Okay, we're gonna kick off. Welcome to Tivan's second investor briefing for 2026. It's the 1st of May. I'm in Darwin, just off a plane from Kununurra, for those that don't know, the East Kimberley, and have been moving around rapidly for two weeks across Timor and the Top End. I wanted to jump online because it has been, I guess four months since we did an investor briefing. That's quite a time between drinks for Tivan and a lot's happened both at our company and in the world, and so wanted to provide this update. I know it's late on the East Coast, it's the best I could do. I wanted to close out the week with this, and I know that most of the views.
We've got 200 people online, by the way. Most of the views will be on YouTube over the weekend. For those that are watching over the weekend, enjoy. I'll try to get through as much as I can within an hour, but I think it'll probably be like an hour and 15 minutes. For those that are new to the company, we've prided ourselves on the start, three and a bit years ago now, about open, transparent, timely communications. That will be featured tonight. There's a lot to go through because the company's scaling and we're working across multiple fronts, and as I alluded to, the world's changing, especially in critical minerals. I've been in Japan in the past couple of months.
I've been in the U.S., been in Canberra a lot, and so I'll do what I can to share, bring everyone up to speed. The big narrative I think is that the company's making, you know, really radical progress across a bunch of very, very important projects, both in Central Australia, in the Kimberley and in Timor-Leste. The team is functioning at a level of productivity that is inspiring, I think, and which will ultimately drive tremendous, you know, shareholder value creation. I want to walk through that for the new, for the people that have been on the journey for a longer period of time as well, and just provide that reassurance and confidence that comes with progress at a time where, you know, the world's changing.
I think people are questioning Australia a little bit as well at the moment, so wanted to make sure that all our shareholders feel very much reassured about Tivan and where we're at. Without further ado, this is our first four months of the year. As you can see, an incredible amount of news flow. We're not targeting headlines. We're just working really, really hard, and as a consequence of working really hard, we generate a lot of headlines. This is how the first four months played out. There was a lot of focus on closing out transactions that have defined the company from last year in terms of Timor-Leste and Molly Hill.
I think especially, the major milestones being feasibility studies, mineral resource definitions at Speewah, along with the scoping study that landed this week, at Molly Hill. Tremendous amount of engagement in Japan, which I'll come to. Events, ANU, New York, so on and so forth. Just a real whirlwind of activity. Probably one of the things to emphasize which is lost, I think, in the blur of headlines is just the way the company's, you know, being managed in terms of the ramp up. We're up to about, I think 45 staff now. There's been some really big hires in the past month even. You know, Robert Gerrard joining us as Chief Operating Officer from KBR is a really big development.
I'll come back to perhaps Mick Stone joining us with Timor, it's quite an incredible development, I think, for our company, very far reaching. Drew's joined us as head of procurement and contracts from Alcoa. That's a very important announcement or appointment, and there are a bunch of other people that have joined the company at the moment that we haven't had the time, frankly, to announce via our ASX channel. What we're doing is building up that capability across three different project sites with people that have worked right across the resources industry. With our open architecture at Tivan, I think everyone's learning from each other. Everyone's benefiting from the exposure to each other. Everyone is, you know, putting a shoulder to the wheel.
The level of productivity right now at Tivan is. It's always been high, but I would say right now it's practically unprecedented, given that we're working across three different project sites simultaneously. We're also evaluating other things at the same time. This is our first four months of the year. Really proud of the contributions of, you know, different individuals and different people in the field, different situations. Suffice to say that the company is humming in terms of execution and productivity. In terms of Speewah, our flagship project, we delivered major milestone in March.
When I say with trusted partners, that was, you know, by design, that means that we've worked through the milestone with our joint venture partners, Japan Fluorite Corporation, comprised of Sumitomo Corporation as well as JOGMEC. ETFS Capital, this is the Tuckwell family office, really important addition to Tivan's story that we narrated extensively at the AGM with Graham, providing those kind words. The project making this milestone is, you know, it's a really important development, not just for Tivan but for the country. We're developing a new critical industry and capability for Australia and in many ways, for Japan. Probably as early as next week. How important this project is for Australia and for Japan, noting that the Japanese Prime Minister is in country from the weekends.
As well, you know, think of it in terms of all of this focus and scrutiny at the moment on supply chains and, you know, geopolitical tension and so on and so forth. Tivan I think had the foresight to understand how important fluorite was within the value chain of high technology, especially semiconductors, EV batteries and so on and so forth. We had the foresight to acquire not just Speewah but Sandover Fluorite, creating a tremendous long-term value proposition for our company and for Australia. We are working assiduously. It's extremely challenging work to take a resource through a flow sheet to product specs. We're acceptable at the top end of the world. We're achieving these things in real time. We're benefiting greatly from our partnership with Japan.
It's fundamentally important, not just in terms of access to equity capital, which is, of course, welcome and necessary, but the technical acumen that Sumitomo Corporation has brought to the table, along with JOGMEC, along with the networks and the ability to meet underlying customers right across the world to understand their needs and to work with them in a partnership model. These things are driving the value creation that's happening, not just at Speewah but at Sandover Fluorite as well. I think I joked at one point, Sumitomo referring to Tivan as the king of fluorite in Australia. It's true. There'll never be another company that has the resource base that we've secured. We're working as fast as we can to prove up both of the projects.
I'm really happy to confirm that Speewah's unique characteristics have been validated by key customers. What that means is that we always knew that it had low arsenic, but there are a series of other metallurgical characteristics which are very important in terms of making high purity hydrofluoric acid, which is the key input for other industries. Things such as like phosphorus and sulfides and particle size and all sorts of other very commercial in confidence type metrics. Speewah just keeps checking out. Like it's a fantastic resource in terms of quality. From what we've understood now from Sandover Fluorite as well, which looks very similar, it should firm up as well through product definition. Really happy about these developments. We're working tremendously hard in on our flagship project.
I've seen some of the questions already, so I'll jump ahead a little bit here, which is to confirm that I have, you know, committed to living in the East Kimberley for the next six months. I think that's an important step for any major project. Speewah is the northern-most federal major project in the country. It's a tremendously important geostrategic project for Australia and Japan, as I mentioned. Yet you're moving into a community, which is small, first of all, and which has had a very challenging history with major mining projects. Specifically here I'm referring to the Argyle Diamond Mine and the very challenging history that that's left behind for traditional owners in the region. We need to be at Tivan incredibly mindful of that.
We have been for three years. My presence, I think in Kununurra is designed to localize the project to create a pathway for employment, for small business opportunities especially. Also to provide that assurance to the local community. It's about 5,000 people in Kununurra, probably about 1,000 people in Wyndham, that this is firstly real, and secondly, that the CEO of the company involved is prepared to really commit at a personal level and to get to know the whole community. I've seen this. You know, I grew up in Alice, I've said this before. I know how small towns work. There's a very big difference between dialing it in and showing up and committing at the level that I'm prepared to commit to work through the final facilitation stages.
Those final facilitation stages are formidable. This is the schedule for the year. We're working on environmental approvals. We're working on water extraction licenses. We're working on two Indigenous Land Use Agreements. We've been working on these items for three years now. We should also emphasize that they are, you know, very significant bodies of work. We also wanna recognize that the Speewah mine site, whilst it has incredible attributes, unique attributes in terms of a geological resource, it's located right next to the Dunham River. That brings significant and unique challenges in terms of social license.
We're in the Kimberley as well, and so we have to work through with community very carefully and very closely over the next three to six months, the various forms of social license that are required for a project of this magnitude. That's why I'm there. I also want to mention just, this important thing to mention, I think, is that, you know, for the past three years we have been very mindful of native title at Speewah, and so it's one of the few areas in the Kimberley that's not determined as such. What that means is that there's no formal recognition in terms of like Federal Court processes of the fact that native title exists at Speewah.
Right at the top, Tivan took the very important decision to provide reassurance to the Kimberley Land Council and potential TO groups that we would recognize what is a fact, which is that there is native title, of course, at Speewah, and that we would support a determination process. This is their process. This is a process that's been led by traditional owners and the Kimberley Land Council for the past three years. I think in about July there'll be a federal court determination. I hope and expect at that determination, native title will be formally recognized for the Nganjuwarr group at the Speewah site. We welcome that. We celebrate that. We wish them the best. If Tivan's played a small role in catalyzing that process, then I'm very proud. I'm very, very proud.
We wanna be there for these things. We want to celebrate pathways such as this. Most of all, we want to provide that assurance that we're gonna be managing the project workforce development and indeed the mine right out to mine closure responsibly and in a way that's completely fit for the East Kimberley community. That's why I'll be living there. I won't be there 100% of the time. I'm obviously moving around quite a lot, but that's essentially the reason, and I'm glad people have picked up on that this week. Speewah's looking great. We're proud of the work. It's a huge lift. It has been the whole time. The commercial value proposition has been proved out. We still have a tremendous amount of facilitation work to get through this year.
Early next week you'll see how important our project is to Australia, to Japan, and to Asia, I'm quite sure. Molly Hill. Very proud of the work that the team did this past quarter on Molly Hill. An acquisition that we made in September last year. We started negotiating, of course, the acquisition of Molly Hill Tungsten Project well before September and well before the tungsten price started to roof. Tremendous acquisition and an opportunity for Tivan to start to develop, you know, beyond a single projects company or indeed a single critical mineral company. There was a risk, you know, significant risk that we'd get pigeonholed as a fluorite company, which is absolutely not what I wanted. We love fluorite.
I think it's gonna have an incredible future, and we look forward to the day when the fluorite price, you know, reflects underlying fundamentals and we're the only ones in production. 'Cause that will be the day that Tivan makes super normal profits. Nonetheless, there's a lot of things to achieve beyond that. Right next to the Sandover Fluorite project, which we acquired for effectively half a million dollars at this stage, lay Molly Hill. Now, Molly Hill, you know, had been sitting there for 50 years. No one's touched it since the late 1970s, that's a long period of time, touched it in earnest in terms of actually trying to mine it. There's been a lot of pretenders.
People come through and do a lot of, you know, work to try to pretty it up or, you know, pretend how they could mine it. One of the great ironies that we discovered after the acquisition is that this project was actually owned by TNG. TNG, the same TNG that effectively, you know, I took out. There's a, there's a place and a time for mining projects, and I could see the writing was on the wall for tungsten. I didn't expect it to go $3,000 an MTU, but I definitely thought it was gonna go through 1,000. We got on the front foot. We pulled off a great acquisition, then most importantly, we, we hired people to work on a, on a dedicated basis.
Shareholders who have been with us for a couple of years will know and have heard me with great confidence rate the capabilities that we've got in the team. People like Michael Christ and Brendon Nicol have led the development of the Speewah Fluorite project along with our geos for Stephen Walsh, so forth. It's been a lot of people obviously involved. With Molly Hill, we hired, it was Johannes and Josh, and they've led the project development. They've led the metallurgy. Our geo team's everywhere, of course. It was an example of us starting to build operational leverage beyond Speewah. To what ends? To what ends? The end was, first of all, the scoping study.
What we wanted to do there was to prove to the market what we could see, what I could see in a spreadsheet straight away. Like I knew this was going to be incredible in terms of the valuation uplift, but I wanted an independent assessment in terms of the inputs from SRK and the inputs from Gres to back that up along with the other people that we've named in the scoping study. I wanted a report, like a milestone, where, after which we can, you know, do a deal with potential joint venture partners. I never wanted to be relying upon historical work in the same way we didn't want to be relying upon historical work at Speewah. We don't trust it.
We have zero trust, let me be quite clear, in previous work because we know most of the cases that the previous work is designed for a different purpose. You know, most of the time these sorts of projects in Australia, and the idea of doing a report is to raise a bit more facilitation capital to pay management for another couple of years. Like that's the game. Tivan's not about that. We're here to build stuff, right? If we're sincere about that mission, and we absolutely are, we have to do our own work and we have to publish our own milestones and our own basis for that. Inspire the confidence of our joint venture partners who are very serious joint venture partners, along with the government.
Also provide accountability on country, again, to traditional owners and so on and so forth. We had to get through a milestone. We've done that. It's obviously spectacular. We've downplayed the numbers. I said I was gonna do that on Twitter a couple of weeks out. If the tungsten price stays high for longer, obviously there's gonna be enormous value accretion. We set a base case back at $1,000. To you, I think that's credible. I think it's fair. I think the downside is protected by state intervention now and just by how challenging it is to build tungsten projects, and especially greenfield tungsten projects, I think they're really, really, really hard. You can see that around the world, the struggles that greenfield has had. Molly Hill's brownfield, it's been mined before.
I love this table. This figure six shows all that work. Look at all that work. That's what we bought. We didn't just buy the mineral resource. We bought all of that work knowing that that's probably gonna shave two to five years off project development. Tungsten's so specific that if you don't have this level of test work, you're basically guessing. That's what happened at the Dolphin Tungsten Mine in Tasmania. They took a shortcut. They guessed. They guessed wrong. It blew up, and it went into administration, essentially. They had to get a bailout from the Tasmanian government and, you know, frankly, the Tasmanian government's in no position to bail anyone out. They need a bailout. You know, when I saw this and I knew that there was so much test work, I was super encouraged.
That drove the acquisition and then you see this incredible value uplift. I want to be clear that we are well advanced on joint venture negotiations. We are not trying to bring joint venture partners in at that crazy valuation because it's actually also not a true valuation. Like, it's not a true valuation to say the tungsten price is gonna remain at like AUD 3,000 for the next five to ten years. If there was a forward curve, like a tradable forward curve, which there's not, but if there was, it would definitely be a significant backwardation. In the negotiations with joint venture partners, we're not trying to, you know, take the, like, the absolute peak valuation.
We're trying to bring in people, and this has come up in the Q&A, that can contribute to the project that we trust, that we can build our company with. Let me be clear about that. Like, there's people that we're bringing into the joint venture are people or entities or organizations that we can grow with. This is an incredible opportunity that we've created. We're not trying to, you know, drive the hardest deal. We're trying to make sure that we bring in partners that can help us grow. You know, not just in the next couple of years, but in the decades ahead. I won't say too much more, but there'll be some surprises. You know, one big surprise, I hope, in terms of who's involved in this.
I think if that one surprise holds together, I think it will change the Northern Territory forever. We're excited. We're working as hard as we can on it. Want to shout out to all the people in the team that built the scoping study. Probably seven or eight authors from Tivan to produce a document of that quality. I'd challenge anyone to find a better scoping study in the history of the resources sector in Australia. I don't believe it exists. That's an incredible document and it owes to, as I said, Johannes and Josh working with, you know, Brendon and Alex and Michael. Geo team all over it. Yeah, Stephen, Michael Fuss, Lockie, George. In Darwin, I wanna give a shout-out to Elaine and Maddie who are driving all of the project facilitation.
They would have written the chapters on all aspects of that. Jace as well on some of the financial aspects. Huge team effort and that's how Tivan rolls and that's why we're achieving so much. We're super excited about Molly Hill. We'll have more news on it in the next month or so and, yeah, watch this space. I believe it will be the first important critical minerals project in Central Australia ever. We will get to production well before others. That's my view. That's my very strong view. For those that don't know, I did grow up in Alice, and Alice has had a troubling week.
It's a very distressing week for everyone in the community. I hope in time that Tivan can play a role in bringing hope back to Alice. It's fundamental to Tivan's mission. This is why I started the campaign against TNG and this is a large part of why Tivan exists in the way that it does. Drilling. Last word. Yes. The guys and girls are drilling. Cisco from Team USA is in Central Australia right now drilling for tungsten. There's two programs. One is a quick-fire, four target-based program that we'll end up reporting on probably late May, early June. These are the holes that were designed by the previous owners. We're very pleased to have the permission to drill these as rapidly as we have.
We are also seeking permission from Central Land Council and the traditional owners to drill a second range of targets that have been designed by our team. That'll probably be more like July, August. There's probably about 10, maybe eight to ten areas around Molly Hill where we hope and expect there could be additional mineralization. It doesn't mean that we can, you know, necessarily guarantee resource extension. I think Andy was sort of implying that it's just an obvious step to take. It's not obvious. Could be a huge upside surprise, could be nothing. We're working very quickly to be able to drill in Central Australia at this pace is, doesn't happen traditionally. We are doing it. It's exciting work. We hope to find more.
We'll also be drilling the Gossan probably in Q3 that could have tungsten underneath it. This whole area is tremendously unexplored versus the potential that it has. Looking to find out more, and we'll be reporting on this as soon as we can. I'd say it's about 1 month away at this point. Okay. Timor-Leste, to sort of round out the project suite. Was up there fo r five days last week, on the South Coast as well in torrential rain for two days. Torrential. When I got to Kununurra, I took all my clothes out of my bags and just dried them out in the wonderful, you know, weather that typifies the East Kimberley at this time of year.
But it took a while 'cause the rainfall in the South Coast of Timor-Leste was spectacular. This is where we're up to. We took control, let me be clear, of Baucau and Oecusse copper gold concessions. We finalized that transaction in Q1. That transaction was very complicated. It was the first time in the history of Timor-Leste that there's been a transfer of ownership of mineral concessions. I'm very pleased to have wrapped it up in the way that we did. We've announced some of the findings of the previous owners and some of our own. We're excited about Baucau and Oecusse.
Turiscai is behind in some ways 'cause it hasn't been explored and because the terrain and as I just mentioned, the conditions are so challenging. We've done a tremendous amount of work at Turiscai. You can see the team's endeavors in terms of not just rock chips, but stream sediments. Effectively, we'll be wrapping up the reporting of what we refer to internally as phase I discovery of Turiscai in the next couple of weeks. I hope and expect there will be, you know, further confirmation of mineralization, especially with copper, and we'll be heading into phase II.
Phase II will be characterized by geophysics, different forms of geophysics and different forms of mapping and narrowing search targets, and building up capabilities and putting ourselves in a position where we can drill in earnest and at scale, all the way through next year. There are some shortcuts if we wanted to, you know, drill sooner, we could consider that, particularly at Baucau and Oecusse 'cause the targets are relatively well-defined and the terrain is more forgiving. We're not necessarily in a rush here. This is a multi-year commitment, and we want to do it the right way. As part of doing it the right way, we announced, I think, was it Monday? God, it feels like such a long week for me.
Major Michael Stone, who's retired now, Mick, to join Tivan's technical advisory group. I said on Twitter, I'll say it again, Mick is a great Australian. I had the pleasure of spending time with him last weekend. We've got to know each other, you know, quite well over the last period of time. I'd mentioned before that, you know, I saw this sort of two-way potential between Timor-Leste, where we could have young Timorese people come to Australia, learn skills, join our team, add value, and this is starting with Cisco especially, but there'll be others. Then this sort of reverse dynamic where there's a lot of Aussie veterans that served with distinction as well. Of course, it's one of Australia's most successful military or peacekeeping campaigns in Timor-Leste.
This is like 1999, 2002, other campaigns in 2006, 2007, peacekeeping, security keeping and so forth. Mick, big part of this incredible story. It's interesting when you reflect and compare stories. Mick's just two years younger than me and thinking what I was doing, you know, in those 2000s, building my career, and Mick and Julian as well, who works with us, they're risking their lives in a foreign country on behalf of ours. It's very inspiring to hear their stories. I hope that the discipline, tenacity, leadership, that they embody, starts to infuse the company. I know it will. I know as well that they're really pleased to have found a path back to contribute to a country that they love, where there's a lot of memories, not all good memories as well.
Mick leads a very important group called Timor Awakening, where it provides a pathway for Aussies that have served to head back and to, in some ways, find peace. I think it's really important. Mick's a great leader, incredibly natural as a leader. There's a speech that's on YouTube, 15 minutes in front of a royal commission. It's definitely. I've watched it twice. It's one of the best speeches I've ever heard an Australian give. If I have one recommendation for shareholders of Tivan tonight is to watch that speech. It's really important that people understand. What we're doing here though, of course, for Tivan is starting to build deeper capabilities. Mick has incredibly close relationships with the most senior people in government and very importantly, with veterans groups.
The veteran groups in Timor are revered, and rightly so, 'cause they fought a rearguard against the Indonesian occupation for 25 years, and they suffered in a way that very few social groups and civilizations even suffer. In Timor, the veterans are critical, and Mick just not only knows them, he's fought with them, and he speaks their language literally. His incredible privilege that he's decided to lend his reputation and standing to Tivan, we're very proud of this. It will enable us to build not just pathways, but projects and potentially other things as well. There are many opportunities in Timor.
As much as we've achieved great things already in terms of securing the copper and gold precincts in Timor-Leste, there are other opportunities and, you know, we have been asked by the highest levels of government to work with them on some additional plans, including on the South Coast. I'll say more about that at the appropriate time, but I would say, we're very proud to welcome Mick this week, and I see a big future in terms of his contribution to Tivan and to the nation-building initiative that we've always wanted to pursue and prioritize in terms of Timor-Leste. Important time. A brief shout-out to our team as well. I think we've got eight, maybe nine people now working for us out of Dili.
It's a source of great pride for the whole company, and it's really become a big part of the company's identity, from the board all the way down. We celebrate it. It's completely open architecture. All our Timorese staff have shares in Tivan, which is very important. We really are taking the extra steps to build that connectivity between our two countries that already have such intertwined history. We're very proud of it and we have more to say soon, I hope. Okay. Briefly on corporate and then I'll turn to AMA. Really just wanted to emphasize because I've had a couple of questions about the sort of technical setup at the moment. It's been a sort of unusual period, I think, for markets.
We've been, you know, through a big ramp in optimism of critical minerals, call it January, February. Of course, the war starts in the Gulf, supply chains disrupted, seeing all sorts of misinformation spread around the world in terms of what actually is going on. We can see the level of disruption quite clearly. We've adjusted to that in terms of business planning. I think just in the last little while, I think Australia's actually come under some idiosyncratic pressure for some of the decisions that may or may not be made by the federal government and some, you know, important dynamics. Through that, you know, we've been focused on building the business, focused on delivering.
I did want to include this slide because, you know, obviously we're mindful of the share price broadly defined. I think right at the moment, you know, there's some focus on upcoming option expiry. We've included a table there just to emphasize what I already said at the AGM, which is, yes, we issued various options. The first options listed there were unique. The rest are effectively associated with capital raising or performance at, you know, significantly higher levels in terms of the performance rights, especially. TVNO was unique. For those that remember, I think it's 2023, first AGM of Tivan, the directors knew, obviously we're a year in at that point, that some longstanding shareholders of TNG had suffered and had been lied to, systematically, I would say.
We hadn't, at that point, found our pathway out of what was an incredibly challenging situation, and we were trying to retain confidence, in the story. We issued bonus options to existing shareholders, and this is what TVNO is. The idea was, Tony and I had crashed through when we won the 249D. We had no clue about what we were walking into. I explained that I think we should only get paid if we achieve great things. I'd anchored my performance at AUD 0.30, which seems sort of ridiculous, a year in. Nonetheless, we wanted to show aspiration and ambition. We issued TVNO across the board to all shareholders. Everyone was long, on these AUD 0.30 options for free. For free.
Then for, as people may know, like for a year or 18 months or so, we labored and we kept working really hard and we found our path through and then we delivered the company and we got recognition for that late last year and early this year. TVNO went in the money. So fantastic. There's an opportunity there for people to, you know, lock in a sense, a windfall or a loyalty bonus. I think it will still happen. If it doesn't, it's no big deal for us. We're not relying upon the implied AUD 26 million. What I did say at the AGM is that I had an expectation even in November that the company would head towards what I refer to as fully diluted.
That means that all of those options had the potential to be exercised. That's around 300 million shares, meaning that the target or the expected shares on issue, which the market can already see, is around 2.5 billion. Noting that Tivan picked this whole story up at 1.4 billion. We've been incredibly disciplined in terms of shares on issue and will remain so. There's some focus on this, a bit of fixation. I think it's probably overdone. I think, you know, people are jumping at shadows a little bit and my advice is if you keep jumping at shadows, you will live in the dark. That's what happens back at AUD 0.05 as well.
You know, I heard quite a few times from, you know, storied institutional investors here in Australia that we wouldn't be able to rally the stock because, you know, we had L1 involved, and we'd done this convert and all the rest of it. You know, people were trying to focus on really minute technical aspects of the stock. The register, for example, which is shown here on this slide as well, huge retail ownership, hedge funds, smart money on the left, no middle, very unusual story. Sometimes what happens with these stocks, and I can say this from lived experience now as well, is that people get really focused on this. This is all they can think about. They don't actually focus on what we're building, all of the opportunities we've created, the team, the value addition, which I've already explained.
This is more accessible, so it just chews up their consciousness, and they make bad decisions. That's what happened at AUD 0.05. We had any number of shareholders or potential shareholders that blinked, couldn't see the opportunity because they were so focused on L1 having a convert. They've come back to me since and with great regrets. By the way, they did that at AUD 0.10 and AUD 0.12 and AUD 0.15, and they kept blinking all the way up. If you believe in the company, believe in management, things like this do not matter. They're irrelevant. I can say also there's about 15 different ways that I can manage that AUD 0.30 strike from here. It's not really a big deal for us. We'll make good decisions at the right time for the benefit of the company.
I'm confident that all those strikes will get knocked in. Very confident, in fact. That's my view. You know, that's all that is. That's my thinking sitting here tonight based on what I can see ahead and my confidence in the team to execute as well as it has done. That's the substance of the presentation. We're 45 minutes in. I will spend half an hour just pulling through some Q&A. For those that are new, we pride ourselves on being accountable. Q&A is the most important aspect of that. We don't edit this stuff. The questions that come in, they're either in our corporate email or they're on HotCopper. It's a good sounding check for us because it helps us understand what's on people's minds.
Most of the people following the stock are very constructive and even with their criticism. We have the trolls. It's inevitable. You know, I don't waste any time on that. What we're looking for here is value add, people that are posing good questions so that we can have a good discussion, open up some avenues, address different questions, and that's what this is for. I'll do my best. 15, 30 minutes on the AMA, and that'll wrap up tonight. I'm just gonna have a drink of water before I take off. Okay. Pro, one of our most prolific and valued online posters. Yeah, the key priorities, Pro, is what I've mentioned at Speewah, working through final approvals.
Here we're looking at environmental approvals, water licenses, mining licenses, as well as the DELWRs, and of course, the project finance and offtake. There's a lot. You know, I'm probably in effectively or leading somewhere between maybe 20 to 30 negotiations simultaneously. Like, that's what it takes, that level of focus and dedication. It's not to say it's all on me. We've got an incredible team, so many people involved, we're working in a very integrated fashion with different governments as well. Royalty discussions ongoing with Government of Western Australia. We hope to have resolution in the next couple of months. There's a lot going on, and I think it's really about staying extremely focused.
In terms of core operational personnel, we're starting, as I've mentioned with Rob and particularly Drew, this last little bit. This is the start of the operational readiness ramp-up. Bower, in terms of the wet season, yes, it was truly epic. Been described as sort of a once-in-a-30-year type event. We have some photos of the guys driving out to Speewah this last week and standing in channels where the road was and, you know, the channels are above their head height effectively. So that just gives you a sense of the volume of water. In terms of operations realistic, 100 percent. Like, we engineer for events like that, and in fact, the extra data helps.
There will be what's known as sustaining CapEx on the road, you know, after the wet season, but that's a great job for some of the locals and, we're already looking to contract that. Huge wet season in Central Australia as well. Damage? No. It's just a part of the process of maintaining roads in Northern Australia. In terms of the power mix, no government contribution specifically on that, Rock. Our main focus short term was to ensure that we had sufficient diesel for our field works. We have a great partner in Cambridge Gulf Limited, who run the Port of Wyndham. They've got about 17 million liters of storage capacity in diesel, and they're extremely trusted. One of the great partners that we have.
Easily able to ring-fence our fuel requirements and more if we need, including at other projects. We have a fantastic confidence in terms of security of supply. Renewables come in and out of the mix. One of the biggest debates we're having is not so much renewables at Speewah, which we've discussed in terms of solar and gas, but how we can integrate more renewables at Molly Hill because we have incredible irradiation in Central Australia, even talking about vanadium batteries. We'll see. We'll see. But yeah, look, we're always looking at these scenarios and you shouldn't be expecting government contributions on that specifically. In terms of the DFS underway and the positive feedback, the technical and commercial hurdles, you know, they're still real. But that's.
What happened is that, you know, you're building up and building up confidence in a project, and those last three to six months are really crunchy, you know? We're ready for that. We've been preparing the whole time. As I said, I mean, kind of there for a reason. I'll be in Canberra a lot. I'll go back to Japan in October. The timing is right to bring all these things together. It's not gonna be easy. Like, we're building something fundamentally new. Australia doing new things. Australia doesn't have a good track record of doing new things. Look at vanadium, you know? Look at potash perhaps. There's other examples. We're doing a tremendous amount of work, and we're doing it respectfully and assiduously. I believe the team and our partners will pull us through.
I think there'll be more government facilitation, not so much on planned power, but I think into the H2 of the year people will start to understand that when you build a platform like we have and you have something as important as we've defined, that there'll potentially be other forms of support which we can't talk about at this point. I feel confident that the project will remain right at the forefront of the critical minerals focus both in Australia and Japan. We're not necessarily prioritizing. This has come up elsewhere in the questions. The U.S., I was in Washington and New York for a week. It's not to say we're excluding the U.S.
We were a bit surprised to see the project land on the U.S. fact sheet or the U.S.-Japan fact sheet in the way that it did. We know that there's interest in what we're doing at Tivan. The geopolitical footprint we're building is important, not just for Australia, but for the U.S. in some ways. We've been very clear and we remain at the board level extremely clear that Tivan is prioritizing Japan in everything that we do. Everything. Yeah. Local community engagement, office is kicking off. Fit out is right now. Local hires are starting, including Indigenous Australians. Proud to say that. There'll be more contractual appointments as well.
We can't get too far ahead of these things because we, you know, we need to wrap up Indigenous Land Use Agreements or the equivalent thereof. These are complex, far-reaching agreements. Very complex in one case especially. I hope that the schedule provided and expect in many ways will hold up if and when we land our first ILUA, like full-formed ILUA. That will be a massive moment of de-risking for the project and I'm confident that that will happen. In terms of Molly Hill, the JV, as I mentioned, there'll probably be a big surprise in terms of one of the participants not trying to drive the hardest bargain. We're not sitting here saying the project's worth AUD 2 billion. Like, no one here is saying that.
We were explicit in saying something opposite. We want to bring in joint venture partners that can help us distribute the product, help us build fast, help us finance confidently, and help us do more things in the territory. That's sort of the mindset. Don't want to say too much more. Equity of Tivan at the moment at Speewah, like, Tivan's heading towards 60% with the project have already been committed to JFC and ETFS for the early-stage funding and the commitment to FID. That might change a bit. Like, there's definitely some upside risk now, I think, to that 60%. I can't explain how and why, but that could change. What I can say is that Molly Hill is gonna be, like, significantly higher. Like, we're not looking to divest a large part of Molly Hill.
Like, we really believe in the project. We don't know about the exploration upside. We want to do a bit to lock in the deal. Don't forget we bought this for AUD 8.5 million in cash and shares. We haven't even paid it off. Within nine months, if we can sell 20%, for example, at a massively higher valuation, what a deal. I don't wanna, like, you know, take advantage of our core partners at the company, and we're not gonna do that. We're gonna provide them with a sweet deal because they're bringing value to everything that we're doing, including back at Speewah and including, I believe, in Timor and potentially other places that we're working. Yeah. Work fast, do great deals, build trust, rinse, repeat, keep going, essentially.
That sort of answers question , Paul, I won't discuss that too much. Sumitomo in terms of the precinct. Suffice to say that Sumitomo is very driven in terms of Tivan's resource base in fluorite. Perhaps a way to explain this. Let me explain. Hydrofluoric acid is the key input or the next stage in many other high value add processes which ultimately land in the semiconductor sector or EV batteries or nuclear processing and nuclear enrichment and so on and so forth, refrigerants. It's just everywhere. It's much more ubiquitous than people understand, much more valuable. Right now-dominated by China. To get to hydrofluoric acid, you really need 2 feedstocks. You need high grade, high purity, calcium fluoride. This is Speewah and this is Sandover. Then you need sulfur.
Sulfur, for those that are paying attention to the Gulf, has gone into deficit and it's a real crunch point in the global supply chains right now. You bring those two things together in a chemical reaction, which is what I saw in Japan when I was there recently, we went to one of their sites. Hydrofluoric acid. If it's super high purity hydrofluoric acid, you know, you're in business. Who controls seaborne sulfur around the world? Sumitomo. They are the largest seaborne trader of sulfur globally. If they can work with us and secure 30, 50 years calcium fluoride, what a business. They've got technical lock-in on both sides. That's their strategy. Please understand like why this is so important, not just for Japan, but even commercially at Sumitomo that breeds enormous trust.
On top of all the work that we've done as a team to build that trust. I really think that it's a foundational partnership now, and I know that they respect what we've built. I know it for sure. We're excited. I think Sumitomo is absolutely focused on Sandover Fluorite. They're not bolting on interest in Molly Hill necessarily just because of Sandover Fluorite. If Molly Hill didn't stack up, they wouldn't necessarily be interested. I'm not confirming that they are. I would say that, you know, the idea of a precinct is catnip and when you've got a foundational project, like Molly Hill and the synergies between tungsten and fluorite as well, including tungsten hexafluoride in semiconductors, it opens up a world of opportunities, and it means that Tivan can evolve as a company over multiple decades with confidence.
With confidence. Yeah. In terms of NCPCG. Oh, project control group. Sure. The project control group gives Tivan an ability to communicate with Northern Territory government on an ongoing basis right across different portfolios. When you're building a project in the territory, it's environmental approvals, water licenses, you know, for example, multiple rounds, which can slow you down or get choked in bureaucracy. This was a initiative that Ellin effectively has driven. Ellin used to work, you know, for the Chief Minister here. It's not to say that, you know, it's a shortcut or as such. It's just to say that we've got such strong relationships in Darwin, and Tivan's standing up here. Like, we're coming off a Darwin Dialogue, which was a huge triumph for the territory in which Tivan effectively is the founding sponsor of.
If we need support, or expedition or bringing people together to make sure the right conversations are happening as fast as possible, effectively working on a critical path together, we can get that in Darwin and right through the territory. In the territory, Tivan is a big, big fish now. You know, we really are. We're one of the most important companies as probably the only local company as well in the resources sector. I'd argue the most important. In Perth, it's harder. Like, you know, Perth is Perth and, you know, the biggest mining companies in the world are there, and we can sometimes get lost in the mix, I would say. In Darwin, it's completely different. The PCG is part of that. It's really important because the faster we can get to market or close to market, the better.
For Molly Hill, including the ability to potentially do, you know, contractual offtake in pricing before production, if we can stay on track. We've articulated a ambitious schedule, I think, but the real classic impediments in the territory would be the Land Councils and TOs and NT government. On this one, we're saying, "Look, we've got incredibly close relationships right throughout government, and we're trusted and respected in Darwin." Central Land Council recently announced a very important community development initiative, and we've been working there for two or three years. It does help I grew up there. It does. There's no company like Tivan in the territory, and we have great ambitions and I hope in time that we'll be able to ultimately build an integrated supply chain that stretches from Alice to Dili.
That would be cool. We'll see. In terms of research reports, yeah, that's fair. They did reach out. We haven't really focused on broker reports. I'm pretty dubious in terms of their value. The broker report that was written by Evolution about a year ago is out of date. I think it had it at AUD 0.18 or AUD 0.19 or something. It was sort of before Mount Peake. They have reached out to update it, so we can certainly do that. Yeah, I think they'll be much higher now and because the correct metrics have been proven. I said this at the AGM. We should be focused on sort of enterprise value metrics and earning multiples that are appropriate for the strategic importance and criticality of the company that we're building.
We're talking about tungsten now. We're talking about fluorite. We're talking about other things. Yeah, I think if you can look forward now across two projects, because Molly Hill is now effectively has some valuation parameters that we trust, apply a reasonable EV, EBITDA type multiple, or earnings multiple. Yeah, I think any research report like that is gonna have valuations significantly higher, I would say, than where we are. Let them do the work. We can probably ask them to do that in the next month. I'll have a look at it when I've got time. It's not a huge priority. Broker reports in general I think are becoming pretty redundant because of AI. Yeah, we can certainly look at this for the purposes of continuity. Okay.
Wrapping up in terms of Central Australia, district scale polymetallic system, there's a lot of activity happening, you know, from whether it's Arafura out to Jervois at the moment. Litchfield, you know, reported a early-stage copper find. Obviously, we're doing really important things around Molly Hill, Sandover Fluorite, the Gossan, Welshy's Wall. Like that will be exciting later in the year. Well, you know, we don't know. We've talked about this before, but, yeah, it's an exciting time for that region. Data Resources is not part of that, let me be clear. I reserve the right 'cause I know I got a bit of grief on this for a tweet, naming and shaming these guys. This is a classic West Perth Subiaco pump and dump.
They've got another company, these same guys, they already dusted like AUD 20 million of other people's money. In the territory, we're all sort of fed up of these Subiaco types, pretending they're gonna do something, lying through their teeth. Like unashamed lies about what they think they can accomplish or the permissions that they don't have, then trying to raise another AUD 10 million, which they're just gonna lose. Like everyone's quite tired of it, this is what TNG was. They got away with it for so long that they dusted like AUD 80 million of shareholder money, the same shareholders that we have still today and that we've reflated. There are legitimate companies, as far as I can tell, operating in the area. There are great challenges 'cause of the tyranny of distance and uncertainties around Mount Isa's future.
Like does Mount Isa exist in the current state in five or 10 years' time? Like these are hard questions, policy questions. We're very happy to work alongside of, you know, many of these companies and proudly represent the Territory. We have our own mission, you know, in the Territory, let me be clear. I do think Tivan will ultimately establish new norms, new partnerships, new models, new ways through in Central Australia. If the average like shit box company wants to come through and make some noise, then I reserve the right to take them out and feed them to the crocodiles. Okay? Bear with me on that little bit. In terms of Earth AI, one of our very important partners, we have advanced, you know, a new round of drilling and exploration targeting.
Some of it involves new permissions, which will take some time to organize. They still like Mount Burn, and we very possibly will drill that again 'cause that is approved. We're just working through some extra facilitation steps and hope to be on track. I'd say it's still. I think I said this in one of the earlier calls, like if we have an AUD 1 of exploration to spend, we're probably still, you know, thinking that that AUD 1 is better spent in Timor right now. That's not necessarily a reflection on Central Australia and certainly not a reflection on Earth AI. It's just to say that like Timor is spectacular.
Like it's just spectacular and the opportunities up there are so unique and so compelling for Tivan that at this point we really, really wanna prioritize that. In terms of vanadium, we have had some interest pick up. I guess we're not, again, trying to raise expectations here, yeah, we've had quite a bit of reverse inquiry about Speewah vanadium, including from places outside of Japan. I think this is partly where critical minerals are at globally and a little bit of life perhaps in the vanadium price. We are also engaged with the Kalgoorlie vanadium battery proposal peripherally, I would say at this point. We wanted to show due respect to the Government of Western Australia that they should know that Tivan is sitting on arguably the world's greatest vanadium resource, and it's in the state.
It would've been remiss for us not to communicate that message to WA government, and we're working with WA government on various other things. I think through that process, some of the big vanadium battery manufacturers in the world have been in touch and looking to us to support their submissions, for example, in terms of local content. It's probably pretty bad news for AVL, but there's another company that frankly don't have much time for, and I've said that publicly before. I hope, you know, whilst the government is leaning in to the sector, which is, it's good, there are limitations and we can all see in Australia, I hope, the limitations of government involvement in trying to do things. If you can't see it, I refer you to Snowy 2.0. There are limits.
There are limits to what the government can or should be thinking about achieving in the critical minerals sector too. It should not involve picking losers. It should involve picking projects and companies or supporting project and companies that are already credentialed or that are working in a constructive international partnership. That's the only way forward ultimately for the sector, unless you wanna nationalize projects and have them built by defense, which would be different and would lead again to Snowy 2.0 or National Broadband or things like that. There's a lot riding on the way that the government engages. Vanadium is an example of that. There is some interest from the U.S., I'd say there's another country that's leaning in pretty heavily. Don't expect to make company making announcements on these sorts of things.
Don't want to limit the optionality that we have. You know, Speewah vanadium is some monumental resource. If we get Speewah Fluorite up, it becomes heavily de-risked, including in terms of CapEx and OpEx. Especially because we've already proven the pathway right through the test work all the way through to high-end specs and vanadium electrolyte. DB, I'm not sure who you are. There's a bit of life in the old dog, we're saying. We're busy of course. Yeah, always want to keep options open. Government, floor pricing the Rock. No, I cannot explain because it's so complicated, Rock. No disrespect, like it's monumentally complicated. We are in an ongoing dialogue with the U.S. government on this out of respect. It involves, I probably can't say, very senior people in Washington.
It's sort of like a monthly call that Tivan's now doing. This is just us, but that's the strength of relationships that we have. You know, we're trying to assist policy formulation in thinking through these things, and that's fine. You know, we wanna be thought leaders, and we've got a lot of people in or around the company that are very, very strong on these topics. I did a part of this when I went to the Exante conference in New York, and I laid out some basic concepts that definitely did stimulate the debate. We are in very strong touch with the Australian Government on all these things and working synergistically. Yeah, it's a very, very complicated topic. It's not going away, and I think it will broaden out.
Yeah, we're on, we're heavily engaged, shall we say, and that's with Japan as well. Ongoing thematic, I think it will be here in 10 years' time. Project Volt, yeah, I've got reservations. Cal, you might have clocked one of my earlier calls about some of the aspects of Project Volt. We don't necessarily wanna be involved in Project Volt for different reasons, which will probably become a bit clearer maybe later in the year. We don't need to. We've got such strong support in Japan. Yeah, you can open up risks, which are not great. You can get sugar fixes perhaps, but if you're trying to really build things, yeah, I would question committing to that at this point. Okay, corporate. I'm wrapping up.
Share sales of KRR. Listen, we wish KRR well. It's been an incredibly beneficial transaction for both parties. We came together with Tivan or TNG in great distress. We had no pathway. We would have liquidated the company. For that acquisition, the company was finished. It would have been liquidated in March of 2023. We owe our position here today to KRR and to Tony Barton coming together and doing that rapid-fire deal with me. That was the start of Tivan and also a moment where KRR was able to pivot and ultimately start to reflate their company. They didn't sell any shares at AUD 0.05 or AUD 0.10 or AUD 0.15. And so on and so forth.
They sold a couple of shares in March, as 97 or April. They were very clear in their guidance to market recently. I think it probably weighed a little bit in April. My understanding is it's now done just even yesterday, pretty recently. The main thing is, like, we wish them well in the same way that I wish L1 well, in the same way that I wish all our shareholders well. It doesn't mean I have to like everyone in the resources sector. If I wanna take a sip or if I wanna pick a fight with someone outside Tivan, I reserve the right to do it 100%.
At Tivan, shareholders are king and KRR is a major shareholder, and so they've always got my full respect, and we should be especially grateful because they started our journey. Decent options I've addressed before. One entry to the ASX 300, yes, we just missed. I did explain the dynamics. We don't quite know how we missed, like we don't get reasons or anything. There are a couple of companies, I won't name one of them, where I'm sort of a bit mystified. It will happen in due course. I said that very clearly in Q1. It's like we're not targeting it. If we keep executing, it will be inevitable, and I think that's the view. Yeah, that's essentially the view and most of the companies that quite made it have traded really, really heavily as well.
There's a lot of gaming of that, I think. Yeah, at the right time it will happen. We're not focused on it. We're focused on building our company. Retail and global environment. Yeah, I'm not disengaged, shall I say. I'm still very much in touch with my old network of hedge fund, smart money, government, intelligence around the world. This is a fraught time for the world, and I don't think anyone should look at the S&P and take comfort that that's a reflection of where the world is at right now. There are a lot of risks that are not understood, and so I'm very, very mindful of policy risks, policy execution. Pretty focused on the Australian budget. That still happens. Focused on what we can control.
At Tivan, that's what you can do. You can have a lot of foresight. You can build great things. My job is to inspire the team and to keep them working in the way that they are with such harmony and productivity and talent and drive to fulfill our mission. I keep an eye on these things. A couple of things might adjust. There's probably one transaction I pulled back on because of a change in view. It's not, like, distracting us. We focus on what we can control and influence. We're very much driven by the mission and the purpose of putting a mission on the company. People didn't understand it. Perhaps they still don't. Look around the country, very few mining companies have a mission that's articulated.
When you scale, it matters 'cause, again, everyone who's coming in is aligned to that. They understand. When they get here, as a lot of people have done recently, and they see the open architecture, they actually understand that it's real. It's not for show, it's not part of a pitch book. It's absolutely real. Everyone here is striving to build a strategically important company across Northern Australia. Now, that includes Central Australia, it includes Timor, of course, but that's the mission. Everyone that's joining, and we've got hundreds of people try and join the company, are absolutely focused on that. These global themes are relevant, but it's a way of, you know, keeping tabs on where we are and sometimes it's gonna throw up big opportunities.
In terms of the last question, pipeline of projects, yeah, in a sense what I just said, which is we're very, very focused, as a team on the mission. Everyone's got discrete responsibilities. Could we manage a larger scale project? If that was to happen, I think it's not Mount Isa or Okatie. I think it's stepping stones. Proving capabilities will be judged on how and when we can deliver Speewah, how and when we can deliver Molly Hill. I think one of the key themes that hopefully people are taking away from tonight's call is that we are sort of fundamentally rethinking Timor. Like, Timor has enormous potential for Tivan.
We really have secured the commanding heights and with our local presence and our mix arrival, we have unparalleled access to the highest levels of government, we have trust established over 18 months. That probably means we can do more things than people understand. If we're talking about Okatie and so forth, we'd love to find, you know, Okatie's got its own history, but of course we're looking for that super giant copper gold resource. There are many other opportunities in Timor, which are probably uniquely open to Tivan, and I mean that. Like, really significant things. Perhaps that's something to look forward to in the H2 of the year and the future. That's it. That's a big wrap. We've gone round the grounds on projects. We've pulled through AMA.
Let me just finish up by saying that we are capable of maintaining this sort of, Some people might look on the outside as this sort of, you know, ferocious, torrid pace of delivery. They think it's not sustainable. It is sustainable. Of course, it's sustainable. When we started Tivan, I said to the board that I was gonna put the company on a war footing. What that meant was like, okay, imagine if Australia was heading into conflict. How would you run things? What decisions would you make? That's what we did. People that are joining now I think are inspired by what we've achieved. We have a super young team that's absolutely driven and are being provided with opportunities that they would not have at other mining companies. We have no doubt challenges ahead this year.
I think the project facilitation aspects around Speewah will be one of the biggest focus points for me. We are at a point where we've got so much operational leverage that we can delegate different workflows to really talented people that are learning from each other and experiencing from each other and, you know, witness the Molly Hill scoping study. It's an incredible document. Whatever the trolls say, Enough. Seriously, it's an incredible document, and you know it. Well done to the team. The blue sky in Timor is something that I really wanna pursue. Really pleased with the contribution from the local team. Mick arriving is a game changer potentially up there for us. An exciting time. The next couple of months I think will be really dynamic.
As always, I'm sitting on a whole bunch of headlines. Don't get wigged out by price action. Price action's not the stock, it's not the company. You own a great company. We're gonna be incredibly successful. We've got multiple paths through. Don't underestimate my ability to manage market dynamics, capital markets. That is my background. That's my bread and butter. I'm about 15 moves ahead on a chessboard than anyone who's writing in with gratuitous advice at this point. Yes. Have a great weekend. We're very proud of having accomplished what we have through the H1 of the year. It's onwards and upwards and, sitting here in Darwin tonight, my last reflection would be for the team. Like, incredibly proud. Keep going guys. Keep going. Thank you. Good night.