Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Anson Resources August investor update webinar. Today is August 4th, 2026. I'm William Maze from Investor Relations and Capital Markets here at Anson. On behalf of management and the board, thank you for joining us. We appreciate your interest. We've had a lot of investors register for today's webinar and received many substantive questions in advance. We've combined similar topics in order to address as many of your questions as possible in the allotted time. Next slide, please, Nick. Before we begin today, please take a moment to review the disclaimer on slide two of today's presentation. Today's discussion includes forward-looking statements, estimates, targets, and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially, and nothing in the presentation should be considered personal investment advice. The full disclaimer is available on our website. Next slide, please, Nick.
Today, we'll provide concise business and operational update, review the most recent commercial and funding developments, and discuss the June quarter expenditure and cash flow outlook. We'll spend some time on the Yellow Cat uranium and vanadium project and its development strategy. We'll follow that up with the Q&A section. Next slide, please, Nick. Joining us today are Bruce Richardson, Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Greg Knox and Tim Murray, who are both Executive Directors, and Matt Beattie, our CFO. Bruce and Greg have identified and led the development of the lithium opportunity in Utah's Paradox Basin in Utah. Bruce brings extensive project development, financing, international commercial experience, while Greg brings more than 30 years of geological resource permitting and mine development expertise and serves as the company's competent person.
Tim leads our commercial relationships across offtake engineering and strategic partnerships, including our work with POSCO and LG Energy Solution. Matt oversees our finance and reporting and governance and works closely with our auditors, Ernst & Young. My role here is Investor Relations and Capital Markets. With that, Bruce, I'll hand it over to you.
Thank you, Will. Next slide, please, Nick. Welcome to everybody. We wanted to have a second webinar not too long after the first one. The reason for that is we didn't have enough time to talk about Yellow Cat and our plans there. Before we get into that, I want to just remind everyone about our mission statement and the focus that we have on the Green River project. Green River is going very quickly for us. It's progressing very well. We have a strategy there of focusing on attaining about 10% of the North America lithium demand. We spoke about this last time, but you can see here that the graph shows some real opportunities for Anson and things are still moving in our direction as far as supplying the North American lithium supply chain.
We're aiming to get in production in 2029 with 10,000 tons per annum. There is a second phase that we're considering, depending on what happens in the market. If you look on the graph on the right-hand side, you can see there's going to be a significant increase in demand. We just wait to see how that pans out. At the moment, aiming for about 10%. We are a low-cost and scalable DLE operation. We have a very large domestic asset which can be monetized into a larger project in the future. Next slide, please. A lot of things have been happening around us at the moment. We're putting out a lot of announcements. We're giving you a lot of information about what's going on. As I said last time, it's a bit like the London bus. They all arrive at the same time.
These are work streams that we've been working on for some time. With JordProxa, we announced there that they're doing some test work for us. They started that actually at the end of last year, early this year. We sent them a large number of totes of DLE eluate, and they've been processing that through their system. It is really been a very successful program to date. They've done the non-thermal work, and now they're doing the thermal work, which is part of the flowsheet that they've developed. We expect them to come in on time later this year. Everything's progressing well there. JordProxa is an Australian company, and one of the advantages there is that that gives us access to funding through Export Finance Australia. A lot of countries have these similar organizations.
Actually, my first job, a full-time job, was working for Export Finance Australia a long time ago. I'm familiar how that operates. Financing through government, it gives you some advantages, particularly when it comes to interest rates. It's one of the areas we're looking at for financing is Export Finance Australia and similar organizations around the world. POSCO is moving ahead. They made their first payment. That was important. On the ground, we see them around. They've visited again. We're hearing that they're engaging consultants for the engineering work that they need to do. Government people have contacting us, telling us that they've heard that POSCO's around. The local hotel operator has been talking to them as well. You can see they're getting everything prepared for moving ahead with the demonstration plant. That's important for us.
They do need to do their own test work to verify the work that we've done before they can enter into more detailed discussions about commercial arrangements with Anson. Anyway, progressing along, and I think they are on time. Yesterday, we reported that we have got some more mineral rights in the indicated category as particular. That's an area that we're looking at. We have to wait for the JORC resource to be evaluated again. There'll be a review, but we're putting that together with the SITLA application that we've put in. We have to wait for SITLA's board to meet. It's summer here, most people are on holidays. August is when they meet again. A few weeks from now, we should hear from them if that's included. That will add additional resource once considered by the independent company consultants that do those JORC resource reports.
It's significant because no one's done that before. It's the mineral rights which are under the land administered by Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands. A very important development. Basically, it's the area which goes under the river. The brine, which is of course 10,000 ft below surface under the river, that's what they're offering to us or that's what we're discussing with them. Also state parks. In that area, the Green River area, they do own the golf course. We'll end up, I think, probably having some access to the mineral rights which are under the golf course and some other areas there. We're continuing to increase the JORC resource even though we've got a significant resource already and sufficient for stage 1 of our project. Yellow Cat. Yellow Cat, yes, we did drill in April. We are doing some more work.
We've announced that we're working towards that now. There are some government approvals to get to allow us to do that drilling program. To get to that stage, we need to do some environmental surveys and so on. That program is now advancing, and there's a reason for that, and we're going to talk about that a little bit more in detail as we go through this presentation. Next, please. Matt?
Bruce, thanks very much. On the first point on governance and on remuneration. As we outlined in the last Q&A session, the company engaged independent third-party experts to conduct a review of the board's total remuneration. That's the cash and equity payments made to board and executive, as well as the KPI hurdles required for executive to achieve those equity payments. With a focus on shifting those KPIs to an increase in share price. That REMSMART report has been given to us, and it confirmed that the total executive remuneration is correct, being the cash and equity payments. The internal mix between the two is off and needs to be updated slightly with the idea of cash being reduced and equity being increased.
Those equity KPIs be tied to an increase in share price to ensure that there's alignment across shareholders and the executive. This is obviously a complex change that requires some legal review. It will also require shareholder approval, which will be presented to shareholders at the November 2026 AGM. As we noted in the quarterly, at the July board meeting, the board and senior management as well all unanimously agreed to take a 20% pay cut effective from 1 August to that AGM. That pay cut will be adjusted and have the balance put into equity shares, which will again be tied to share price, to be approved at the AGM.
At the AGM, we'll also be presenting a comprehensive update and review of remuneration, aligned with a more comprehensive equity strategy, and plan, to better align remuneration to expectations and to share price following the feedback from shareholders. Moving to funding and government support. Look, it's obviously a really critical trust that we've been working on for some years. I think my point there would be that all of these relationships are interdependent. You, shareholders will obviously see us doing local town halls. They might see us doing other grassroots things like sponsoring Melon Days. Then that goes all the way through the full spectrum to Bruce attending the White House and working with senior federal government officials. We've built a really strong relationship across all levels and the community.
The focus on this and why the company sees it as such a key pillar is that governments have the ability to provide us with non-dilutive funding. Federal governments can do this in the form of grants or very cheap loans. State governments, similarly, have the opportunity and the ability to provide us with similar incentives. Now, in the form of Utah, we believe we will see this in the form of tax incentives. Those tax incentives can significantly enhance project economics. That's really key to getting and attracting strategic investors. There is also an opportunity for the Utah government to provide us with some infrastructural loans, which will, again, as Bruce touched on at the start, be hopefully at deeper rates, which again, is really critical to the funding and the developing of the project. Just moving to the quarterly.
Look, there has been a little bit of feedback on the spend. Look, I'd just note here that that's a quarterly cash flow analysis. So it has to be on a cash basis. Look, there has been a few delays with some local suppliers taking a little bit of time to invoice us. But that cash was primarily spent on the conclusion of the drilling program at Mt Fuel, some analysis work and assay work for the Mt Fuel upgrade, as well as the Yellow Cat drilling program work and design and the swabbing of the Bosydaba#1 well, which we are required to provide that test work to existing and potential partners. In terms of the cash position, look, as we mentioned the quarterly, post the payment of the first POSCO tranche, we're sitting in a really strong cash flow position of more than AUD 8 million.
We have the second tranche of that due in about six months, and as a result, we're in a really strong position. That is expected to support the company well through 2026 and into 2027, if not further. Again, yeah, the company feels it's in a really strong cash flow and balance sheet position. Probably enough, and back to you, Will.
Bruce?
Yeah. I'll pick it up from there. The real focus of today, of course, is about Yellow Cat. We're going to run through a couple of slides here about Yellow Cat and then answer some questions that have come up from the shareholders about what's going on with Yellow Cat. I wanted to start here, which is the basis of our strategy and why now is the time to be thinking about doing things at Yellow Cat. This slide that you're looking at at the moment shows a graph, which is uranium demand and uranium supply going forward from 2026. That's really the interesting part of the market. There is a divergence there, very clearly, between demand and supply. This does come from Goldman Sachs, so it does have some authority behind it. We can see that gap developing and the opportunity growing.
Of course, the price is higher. That's always an indication that there is an opportunity. In the U.S., it's not just about price and not just about the market. The consideration is about permitting, about getting government approval to go ahead with a uranium project. Uranium is a very sensitive area, particularly in the United States. Some history there, of course, with people who objected to uranium mining in the past. Things, as we see it, are starting to change and develop, and we think this is the time where we need to be pushing ahead with our Yellow Cat Uranium and Vanadium Project. What we see is there is a number of companies that are talking about building a traditional large-scale nuclear power station. That's different.
A lot of companies tried that previously and may have got permitting and including one very close to us at Green River. It's called Blue Castle. They did get approval for that project but didn't proceed. What's changing is, apart from the interest in developing new nuclear power stations on the understanding there's going to be some power shortages in the future, we see a lot of activity about small modular reactors or SMRs. SMRs look different. They are much safer than large-scale nuclear power stations. They use less water. In fact, sometimes they can be cooled by air. That's the thing that transports the contamination is often water. There's a lot of activity in that area. These are not new. They've been working on them for 20 years.
We have one in the same county as where Green River is, in Emery County, in a army base there. There's some plans there to link SMRs with data centers. Data centers, the energy, as we all know, is quite extensive. That's going to put a lot of stress on the grid, on the U.S. grid. President Trump has come out and said that SMRs and data centers go together, companies will create their own electricity with SMRs. There's the interest that we have then is seeing that demand for uranium will increase. The reason we've delayed and we've been slower than we've developed the Green River project is that we look not just at the price of uranium, but also whether there's any movement in government policy.
We're starting to see some of that now. We'll just see how that carries through. Of course, there's elections to go through, which have a major impact on whether these type of projects or uranium nuclear industry-based projects proceed. That's the basis, but we think now is the time that we need to put some more effort and funding into that. As we move forward, we may pick the right time and pick the market, and we take advantage of that. Greg, would you like to talk about what you're doing there now with the next drilling program?
Thanks, Bruce. The Yellow Cat project has been separated into the east and western blocks, and that is for a timeframe which is shortened as far as permitting goes. The mineralization is shallow in the Eastern Block and deepens towards the west. As you know, the Eastern Block we drilled and have completed, but we're waiting on the assays, which have been backlogged due to the interest in uranium. The western block already contains a historical resource, which we're planning on proving up into the 2012 JORC standards. The western block, because there's already known historical drill holes and intersections, will result in a cheaper program, and we'll be able to prove up that JORC resource in a much quicker timeframe. Bruce.
Thanks, Greg. The next slide, please. We wanted to give our shareholders an understanding of how we're progressing. We put an announcement out, which we gave similar details, but I wanted to go over that. We see the opportunity there emerging, as I've shown you in the previous slides. We wanted to get that going, so earlier this year, we started permitting for a drilling program, what we call the Eastern Block, where the uranium was known to be shallower. We've done that program, and we are waiting for those assay results to come back. Because shallower means it's easier to mine. In Western area, it's deeper. That's the second phase of our drilling program is what we're now looking to do in the second half of this year. As Greg said, we're looking to twin historic holes.
The reason we're doing that is because we want to establish a JORC resource. A JORC is the first step. If we want to use this Yellow Cat project and want to get it funded, we need to have a JORC resource, a proven resource or a resource we can show and then attract investors, partners, strategic partners, other forms of cooperation, funds that we can use then to continue to develop the project. JORC in Q1 2027 is what we're estimating that we'll be able to achieve. Of course, that all depends on the assay results. There are two phases here. Let's wait till we get all of the Western Block results in before we get our independent expert to come and do a JORC resource for us. That's probably early Q1 2027.
There are new technologies that have been developed over time, we're aware of those, we've been looking to use some of those. We looked at those a few years ago. That's something we want to look at how that would be done and give us some ideas about the economics. Then we can able to present that to various partners. Strategic partners or investment, tolling, royalty, and other structures is what we're looking for to do there. This is not a new idea. This is something we've been looking at for a while. We're trying to pick the right time to make the investment into the project, and we think we've got the right time here now, and we're progressing along with the JORC resource, and then further into using technology to upgrade it and then monetizing it, looking at different opportunities.
Not that we haven't started that already. The fifth step there is something we're already talking to people about and seeing how that might be done. It is moving along. It is slow. We know why it's slow. We do have a plan, and we have a strategic direction there. Next, please. Just tying everything back together again, with Green River Lithium Project. You saw this last time we spoke. We just wanted to reiterate how things are progressing. Permitting, of course, we're more or less completed. There are a few pieces to tidy up there, if you like. Things like bonding. With bonding, we can't do until we've established actually how many tanks and distance between them and all sorts of other aspects.
That final part of the permitting will happen when we have the final flow sheet and design of the plant. There are other things in permitting, such as stormwater drainage, color of buildings, all those usual construction things that we'll do as well. The demonstration plan is important. We've talked about the POSCO plant and how that's developing as of Q2 2027. We do see a role for POSCO coming in, either in stage 1, the 10,000 tons per annum, or beyond that. The first step for them is that they have to confirm, verify exactly what we have done already before we can have those discussions. Resource. I spoke about already that we're looking to add on additional resource without spending more money on drilling programs. These are deep wells. They are expensive to drill.
We are trying to find ways of preserving our cash, managing our cash appropriately by finding other ways to increase the resource other than a drilling program. The key for this part of the year from 2026 into 2027 is, of course, on the engineering studies. The DFS is underway. It's progressing along with Sedgman. I think we've spoken about Baker Hughes before, who are doing the well field design for both extraction and disposal. That's looking towards the end of 2027 being completed. That's moving along quite well, as I understand. Then somewhere Q3 2027, we can start looking at construction, the initial construction, if everything goes well, particularly for the pre-construction work we need to do and possibly with the demonstration plant. With financing, we've been working on that for a long time.
Some of the milestones that we want to achieve is a second offtake agreement by the end of 2026. That's underway. We're in discussions with several potential partners. We expect that we'll be able to achieve that deadline. Strategic investors. Something we've been looking at for a while. There are some that we're in discussions with, and we also hope to get that completed by the end of 2026. Debt is, we've already talked about EXIM Bank. There are other opportunities. I mentioned the EFA earlier. They're partnering with EXIM Bank now. The Australian EFA EXIM Bank partnership is a model for other countries, apparently. There's really some good opportunities there. Final investment decision.
We're looking at towards the end of Q2 2027, so about this time next year is when we think we'll be doing FID, and then after that, completing the financing and then starting construction of the project. Next, please. Over to you, Will.
Great. That brings us to the Q&A portion of the webinar, and we'll now move to shareholder questions. Once again, thank you to everyone who submitted questions in advance. Just a reminder, we've grouped similar questions together so that we can address as many as possible. We intend to answer questions as candidly as possible. However, the panel will not speculate on incomplete commercial negotiations, disclose confidential information, or provide forecasts that have not been released to the market. With that, let's go to the first question, which is on Yellow Cat. Why is Anson only advancing Yellow Cat now?
Yes, Will, I'll pick that up. As I explained earlier, it's because of the changing conditions, right? Not just market conditions, but also government and how they look at the developing nuclear industry, particularly with SMRs. We can see that there's an opportunity there. I also showed the graph earlier, which shows that divergence between demand and supply. That tells you that going forward, there is a very big opportunity there for a company like ours to supply uranium to companies in the U.S. It's a deliberate strategy that we've taken to hold back on our investment in Yellow Cat, and focus on the Green River Lithium Project. The reason for that is that we considered that Green River Lithium Project gave us a nearer term pathway into revenue and therefore, a much better opportunity than Yellow Cat. That's all online now with our permitting.
We do have a lot of relationships that we've developed through the Green River Lithium Project that we can leverage to obtain necessary approvals, et cetera, from governments, federal, local, state governments. They're very important relationships that we can use now to try and push our Yellow Cat project forward. This is the time. It's about timing, it's about reading the market, and we think we have the right time now. Thanks, Will.
Thanks. Next question is also on Yellow Cat regarding the Eastern Block assays. This question is regarding where are they and why have they taken so long?
Thanks, Will.
Greg.
Yep. The 23-hole drill program was completed, and samples were submitted for uranium, vanadium and rare earth analysis. I have been in regular contact with the lab and with the renewed interest in uranium, there is a backlog. Management is frustrated by the laboratory delays and has escalated the matter following up regularly at senior levels to secure priority completion. Results will be released once the full data set has been received, quality-controlled, and reviewed. Back to you, Will.
Great. Thanks, Greg. Next one's also on Yellow Cat. What is the timetable for Yellow Cat's JORC resource?
It's just reiterating what we said in the presentation, really. The timetable is we've finished phase 1. We haven't got the assay results, but we've finished phase 1. Phase 2 of this current drilling program, we expect to commence in the second half of this year. There'll be assays. Depending on wait lists and log jams at the laboratories, we expect to get some assay results early next year and then provide those to the independent consulting company that does the JORC resources. We will have some results. From there, we then look at technology applications for extraction of uranium. That's something we want to do, similar to what we've done with Green River Lithium, that we applied some new technologies there.
After that, of course, we'll be looking at monetizing that, so either bringing in a partner to develop it, or perhaps doing some tolling arrangements or other forms of economic commercial cooperation that we have some ideas about how they would work to get some real value for you, the shareholders, and help with the share price going up. There's also some other opportunities there that we could consider, which would also derive some value, such as spinning off the project into a separate company. Also we've discovered that we do have waste dumps there, which may be also able to be monetized. We're looking at various options there, but the first thing is get the JORC resource completed. Thank you, Will.
Bruce, can I-
Thanks, Bruce.
Sorry, can I just add just to that, just to reiterate what you said previously, which is we are engaging with partners. These projects and streams of work are being run concurrently. The focus is obviously on maximizing value, and we will achieve that via JORC, it does not mean that we haven't started work until the JORC is delivered. We have, as Bruce touched on, engaged with a number of partners and getting really good feedback and good engagement on that.
Thanks, Matt. I think the next question is in your court. Regarding finance, why was the quarterly cash expenditure so high?
Yeah. Well, it's a good question. Look, as I touched on before, it's a cash basis. Working with a number of providers in rural Utah, there are delays that can come from working with some of these kind of small providers, and it can take a couple of months for us to receive these invoices. I would just touch on that as we noted in the quarterly, there has been a 30% reduction in salary across the team and executive. Following the July decision to reduce salary by 20%, we expect to see a further reduction in the coming quarter. Secondly, we expect future quarters this year to be materially lower. That's driven partly by those reductions that I talked about. The company's always focused on trying to drive material reductions in spend, secondly, just the nature of the drilling program.
The Mt Fuel re-entry, as Bruce and Greg touched on, those are large capital items and they're very lumpy, and we try to avoid them and the work that Greg in particular is doing to try to prevent another re-entry, and look for cheaper ways to increase the JORC is really critical to that. As we don't believe we'll need to do a future re-entry program, we believe that kind of bulk of our exploration spend is behind us now. We're just at a really good position. Yellow Cat, because it's so shallow, is a materially cheaper drilling program, and cash flow in that sense will be a lot less from the Yellow Cat work.
Great. Thank you, Matt. The next question is also for you. Does Anson have sufficient cash and should shareholders expect another capital raise?
Yeah, look, it's a really good question, and I appreciate that the market and shareholders are probably quite conscious of that. As I touched on at the start, we have $8 million , oh, sorry, AUD 8 million cash. We have future cash inflows from POSCO due in the short term. Puts us in a really strong capital position. As Bruce and I have touched on, we have looked to materially reduce expenditure. The company is very conscious of that, and we will always look for ways to reduce expenditure. In that sense, no, we are not currently forecasting a capital raise in 2026 or even well into 2027. The Yellow Cat program and other programs we're looking at are non-dilutive ways of raising equity, with the exact focus on avoiding capital raises. We are very focused on not doing a future capital raise.
To that end, we have a number of options in the market, which are AUD 0.12, and the company is very focused on getting the share price well above AUD 0.12 and seeing those convert. Even without those shares converting or those options converting, we are very well-placed, and have a sufficient capital, I believe, to get to FID.
Thanks, Matt. The next question, how is the board addressing investor concerns regarding remuneration?
I might just answer the start of that and look, I don't want to repeat myself again, but as I've said at the start, we engaged REMSMART. We've completed a comprehensive review with them. We're in the process of formalizing a comprehensive response, which will go to shareholders at the AGM in November. In the interim, the board has taken a 20% reduction in cash salary, which will go to shares in lieu. Again, to be approved by shareholders at the AGM. Non-executive management has similarly taken a 20% pay cut. I would note again that that was a unanimous agreement, and that shows the comprehensive support of management for the company.
Great. Thank you. The next question comes, why have you not met with the requisitioning shareholders?
Yeah. Well, I'll take that question. Look, since Erle became a shareholder, Bruce, Matt and myself have had lots of conversations and we have met with Erle. We met with him in October 25, and we arranged a meeting with him in June of this year. Erle started sending us emails in 2025 after he became a shareholder. Matt arranged for him to attend the IMARC conference where the governor of Utah was doing a talk on investing in Utah State that Bruce was also presenting at. Bruce, myself, Matt all met with Erle at that event. At that event and following that event, he raised concerns about our communications, which we took on board. We improved our communications in the first half of 2026, when our communication frequency increased by 200%.
Bruce scheduled to come to Australia to have meetings with institutional investors and asked me to set up a meeting with Erle. I contacted Erle, we agreed to a meeting time and place, and the meeting was confirmed. Erle asked if Andrew Woskett could attend. To our knowledge, Andrew Woskett is not a shareholder and we said that we'd rather that it was just Erle because we wanted to speak with shareholders. After we advised Erle of that, he called me and said that Andrew Woskett needed to attend the meeting because he would be the next chairman. He wanted Bruce to step down. He said Bruce has done a good job, but he should step down gracefully. If he didn't, then he'd take action to remove Bruce, which is the action he's now taken.
With that as a sort of ultimatum put to us for that meeting, we felt there was no point in holding that meeting, we canceled the meeting. The company has continued to remain in contact with Erle, and we have taken a lot of his ideas on board. Thanks very much, Will.
Thanks, Tim. Last question here is what remains before Green River reaches FID and production?
Yes. Thanks, Will . FID, we're looking towards the second half of next year. Between here and there, what do we need to do? We have a number of work streams which are being conducted concurrently. Of course, we talked about the JORC resource already, and that's progressing along as we try to find ways of adding to the resource without significant expenditure. Second of all, and the most important, I think is the engineering studies that are being conducted, the DFS, which was being overseen by Sedgman, that's progressing very well. We expect that to be completed in early Q1 2027. That's a major piece of work as we could see from our previous work that we did down at the Paradox Lithium Project.
When we completed that, there was a major change in the company. That's something that we know that we need to achieve if we want to move forward. A lot of our resources are going into that work at the moment. Permitting, as I said, has been completed. That's a major achievement. In the U.S., getting fully permitted is not easy. We've overcome the obstacles that are placed in our way for that and moving ahead very quickly. Of course, to obtain funding, we will need to have another offtake agreement that will support the repayment of any loans or other types of financing that we might need to obtain in a sort of debt capacity. That's a very important piece that we're working on.
Of course, strategic investment is something that we're concentrating on as well. There are a number of opportunities there that we know that by the end of the year we might be able to put a signature on a piece of paper and finalize that. A very busy time for us, those steps are essential to be able to complete the FID.
Great. Thanks, Bruce, and thanks everybody. That concludes today's webinar. Today's presentation will be available on the ASX site as well as Anson's website. Thank you once again for joining us. We appreciate your support.