidance was $ 600-$ 640.
Our cost base was revised last quarter due to cost pressures across 3 areas, being inflationary pressures, one-offs, and pre-investment. At this time, we're seeing these stabilize, and we will guide our updated cost expectations as part of the year-end results. With that, I'll hand back to Dale.
Thank you very much, Vince. Moving to our expansion, slide 8. As I mentioned in my opening remarks that the P680 expansion project, specifically the Primary Rejection component is on track, which will be delivering us an additional 100,000 tons worth of production capacity. Delighted with the progress there with our team, Primero build partner. Well done to Paul Laybourne and our project management team. Great to see the progress on that. The other part of the P680 project relates to the large crusher and ore sorting facility. We have phase shifted that to the right by two quarters. Principally that's down to redirecting resources to the pumping works. I'd highlight that the large crushing ore sorter is required to support the P1000.
It's not required for the P680. The new crusher ore sorter is sized for the larger operation with additional crushing capacity. We don't need that for the P680. Hence, we've, as you'd expect, prioritized the increase in tons from P680 Primary Rejections. As it relates to the broader P1000 project, good progress happening there with long lead order, engineering is underway, and we're on track for that one. That's going well, and looking forward to bringing both these incremental step ups to the operation. It's remarkable to think that year and a half to two years, we'll almost be double where we are today. If you think about that production capacity times healthy pricing, Pilbara stands positioned to be a healthy cash flow generator.
Of course, subject to the prevailing market conditions. I think that completes the expansion update there. With that, I will step now to the chemicals update. Moving to slide 10. The midstream project is progressing. We're heading towards our FID. A couple of highlights here: the government Modern Manufacturing Initiative grant funds of $20 million, that contract was executed during the quarter, which was great, and the team is effectively busy finalizing the documents in support of the FID, the demonstration plant. For those who are not familiar with the midstream demonstration plant, what this is all about is producing more value-added lithium products for market, and doing so using more renewable processing steps.
If we get this right, the idea is we'll materially concentrate the lithium at the mine site, drop out the aluminosilicate waste, which is normally present with spodumene concentrates, and three, materially step down the carbon energy intensity curve. All the work we've done to date is very positive around this. The demonstration plant, as the name suggests, is all about demonstrating, the process at a reasonable scale such that we can test this, the unit cost, performance, recoveries, and all going well, set the stage for broader commercial application. We're doing this in in combination with our joint venture partner, Calix, another great Aussie company, and we're excited to be progressing this project. As could have big implications for our business and the industry. So, looking forward to progressing that project in due course. Moving now to Slide 11.
Our joint venture with POSCO for the construction of a 43,000 ton lithium hydroxide plant in South Korea is going well. As you can see from the photo, plenty of booms and, yeah, structures going up, and both those two hydroxide trains are on track. Train two being the first train to be complete and commissioned. 65% complete, and the other train is at 35%. very much in the construction phase right now. Commissioning for the first of those trains is to occur in the back half of this year. Yeah, excited to see that come to life. This will be Pilbara's participation in lithium chemicals manufacturing, which is really, really exciting. Delivering on an aim we've had since the inception of the project.
Really excited to see this come to fruition in the coming months. Moving now to Slide 13 on the partnering process. This is well underway. Nothing new to report here, but this is incredibly exciting process, and I would put it to all that this is probably one of the most exciting transactions available on the market. Exciting in the sense that we're offering up to 300,000 tons of spodumene concentrate, which effectively could [audio distortion] multiple hydroxide trains. Two, it's coming from Pilbara. In my view, and of course I'd say this, it's a completely de-risked proposition. The group knows how to deliver product to market, and we'll be delivering this product in short order. Three, yeah, it's got the scale.
As I mentioned, 300,000 tons is not insignificant, supporting multiple hydroxide trains, we'll see how we go. Partners, the process is we're in midlife with this. It's a long-term contract offer we're providing here and it wouldn't surprise you that we've had a lot of interest. If we look in the rearview mirror, the first time we ran a process like this in 2017, you could count the participants on one hand, ultimately what closed from that process was a joint venture with POSCO. Fast forward to today, the long list is something more like 70 odd, of course, we are looking to, we are shortlisting down to a much smaller number, we're in progressing discussions.
I mention that just to highlight the interest in the industry and how much the industry is rapidly evolving and growing. It's really exciting and Pilbara stands poised to do something pretty exciting here. We'll see how we go. That concludes this section, and with that, I will hand over to Luke to take us through the financials for the quarter. Over to you, Luke.
Thank you. Thanks, Dale, and good morning to those on the call. Please turn to slide 15 of the presentation. This slide sets out the group's financial metrics for Q4 FY 2023 vs. Q3 FY 2023. Group revenue was $ 844 million in Q4, representing an 18% decline period on period. The June quarter showed an improvement in production of 10%, as mentioned earlier, and an increase in sales of 22%, which partially offset the impact of softening prices by 33%. At the unit cost level, unit operating costs on an FOB basis in Q4 were broadly flat at AUD 628 per ton, versus AUD 632 in Q3, with higher mining costs driven by the 10% increase in material moved, offset by higher sales volumes.
Unit costs on a CIF basis were $ 976 per ton in Q4, a 15% improvement on the prior period, reflecting lower royalty costs associated with lower revenue and lower shipping costs. Turning now to slide 16. Slide 16 sets out the group's financial metrics for FY 2023 vs. FY 2022, with significant growth shown across all key metrics. Group revenue grew to $4 billion for the financial year, up 238% on the prior period. Strong customer demand reflected in higher pricing and a material uplift in production were the key drivers of FY 2023 revenue performance. Sales volume grew by 68%, and average estimated realized price was up by 87% on the prior period. In terms of unit costs, on an FOB basis, costs increased 11% to $ 613 per ton for the financial year.
All key components of operating costs were higher than the prior period. This, however, reflected pre-investment in mining for P680, target investment in spares and maintenance to improve availability and productivity, and ongoing enhancements to our facilities to cater for the growing operation. As mentioned previously, throughout the year, our unit costs were also impacted by labor shortages and inflation pressures. On a CIF basis, costs increased to $ 1,091 a ton from the prior year, at $ 844 a ton, up 29%. This cost increase is primarily driven by higher royalty costs due to higher sales revenue. Turning now to slide 17. Notwithstanding the decline in revenue, largely driven by prices in the period, we saw continued solid cash operating margin and very strong growth in cash in the June quarter.
Cash margin from operations was $ 920 million in the period, comprising $ 1.1 billion from sales of concentrate to customers, less $ 201.9 million of operating costs to produce and sell concentrate. Pleasingly, net cash margin from operations of $ 920 million was broadly in line with the March quarter, at $ 919 million, notwithstanding the decline in revenue. Further down the cash flow statement, there were income tax payments of $ 120.9 million. There was total cash flows for investing activities, or CapEx, of $ 160 million. There were net proceeds from borrowings of $ 19.7 million, a cash inflow. A cash outflow of $ 21.4 million related to other financing costs, including interest and lease payments.
Strong revenue growth and, in turn, strong cash operating margin led the group to close the quarter with a cash balance of $3.3 billion, a $655.5 million increase over the $2.7 billion recorded as at 31 March. This increase in cash compares favorably to the $456.5 million increase in the March quarter, albeit that quarter included the company's inaugural dividend payment. I'll now hand it back to Dale.
Thanks, Luke, for cracking through the numbers there. Good in. Moving to the last part of our presentation on the market, and as the previous calls, I'll put my commentary into three categories. A little bit about the long-term outlook. I'll then step into the June quarter and touch on our observations. Then lastly, looking outwards, Pilbara's view of the market and how that's guiding our decisions. Starting with the long-term outlook, it's incredibly positive, and there appears to be a sustained structural deficit unfolding and it doesn't matter which day's paper you grab, there seems to be new announcements day- after- day. I'll just highlight a couple of the more meaningful ones.
We've had a break for the Biden administration. It's making available a $1 billion, a green bank, for support of clean energy projects such as residential heat pumps, EV charging stations, and community schooling projects. The Canada government announced on the 6th of July, it'll be providing $11.3 billion US incentives to Stellantis and LG for their battery plant developments. The International Energy Association are released on the 12th of July, some of the data they've produced comparing the year of 2022 to the prior year, 2021. They note EV sales reached a record high of $10 million in 2022, which is a tenfold increase in just five years.
They noted that renewable electricity capacity additions rose by 340 GW, the largest ever development, and that was in the year of 2022. They also noted that investment in clean energy reached a record $1.6 trillion in the year of 2022, an increase of almost 15% on 2021, demonstrating continued confidence in energy transitions, even in an uncertain climate. That's from the IEA. If we look to some more EV-specific news points, we've had some Chinese policy support recently around, A, EV subsidies, and also, more recently, the China's National Development and Reform Commission that have outlined a suite of initiatives to promote automobile consumption and new energy vehicle support. There's actually the data around EVs themselves.
China specifically had 44% year-to-date growth compared to H1 2022, a 36% quarter-on-quarter increase for China. Moving to the more the global EV picture, China, U.S., and Europe combined, 39% year-to-date growth for H1 2022, and a 30% quarter-on-quarter increase. So. at the macro level, there is just massive moves afoot around energy transition, of which, of course, lithium is a key enabler and stands poised to be a great market to be in for a long time to come, given the necessary role lithium is going to play. That's at the very, sort of, high level macro picture. Stepping now to our June quarter observations. Starting, of course, with pricing. What we saw, of course, was pricing stabilized.
We've had that sort of down shift through the March quarter, then a sort of uptick, and it's been relatively stable. Speaking with a few of the commentators in the market in the last 24 hours, they note that the volumes are fairly thinly traded. What that means is volatility continues to play out. With those thinly traded volumes and very few data points around the market, what happens is you typically and this can get outsized responses. It's worth touching on the Guangzhou futures trade, which happened last Friday, which was for a futures contract for January onwards. That contract went lower than expectations, and the market response, from our view, was outsized. The read of that one contract was one of, that must be the direction of the market.
All I would say is I caution everyone that these types of data points, whether it's the Guangzhou exchange or the Wuxi exchange, we have seen the past outsized responses to small contracts and small volume movements and I'd encourage people to step back and look at the macro drivers, because [audio distortion] view, they remain very strong. Specifically, as it relates to our customers, demand remains strong. We have no issues moving our product. It flies out the gate. The question is, what pricing? We have, yeah, an abundance of offers to sell and customers to sell product to, if we were to choose to.
Given this noise that you hear around some of these, let's say, out of market trades, I'd just like to reassure you from our perspective, this is a great market. We're having no issues selling our product into this market. The quarter we've just had demonstrates just incredible returns here of a strong market and frankly, strong pricing. We remain very positive about where we're at, which takes me to really those last comments of what does this all mean for Pilbara? We have conviction around this market and our growth plans. We are in the best market at the best time, delivering possibly one of the best assets. We continue to keep the foot down.
The throttle is jammed wide open. We're looking to develop and expand as rapidly as we can to make the most of this incredible market. It's an amazing time in history. Pilbara finds itself in an absolutely unique position. We were an early movement. That was tough, but that has now flipped into the most incredible opportunity that we are absolutely focused on making the most of. Looking forward to seeing how this market unfolds in the years to come. I think we're incredibly well placed and looking forward to, touch wood, delivering many good quarters to come for our shareholders. That completes the market commentary and with that, I'd just like to hand back now to Andrew, the moderator, to go to Q&A. Thank you, Andrew.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Hayden Bairstow with Macquarie.
Good morning, Dale. Thanks for that. Just a couple of quick ones for me. Firstly, just on the spodumene pricing, just keen to get an understanding, is there any sort of changes in the market? Are we starting to see variances in discounting as your product grade falls or a greater focus on impurities? Or is it all just the difference between what we worked out versus what you delivered was really around just timing on each month on shipments versus, you know, the different pricing, indexes you use?
Yeah. Yeah. Hi, Hayden. Yeah, that's right. It's the latter. It's not a case of the former. It's not a case of spec changes or other discounts. It's more the makeup of the reference points and timing.
Just the second one, just on the sort of the growth outlook organically. I mean, just worth, I guess, touching on, we've seen a few others struggle with recovery rates as they ramp up. There's nothing different you're doing really, other than mining more material, are you, in terms of pushing towards the P1000? Everything else is pretty much exactly what you have now.
Pretty much. I like to think that we've honed the recipe for the lithium concentration for our particular ore body and mine site. The expansions which we're doing are effectively copy-pastes of that, of that recipe, but there's more, more upside to come. The team, as you'd expect, is doing a suite of improvements to eke out more and more recovery, because that's the business we're in. The likes of the new ore sorter and P1000, with a few whistles and bells which are coming in as part of that, which will help improve recoveries further in time.
Yeah. Okay, great. I'll leave it there. Thanks, mate.
Thanks, Hayden.
Thank you. One moment for our next question, please. Our next question comes from the line of Levi Spry with UBS.
Good day, Dale and team. Thanks for your time. Maybe just to me flesh out the realized price a little bit more? I suspect it's disappointed a few guys on the street. I'm getting lots of questions on it. How do we go about forecasting it, given the data that we're seeing, the price reporting agencies and, you know, your 5.3%- 5.4% grade?
Good day, Levi. Yeah, appreciate the fight is always a struggle. You'll recall some quarters, we surprised the street, and other quarters like this one, it's slightly under. You know, largely this has all been with this, was around timing, principally. Each of the offtakes we've got have got, you know, commercial relationships with each of those offtakers, so we can't really divulge the specifics of but there are, there are minor variations which play through. I would, I would stress that the timing is a, is a key component. Yeah, unfortunately, I can't divulge too much on the specifics there, Levi, from a commercial sensitivity.
Okay. I'll try one more on it. So, what price are you seeing now in the context of the weaker Chinese prices? You mentioned the Guangzhou one, but Wuxi and, you know, what price are you seeing right now?
It's pretty stable at the moment, Levi. I think the, you know, pricing we've realized is not a bad go buy. You know, just to highlight that our pricing is exposed to where the pricing outcome in the future, particularly. The prevailing market is what sort of ultimately affects the realized price. If we see a rise in chemicals pricing, we'll see a rise in our realized price, in converse with. So, It is a bit of crystal ball gazing, so you've got to take a view of what the future pricing is.
Okay, thank you. Maybe just one last one, slightly different one. On the partnering process, you mentioned, you know, very large contingent of parties initially, and how it compared to when you did the deal with POSCO. Can you talk to how the industry may have changed or may have not changed in terms of the likely outcome here? Capital intensity, margins, things like that. Can you just throw a few data points at us in terms of.
Yeah.
What the range of outcomes we can expect?
Sure. I probably can't give you the detail you're chasing there, because we are early in the process. To the broader concept of, has the lithium industry changed? It certainly has. It is very much a global industry now, and we're seeing new parties are looking to enter entrepreneurial groups. We're seeing the old hands in the industry are continuing to expand. Of course, we're seeing car companies and the like, and other types of groups who historically probably wouldn't have played in this space or getting on with it. It does feel like the world's our oyster for Pilbara, which is a great place to be. As to the specifics around which project, which parties, we are, we're well too early in that process.
We are, as you'd expect, narrowing down to quite a small group that we're liaising with, in this regard, and look forward to updating and providing some more detail on this later in the calendar year.
Okay, thanks for that. Last one...
Sorry, his line dropped. One moment for our next question, please. Our next question comes from the line of Kate McCutcheon with Citi.
Hi. Good morning, Dale. Following on from Levi on the downstream partnering plan, are you wedded to hydroxides? I guess, given the LFP mix is growing, is carbonate something you're considering? Curious to know how you think about the future of the chemicals mix, I guess.
Good day, Kate. Yeah, good question. We are not wedded to a particular chemical at this stage. We're keeping our mind open to all opportunities. It's too early to guide as to what that looks like. It's probably worth also adding that this concept of producing a midstream intermediate product is something we, of course, think deeply about, and that, too, would be part of the discussions around whomever we ultimately partner with. I think ultimately, the world needs a better intermediate product than spodumene concentrates. Given that these, this type of contract and partnership is a multi-decade type relationship, we're, of course, considering what would an intermediate product supply chain look like? That's part of the thinking.
Yeah, too early to sort of guide on which products we're chasing. Yeah, look forward to updating more later in the year.
Okay. No, that's helpful color. Have you had any further thoughts on concentrate grade moving forward? Would it be fair to assume 5.3 is the new 6 moving forward for Pilgangoora? If so, how should we think about the P680 nameplate on that lower grade?
Good question, Kate. Our objective is to keep the product grade around where it is, [audio distortion] but somewhere around where we are now, for the principal reason that this enables us to maximize lithium recovery from the mine site. Our objective is to continue that as long as we can. Of course, this we need to make sure the customer and market supports it, which it does at this time. Provided that persists, we will continue to do that. What does that translate to for the P680 and P1000? Ultimately, it does give us a bit more upside in terms of produced volumes.
If you go back to the P1000 FID, you'll see that there's a bit of extra information there around what a 5.7 grade looks like. Moving to a 5.2 or 5.3 does give a little bit of upside above that, which we'll look to do, as I say, provided the market supports it.
Okay. Finally, just a quick question. One of your peers reported a pretty large exploration budget for next year. Can you just remind me how much you're spending on exploration each year at Pilgangoora?
I don't have those numbers on hand, but it'll be a modest spend, somewhere less than $ 20 million, is likely what we'll be doing for the year ahead.
Okay, perfect. Thank you.
Thanks, Kate.
Thank you. One moment for our next question, please. Our next question comes from the line of Tom Hayes with CLSA.
Good morning, Dale and team. Just a few follow-ups. Maybe I'll start with the one that Hayden asked. We've seen sort of recoveries increase to 70% and sort of implies a head or feed grade around 1.4. I'm just wondering, you know, what does that grade profile look like over the next two years as we sort of move beyond the higher grade in the central pit, referring to the mineral resource and reserve statement and noting that it's sort of lower iron oxide. I'm interested, you know, what interplay that will have with recoveries or does the new kit that's going in sort of offset that?
Yeah. Good day, Tom. As it relates to the head grade we've had to date and in the next couple of years, it is elevated, and that's we've been upfront with the market since the inception of the project around that. It's just a function of how the ore presents. Where does it take us in terms of recovery long term? We've guided sort of a 75% recovery long run average with a long run head grade of approximately 1.2. We haven't been at 75% consistently of late, although there have been some improvements.
What will take us up the curve is, and you alluded to it, is we do have some leachers coming as part of the upcoming expansion projects, which will enable, effectively, more leachers for the team to eke out a few more recovery uplifts and the other piece, which adds to this, is the ore petrology work the team are doing, continues to advance. What that does, enable to marry mineral variation with bespoke set points and processing plant, which in combination equals higher recoveries. Yeah, the improvement journey continues and it won't stop. You know, we're a multi-decade operation, and the team will keep focused on eking out every percentage point that we can for recovery.
Thank you for that. Maybe just a follow-up, just sort of looking at the downstream, sort of trying to get an idea for further, you know, processing data points. I guess we're seeing across sort of the Aussie lithium peers, quite different approaches to adding downstream lithium hydroxide capacity. I'm just wondering how you're thinking about sort of the competitive advantages of your strategy vs., say, domestic or U.S. or China downstream strategies? You know, what are the key benefits or key risks that you'd like to call out that gives you some conviction in your strategy, which to date has targeted an experienced chemical producer in the battery raw materials value chain, you know, based in Korea?
Yeah. Thanks, Tom. Good question, and one we wrestle with. I think, well, the whole industry is wrestling with this, given it's the emergence of an industry, and so we're seeing many different ways to skin a cat, effectively, emerging. To date, of course, we've had our joint venture with POSCO, and in many ways, we felt that ticked a lot of boxes in that it was an existing battery material, so a good cost domicile, a group with know-how to build and operate that operation, and good set of commercial terms. I reckon that is a bit of an example of ticks in the boxes.
As to where do we go with this partnering process, we are looking globally at all the options. It's each proposition has a completely different set of attributes. Broadly speaking, the things that we're interested in are supply chain integration, whether they're an established battery material hub or not, or want to be in the future. Two, the commercial return to our shareholders, equity %, et cetera. Three, alignment around sustainability objectives. Four, government support or the participation to be part of a government-supported supply chain, a la IRA, and technical know-how. Those are to name but a few of the key parameters that we think through as we wrestle with this challenge.
I appreciate for those observing the market, there's some quite different approaches being deployed and, everyone's doing something different, it appears, at this stage.
Thank you very much. I'll leave it there.
Thank you. One moment for our next question, please. Our next question comes from the line of Kaan Peker with RBC Capital Markets.
Good day, Dale and team. Congrats on the strong quarter. I have a question on the growth assets. The first one, just want to get a bit more of an understanding around the POSCO JV. Why train two is ahead of schedule relative to train one? What's the differences between the two trains by the technologies? Maybe if you could expand on that, and I'll circle back with a second.
Good day, Kaan. So, trains two [audio distortion] You're correct that we've got two different trains, and those two trains use different lithium hydroxide processing routes. Train two, which is the one which is being delivered first, utilizes POSCO's patented bipolar electrodialysis process, which POSCO have developed many years ago. That's train two. That's one to be delivered first. The other train uses the conventional sulfate route. You ask, well, why are two different trains before? The truth is, it's about cost of production, and each of the trains, depending what the cost inputs are, one may win over the other.
The conventional sulfates are really cost chemicals, where the electrodialysis route requires more electricity to make it work. Depending what those cost inputs are, one may win over the other. That's what we have with POSCO, they were keen to do both of these, particularly a way of hedging and a way of working through which process route might be best optimized for the future for that location. Hopefully that fills in some gaps, Kaan.
Yeah, sure. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it. The second is on the P680. Just, I think you mentioned, or it sounded like, the delay was related to labor. Just sort of [audio distortion] that CapEx is probably a little bit slower. Is there anything specific in terms of equipment delivery or infrastructure that's related to that delay, or is it just more labor? Thanks.
Kaan, you're correct. It was more labor and resourcing, not driven by a long lead equipment.
Thanks. No, thanks, I'll pass it on.
Thank you. One moment for our next question, please. Our next question comes from the line of Al Harvey with J.P. Morgan.
Good day, Dale. A couple from me. Just looking at the cash tax paid, in the quarter, did look a bit lighter than I expected. You had previously mentioned some installments on the prior tax bill, so just wanted to get an understanding of what's left to be outstanding tax for cash tax paid, over the rest of the year from prior quarters and any other lag effects we should be aware of there?
Good morning, it's Luke here. I can take that one to answer. In the quarter, there was around about $121 million of tax paid. Since April, we started paying tax or income tax on a monthly basis. For the FY 2023 period, there are nine months before April where cash tax hasn't been paid, and a make-whole payment will be paid in December this year, when our FY 2023 tax return is lodged. There'll be a cash tax payment around December for that nine months of tax not yet paid.
Cool. Thanks for that. Just on, back onto the pricing. I guess we saw inventory movement, trickle down, for the first time in the last few quarters. Just trying to understand the decision to move volumes, more volumes into the market with prices moving lower. How do we interpret that on what you're thinking about near-term price trends? I guess, just as a second part to that question, what is the approximate storage capacity of finished product, building Europe?
Well, on the first part there, in terms of timing of sales and shipments, as a policy, we haven't tried to play the market. We have always taken the view of the market will rise and fall, and some of those rises and falls happen pretty quickly. Rather than preempt that, we've taken the view that as we will produce, we will move and sell the product. Any surge which has played through in terms of our sales, like the quarter we've had, is actually just driven by logistics, shipment timing, and sales moving from, you know, just tipping over from one quarter into the next. No strategy on our part to sort of play the market timing.
I appreciate that some of other lithium operators have talked about doing that, which is a bit different and fair enough. Can you just recap on your second question there?
Sorry, Dale. Just trying to get a sense of what the storage capacity of the finished spod concentrate is at Pilgangoora. I guess, you know, over the last couple of quarters, it looks like it's built up to about 40,000 tons. Just trying to get a sense of where that could cap out.
Yeah, sure. No, we've got no shortage of space out at Pilgangoora. We can effectively store as much as we want. That's not what we want. We want to be liquidating finished product as quickly as we can. We have some storage limitations at Port Hedland. They're still fairly significant. Sort of in the tune of 60,000 tons covered storage, that type of thing. On site, we have no shortage of space if we chose to store ore product there.
Great. Just a final one before I queue up again. Just trying to get a bit more of a sense of what drove that delay in the commissioning of the crushing and ore sorting. You mentioned labor there. Just wondering if this does flow on to impact the timing of the P1000?
The WA market is tight in terms of construction and engineering resources. That's definitely present. An affected component of that played through with the crushing, ore sorting, that we mentioned there. I would not sort of translate that through to an impact on P1000. The team has factored in their expectations for this market into that schedule, and we're not anticipating any issues around that schedule. We feel we've allowed for the market conditions there. We'll see how we go.
Thanks, Dale.
All right, just conscious of time, we came to move to the webcast questions. For those whom we did not get to from the analyst calls, we will follow up with you with direct calls after the session today. We're keen to move to webcast at this time.
Okay. Thanks, Dale. Good morning, everybody. We'll move over to the webcast questions now. I notice we've only got less than 10 minutes, so to the extent we don't get to every question, then we welcome shareholders to always reach out on our shareholder query line and w e can respond by email. First question, there's a few questions around dividend policy. They mainly center around timing for the next dividend, and whether we'll maintain the policy or even consider increasing it. I might pass that over to Luke.
Thanks. Thanks, Alex. In respect to the second half full year 2023 dividend, details of that dividend will be announced with the full year results announcement towards the back end of August. I can't speak to any specifics before that point. There will be a full set of details in the announcement.
Thanks, Luke. Next question is probably for Dale, and concerns the Calix JV, and the question centers on if the demonstration plant JV goes ahead, then [audio distortion] of the 1 million tons of spodumene would we be converting to extreme product before going overseas? That's really the question, Dale.
The demonstration plant, by proportion, will only require a small bit or small part of our full product profile in the order of approximately 20,000-30,000 tons of spodumene concentrate per annum, which will translate through to something like 2,500-3,500 tons of a lithium chemicals product. By proportion, pretty small for the demo plant.
Thanks, Dale. Next question is more around the batteries market. Do you consider sodium-ion batteries a threat to the demand for lithium?
The short answer is no, and we take a lot of comfort from querying our customers around this point. The [audio distortion] batteries look. They do look like they are much more heavy and less dense, and there are some technical elements to them which make them more challenging to work with. But , do they own a segment of the market? I think ultimately, yes. The likes of Benchmark have done some forecasts on this and are predicting it's quite a small component, but it looks more inclined to be deployed for mass energy storage rather than, say, the EV subset.
There are hybrids occurring where it's lithium-ion in combination with the sodium battery. It appeared that the lithium battery is very much required to achieve the necessary energy density requirements for the EV. It doesn't give us cause for concern at all.
Okay. Thanks, Dale. Question: are we looking to acquire other businesses with our cash holding? This goes to our MA strategy.
We've got a BD team which has formed up and of course getting underway to consider inorganic growth opportunities. As part of that, they will consider assets and businesses and that's what they get to do.
Okay, thanks, Dale. Next question. Liontown are building a mine with 60% renewable power from day one, and BHP was in up the decarbonization strategy for their Pilbara mines that showed the economic benefits of decarbonizing the mine site. Can the team please update shareholders on their mine decarbonization strategy?
Of course. We, we're down the path with decarbonization already. The first step we've deployed is a 6 MW of solar farm, which is built, commissioned, and it's running today. As to the next steps of our decarbonization strategy, we've got work underway on that as we speak, and we will be updating later in the year. We're absolutely going to be taking decarbonization steps aggressively as we can. It's the right thing to do. It's a market expectation, and we want to be as green as we possibly can, as quickly as we can. I will update the market in due course around what those next steps of decarbonization look like later in the year.
Thanks, Dale. question: Hi, all. With so much growth, diversification in the near term, incredible operational performance, and a tier one asset and a very strong balance sheet, I'd like to thank this shareholder. Can you comment on the current share price? How do you feel PLS is being valued by the market?
That's a great question, Nathan. Thank you for that. Well, of course, we're very cheap at the moment. Of course, I would say that. Ultimately, I think what the whole market, and those who sort of observe this market struggle with, is what is the long-term price for lithium? That affects all valuations of all the lithium companies materially. If you go back in time, you know, to 2017, 2018, the long run lithium pricing was spodumene, expected to be $600-$700 a ton. Jump forward to today, we're seeing long run forecasts of, well, double that, or sometimes higher, depending which group. There are some groups hypothesizing about going higher again. Where does it end up? Nobody, of course, knows.
It's the birth of an industry, but that one parameter will have a material impact on the valuation of all lithium companies, including ours. Outside of that, what we're focused on is, Nathan, what you've highlighted there, controlling what we control and making sure we do the best we can to shoot the lights out on the operation, expanding the operation, and make the most of this incredible environment. Thanks for your question.
Okay. Quick question. It's of technical nature: What is the Primary Rejection facility?
Sure, I'll take that one. Without getting too deep into the technical nature of it, all ore that comes out of mines generally has gangue material. The Primary Rejection is going on through our building operation. It's very early in the processing part. It's right up the front of the flow sheet, and essentially it uses dense medium separation with specific gravities that reject a lot of gangue up front. The benefit of that is further into the processing plant, like our flotation circuits, it cleans up what is presented further into our operation. By doing that, it also improves our unit costs. That without getting into all the technicalities, is probably the simplest way that I can explain it.
Okay. Thanks, Vince, for that. Look, looking at the time, I think we've reached eight o'clock, so it's time to bring the call to an end. I'll just pass over to Dale and some close out from him.
Yeah. Thank you all for dialing in. As we've taken you through, what has been the most incredible quarter, wrapping up, what's been an incredible year. A big thank you to the team who's been toiling away, delivering those results. A big thank you to our shareholders and our company partners and our stakeholders, who all play a role, in our business. Thank you all. Thank you for dialing in, and we look forward to talking again in the future. Thanks very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.