Thanks, Tim. Good morning. Thank you, Diggers & Dealers, for another opportunity to be here. We are now four years into our development journey, we've turned an extraordinary discovery into one of the most strategically important critical mineral developments in the world. We have a clear vision now to become the world's second-largest supplier of niobium products. As a quick corporate snapshot, WA1 is included in the S&P/ASX 300. We're headquartered in Perth. We've got over AUD 120 million in cash, and we've focused our shareholder marketing efforts toward high-quality, long-term investors. WA1's focus is obviously advancing the Luni project, which is by far the world's highest quality undeveloped niobium deposit located right here in Western Australia. Niobium is a highly strategic critical mineral with exceptional market dynamics, and it's essential for producing high-strength, low-alloy steels and is irreplaceable in modern defense, aerospace, and medical technologies.
Today, 73% of niobium supply comes from the Araxá mine, which is owned by a private company in Brazil called CBMM. Luni was recently awarded Major Project Status by the Australian government in recognition of the deposit's potential to build sovereign niobium capability and to support the national security of allied nations. Today, I'll talk through some of the things we've achieved over the last 12 months or so, starting with our updated MRE. I'll get into our recent deposit-wide flotation test work, which has really demonstrated now just how good Luni's mineralization is. An update on critical path permitting work streams, why niobium matters, and the path ahead as we deliver our next major milestone later this year. Into the resource. The Luni MRE represents years of methodical progress to increase confidence and decrease future development risk.
We have not lost focus that the foundation of WA1's value is getting the resource right. We've spent over AUD 55 million on targeted drilling, comprising more than 450 drill holes, and 40% of those have been core. Our drilling quickly homed in on the best parts of the deposit, which we believe will support the highest-value, lowest-risk development case. The indicated zones now have defined an incredibly large and high-grade component, high-grade subset of 35 million tonnes at 2.6%. This represents significant tonnage at a grade which is higher than the world's best niobium deposit. Grade is always king. Luni's scale is hard to comprehend. This photo here is looking southwest over just the eastern indicated zone, which is about 1.5 km by 500 m.
As the block model showed, there's a shallow, continuous blanket under all of those drill pads, which have delivered many of the world's best niobium intersections, starting from only 35 m below surface. Most of this year's drilling has been focused in this area with the objective of pulling together our first measured resource component. This chart shows all undeveloped niobium deposits hosting compliant resource estimates. Moving to the right, as you guys are looking at on this chart, represents scale, and up that vertical axis is grade. As I keep saying, there is no undeveloped niobium deposit on Earth that comes close to the scale and grade of Luni. What this chart doesn't show is that Luni also happens to be located in one of the world's premium mining jurisdictions, is very shallow, flat, and continuous, and has exceptional metallurgy. On to met.
Three niobium mines in the world supply the world, CBMM is, as I said, 73% of global supply. All three producers use three main steps to produce ferroniobium. That's an end product which is applied directly into the steelmaking process. This is one of the most strategic attributes of owning a niobium mine because the mine gate product has direct access to a diverse global customer base. Compared to many other commodities, a ferroniobium flow sheet is relatively simple, but only if your deposit has the rare combination of characteristics required. After discovery, we tested Luni's core using a conventional process flow sheet and successfully produced high-quality ferroniobium in that proof-of-concept test work. This showed that Luni has the essential conditions needed to be viable.
Following that proof-of-concept test work, covering the whole flow sheet, we focused our attention on flotation because that's the principal technical risk in these flow sheets and the greatest opportunity for us to create value. Two months ago, we released the results from two years of structured, de-risking flotation test work, which demonstrated Luni's exceptional metallurgical characteristics across large key parts of the deposit. As with drilling, we've mainly focused our test work on the part of the deposit we believe could underpin the optimal initial development scenario. Composite A represents that area and delivered incredible results. We'll now optimize the flow sheet for other areas because to date, we've simply applied the Composite A flow sheet across the deposit, which again, returned remarkable results and officially puts Luni in the rare company of a deposit like CBMM's Araxá.
Test work has also assessed some of the key risks for operability and profitability, such as the ability to use raw site water. All of this information is now currently feeding into our mine design studies. We've reported test work that produced high-purity niobium oxide samples, further demonstrating the quality of Luni's mineralization. CBMM is currently the only reliable supplier in the world. This highlights, again, Luni's incredibly strategic nature. We've continued our positive track record on health, safety, and heritage and the environment. On native title, WA1 has invested significant time building foundational agreement-making capacity within the relevant Aboriginal corporations alongside traditional agreement-making processes. Our shareholders can continue to be incredibly proud of how their company is engaging with its most important stakeholders.
In recognition of this engagement, WA1 received the Community Partnership Award from the West Australian Mines Department, which recognized our forward-facing initiatives and work experience programs. We're also developing new programs with the aim of establishing other industry-leading initiatives. This early engagement will help local enterprise meet the moment as Luni continues through development and into production. There was almost no historical environmental data capture within the project area, so we've been completing extensive surveying. We now have comprehensive multi-year data sets, which were collected in partnership with local ranger groups and will also enhance their ability to deliver conservation outcomes. Importantly, no corners have been cut. We hope this will underpin an efficient government assessment process as our environmental approval activities further increase in pace later this year. Our project studies are progressing better than we'd anticipated.
The Ngururrpa people have worked with us to understand the impacts and benefits of a number of important site activities for Luni's efficient advancement. For example, long-term pump testing was not something that we thought would be available to underpin and support components of our PFS. However, we've now completed pumping, which has enabled water balances for mining and processing studies. These higher-quality inputs will inform a more accurate and lower risk development decisions and thereby inform a high-quality PFS, which is a more precise snapshot of what Luni can become. Our PFS is on track for release next quarter. That data is already enabling meaningful decisions and discussions toward our ideal project partnering, delivery models, and funding. We're not following a conventional stage development path.
We've brought forward key permitting and approvals processes so they can inform our feasibility studies. This enables an efficient feedback loop between these integrated work streams at the optimal time. It also helps resolve key risks, opportunities, and uncertainties earlier, moving concepts much more quickly toward project-level definition. This iterative approach does add some short-term complexity, but it will speed up the overall development timeframe. This year, we've dramatically improved access to Luni as well with regular freight runs and two flights each week from Perth, which are now direct to site thanks to our dedicated airstrip. All of this supports why Luni can be the first new meaningful supply of niobium to the global market in over 50 years, positioning Australia as an important player in yet another commodity. Niobium supply is currently coming from three mines in the Americas while demand is geographically diverse.
Unsurprisingly, the fastest growth in demand is coming from China. However, unlike most commodities, China does not have any domestic niobium supply. Instead, supply is dominated by Brazil, leaving niobium in a critical mineral blind spot, despite the fact that a niobium supply disruption would potentially have a greater impact than rare earth elements. Luni is so significant that it has the potential to take niobium off the critical mineral list of many allied nations. Niobium is mainly sold as either ferroniobium or niobium oxide. Around 90% of global niobium demand is ferroniobium, a high-value metal currently selling for over $33,000 per ton. It's used in steelmaking. The three primary producers all sell direct to customer, removing the price volatility, which is often amplified by traders in other metal markets. Ferroniobium is expected to underpin the initial development case for Luni.
Demand for steel will continue to increase. Microalloys like niobium enable industry to create and produce better, stronger products, allowing construction and manufacturing to do much more with much less steel. Dematerialization is an important part of reducing carbon emissions and is a driving force behind the increasing intensity in the use of microalloys. Niobium oxide is niobium in a purer form, selling for over $55,000 per ton. It is used in the production of superalloys and in high-performance medical, energy, and electronic equipment. CBMM is currently the only primary producer of niobium oxides on Earth. Over the past few decades, niobium has found its way into almost all aspects of our lives as it continues to prove it is the substitute needed for so many engineering challenges and also enables the improvement or replacement of previous technologies.
Niobium has now become one of the quiet enablers of modern life. In the past 20 years alone, ferroniobium consumption has more than doubled, and that growth has been enabled by one source: CBMM's Araxá mine, which is the only niobium source on Earth able to reliably scale and supply the market to ensure the world has access to enough. A contemporary example of CBMM's market custodianship occurred around 2016. Reforms in Chinese building codes mandated the use of higher-quality steel in construction. This pushed Chinese steel mills toward the use of micro-alloyed rebar using alloys such as niobium. This led to a rapid increase in niobium demand, which can be seen circled on that chart. Over 50% growth in demand over just three years.
I want to take a moment to appreciate this, because almost all of that sudden increase in demand was met by CBMM at broadly the same price per ton. What that tells us is that in the eyes of CBMM, growing niobium usage was much more valuable to its long-term business than temporary scarcity pricing. CBMM could meet that sudden major increase in niobium demand because it maintains both global inventories and spare production capacity. The blue line here is CBMM's utilization of its installed production capacity, which generally sits around 60%-70%. As Chinese rebar demand ramped up in 2016, CBMM's utilization moved to almost full capacity. The bars here represent that installed capacity at the existing mines, and CBMM is the tall blue series.
In 2021, CBMM added new installed capacity following the commissioning of another processing plant at Araxá in response to that new demand. That allowed their utilization to return to normal levels, and it's slowly creeping up ever since. Generally, all commodities have swing operations that increase, decrease or cease production at times of changing demand. That swing supply usually comes from high-cost marginal producers. The forces relating to niobium are different and much more efficient because CBMM is not just a miner. It's three-quarters of global supply and the lowest cost producer, but is also the market maker and swing supplier. This is directly relevant to WA1 because CBMM has shown that niobium demand can grow significantly when customers have confidence in stable pricing and long-term reliable supply. Luni is not about destabilizing the market, it's about strengthening it.
It's about improving security of supply as the first new meaningful niobium mine in over 50 years, the first major reliable supply outside the Americas and being part of the platform to support the next phase of niobium adoption globally. I'll reiterate, CBMM's niobium mine in Brazil has scale, grade, and metallurgy which is unmatched. This single-asset company, despite producing just over 100,000 tons of product last year, is one of the most valuable mining companies on Earth. That claim is supported by the unbelievable consortium of companies shown on this slide, which own 30% of CBMM. The time adjusted value of the purchase of that interest values Araxá at as much as Fortescue in its entirety. WA1's vision is to be the world's second-largest supplier of niobium products. To close, Luni is not just another development project.
It's the rare convergence of an incredible commodity with scale, grade, metallurgy, jurisdiction, and timing. We still own 100% of Luni. So far, we've invested more than AUD 120 million to define, test, and de-risk it. With the PFS targeted for release next quarter, years of disciplined technical work are beginning to translate into a much clearer picture of what Luni can become. The world does not simply need more critical mineral projects. It needs the few projects that can genuinely change supply chains. Luni is one of the few projects that is capable of doing exactly that. Thank you very much