Good afternoon and good morning, and welcome to our Battery Metals Investor Day. As you will see from the subtitle of this presentation, it's about investing in critical metals to enable a more sustainable future. I'm sure you're going to enjoy the messages and the slides that come with the presentation. The Safe Harbor statement in this case is particularly important. There are a lot of forward-looking slides in this presentation. We are pushing the boundaries in terms of much of the thinking around battery metals, the role of battery electric vehicles, and so on. So please take note of the Safe Harbor statement. It's our intention to really conduct the presentations in five groups.
First of all, I'll conduct a strategic overview, just provide you with the strategic positioning from a Sibanye-Stillwater point of view. I will then hand over to Lakshya from SFA to conduct the market outlook together with Thomas. They will hand over to the Keliber team, headed up by Mika Seitovirta, our Chief Regional Officer in Finland. Mika will hand over to Robert van Niekerk, our Chief Technical Officer, who will discuss the Rhyolite Ridge project in Nevada. And then I will conclude briefly with about a 5-minute conclusion slide. There will be a break in the middle of roughly 10 minutes, a comfort break. So, and that'll take place after the market outlook provided by SFA.
Moving on to the strategic positioning from a Sibanye-Stillwater point of view. I wanna state upfront that we have exposure to this very exciting area in terms of both battery metals and of course, the internal combustion engine through our PGM portfolio. As you will see, there are some serious headwinds relating to the use of electric powertrains that are only powered by batteries. Although I have no particular view on which way this will actually go, all I wanna say is I would suggest that the market is overly relying on growth in battery electric vehicles. There's a real challenge that is looming in that area.
I think a better balance of battery electric vehicles and internal combustion engine vehicles is probably the way the world will go. And of course, hybrids feature very highly in that combination, and hopefully that'll become clear in terms of the way we see the world. I wanna start off with our 3D strategy. It's founded on three pillars, our strategic foundation. I'm not gonna go through this slide in detail. In fact, many of my slides, I'm going to really breeze through. I've been told I've only got 15-20 minutes. But the strategic foundation should not be new to you from our company point of view. The second column in our strategy is our strategic essentials.
Those are the things that are given, and again, I'm not gonna repeat them. And then, of course, our third column being our strategic differentiators. And those are clearly the things that are gonna differentiate us as a company. Now, there's two areas on this diagram that I want you to focus on, and that I'm going to really cover in the next few slides. First of all, our purpose, and if you look at the highlighted ring on the left-hand side of the slide, you'll see our purpose is to safeguard global sustainability through our metals. And that's what gets each and every Sibanye-Stillwater employee out of bed every day. That's what allows us to retain and hire some of the best brains in the world, is because of our purpose. It's far-reaching, and it's high level.
What we're also gonna be focusing on today is how we're building this unique global portfolio of green metals and energy solutions that we believe are necessary to reverse climate change. And you might say, "Well, I don't quite believe in climate change." We'll get to that shortly. So just a little bit of background. We have built a robust and a sustainable business that's very relevant to the clean energy economy. I'm not gonna go through this slide in detail either, but just to say, we started off our diversification journey by leveraging our operating skills for commodity diversification, and that's when we diversified from gold into PGMs. We then leveraged our operating skills and our commodity base for geographical diversification when we acquired Stillwater. And through that journey, we got to really understand end users and supply chains.
And then we leveraged our knowledge and diversified through supply chains into battery metals, increasing our tailings and expanding our recycling business footprints. And you can see as we've moved into the green metals and energy solutions, we can see a number of acquisitions that are slowly but surely building up a portfolio, and I will come to more of that shortly. So today, we are a company with a global green metals portfolio, a unique portfolio, and I'll point that out. We are western-facing. You will see we have consciously positioned ourselves in North America, Europe, with a very solid base in South Africa, and more recently, we have grown into Australia. We have a couple of projects in South America as well. So what shapes our thinking?
And again, for most of you that follow our company, you will know that we refer to the gray elephants that are driving change. Gray elephants are those highly probable, high impact, yet often ignored factors that are shaping the 2020s, and there's actually eight of them. Today we will focus on just a few of them. That'll be multipolarity, angry people, big squeezes and angry planet. You would have heard me refer to climate change just recently. But there are new extremes, and I'm talking about climate extremes that are being recorded in 2023, and they're accelerating the global call to action and the transition to a clean energy economy. We have recognized that as a driver of opportunity, using our antifragility thinking to build our business.
By the end of 2022, 23% of global carbon emissions were covered by active carbon pricing initiatives, with the percentage increasing exponentially. So the angry planet is real, and it is driving new thinking in terms of energy, and I'll cover each one of these areas separately. So looking at the energy mix predicted, we can clearly see that the growth areas is a growth in electricity and hydrogen, and this is a result of extensive work that the Sibanye-Stillwater team has done together with McKinsey. And I would just suggest to you that in your own time, take some time and look at these slides carefully and read all the nuances on these slides. They are interesting, and they are relevant.
So if you really wanna prosper from the decarbonizing of our planet, you then really have to position yourself in the, the energy segments of electricity and hydrogen, and to some extent, natural gas could also play a role there. If you look at electricity, and, and I think it's probably almost logical, renewables are expected to account for between 80%-90% of global power generation. So renewables become a very, very important part, of our thinking, or have become a very, very important part of our thinking in terms of the metals that we need to mine, to ensure that we can deliver on our purpose. Renewables are projected to dominate, and their share is expected to double from 30%-60% in the next 15 years.
The majority of growth is expected from solar and onshore wind, given the declining costs in those energy applications. Thermal generation, especially gas, is expected to continue meeting base load requirements, and in the future, we believe that nuclear will also play a very important part of base load generation. So that's the broad landscape that is changing and is necessary to ensure that the angry planet grey elephant is addressed. Again, lots of detail on this slide, but again, you should be able to interpret that behind this slide sits a lot of data. We understand the energy ... the metals intensity required for each one of these technologies, whether it be solar, obviously photovoltaic, offshore wind, onshore wind electrolysers, and so on.
You can see in this table how some of these metals, how the intensity increases, and what it results in, in terms of a compound annual growth rate, for these specific technologies. That underpins the base on which we look at metals and areas of the commodity business that we would like to be part of. So that covers the angry planet. Let's talk about the big squeezes now from a strategic point of view. The big squeeze gray elephant is really about the increasing scarcity of raw materials. It's putting a premium on material stewardship. I'm gonna talk more about that now.
With recycling becoming very important in terms of, optimizing the recovery of resources and, of course, the treatment of waste and tailings, becoming global imperatives because of the shortage of these metals, which is happening due to this increasing demand to address decarbonization of our planet. So let's talk a little bit about embracing resource stewardship. Now, it's about preserving scarce resources. It's about being environmentally responsible. We've aligned our regional strategies where relevant with these key emerging themes, and we've made meaningful progress in developing our portfolio. And what do I mean by that? Well, of course, primary mining is a given. But you cannot, as an environmentally responsible, company, just focus on primary mining. Secondary mining, such as tailings retreatment, is an important part of extracting metals and an important part of resource stewardship.
So is recycling, or as it's often commonly referred to, urban mining. Now, you will see we are conceptually starting to build two business portfolios, if I could call it that. One called Enviro One, which groups all our tailings retreatment initiatives. DRDGOLD is one of the first, New Century Resources, in Northern Queensland, and you can see there are more to come. Recycling One builds on our autocatalyst recycling business in Columbus, and then recently in that, we announced Reldan, which is an e-waste recycling company. And to put it in perspective, Reldan's e-waste business produces just about the same amount of gold as DRDGOLD. These are not small businesses.
But nevertheless, the key theme here is about embracing resource stewardship in a responsible way and, improving our environmental credibility with the primary mining, secondary mining, and urban mining, all part of the business mix. Now, we're talking about the big squeezes and of course, resource stewardship is important in addressing that. And here we've really just focused on lithium, predominantly, but also looking at light-duty vehicle forecasts and the disruption created by COVID. And what you can also see is the battery electric vehicle market share of light-duty vehicles almost escalating on a quarterly basis. And I would argue that is being driven by hype. You can see it has slowed down.
There's some reality setting in, but battery electric vehicles are estimated by the market, and we think overestimated, to achieve about 30% of the light-duty vehicle market. Now, the problem with that type of forecast is shown in the graph on the right-hand side, and this is just for lithium. And let me make a point up front as well on this slide. Electric powertrains are the powertrains of the future. That's absolutely inevitable. They're smart powertrains, and it's modern engineering. I think it's the source of energy driving those powertrains that we are debating. As you know, the source can be a range of energy sources, from internal combustion engines on one side, to battery energy sources on the other, with a combination in between.
Of course, we're not excluding fuel cell vehicles. But the problem arises when you make these forecasts and you don't factor in the availability or the ability of the mining industry to deliver, in this example, the lithium. Now, you cannot have a deficit to the extent shown here. Obviously, that deficit will probably unfold in terms of an increased price for lithium. And this graph includes possible and probable projects, and you can see how these are offset against demand. But the point is that ultimately, battery electric vehicles will either not happen because they're too expensive, or a portion of them will be at risk, I should say. They will happen. Obviously, they will happen.
But this is just one example of a shortage of a material required for battery electric vehicles based on forecasts containing the graph on the left, which shows that something has got to give. In our view, the penetration rates, as proposed by certain analysts, is highly overstated. I do, I do want to now move on to other aspects that we need to moderate our thinking with in terms of the penetration rates that are continually put into the public domain regarding pure battery electric vehicles. I'm now moving on to angry people. More recently, you would have seen that the market and the take-up of battery electric vehicles has declined. That's not surprising to me.
I want to start with, before I move on, with a clip that just shows you the underlying unhappiness with in certain countries, and this happens to be in the U.S., where society is being pushed in a direction where not everything is working, and not everything is accepted. This is the sort of pushback that we can expect, and why the penetration rates need to be moderated for pure battery electric vehicles. Let me stop there and just and you can hear angry people for yourself.
Now, before we run the clip, I also just want to say we've also just seen, outside of, let's call it the subject today of battery electric vehicles, we've just seen that 453,000 workers have participated in 312 strikes in the U.S. this year alone. We are seeing increasing social tensions in South Africa and elsewhere in the world. It's not unique to these destinations. But the clip, and it is about a 5-minute clip, I'd urge you to listen to it. Some of you may have heard it, but listen to it and see the underlying pushback and unhappiness that is transpiring with regard to the evolution of pure battery electric vehicles. Thank you. Please play the clip.
Mr. Stauber.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, Mr. Secretary. I represent northeastern Minnesota, Minnesota's eighth congressional district. A couple questions: Do you know the average temperature in a Minnesota winter?
I know it's pretty cold, but I wouldn't know the-
Well, it's 12 degrees, although some of my constituents saw temperatures as cold as 42 below last year. Mr. Secretary, how many states have an average winter temperature of below freezing? It's half the country. Does cold weather affect an EV's battery life, yes or no?
Yes, it does.
How much can an EV battery life be reduced by cold weather?
Depends on the chemistry of the battery and the model that you're in, but, it's a substantial percentage of the-
Yeah
... EV battery life.
50, 50% or more. And how long does it take for frostbite to kick in if an individual is out in the cold? Let's say their EV has run out of battery on northbound 35 between Minneapolis and Duluth.
You know, I once got stuck on northbound 35, and I know it takes pretty long.
About 30, about 30 minutes. It's about 30 minutes before frostbite. And, Mr. Secretary, do you know the average income household in the district that I represent? You probably don't, so I'll tell you. It's $69,000. And do you know what the average price of an EV vehicle is?
Sure, I pulled the latest numbers. The models are starting around $30,000 for sedans. They're getting into the $40s for trucks.
According to Kelley Blue Book, the average price for electric cars was over $53,000 last July.
Surely you're aware that they start closer to 30, right?
My constituents would have to work a full year to pay for this unreliable car and would barely have enough left over to care for their family. What is the average median income of a single individual EV buyer? It's $150,000.
As of when?
It's $150,000.
As of when? I'm just asking because that number is going down each passing year.
This month.
Uh-huh.
This month. How much of a taxpayer-funded subsidy is given to those high-income earners to purchase their EV?
As you may recall, the Inflation-
You should know this.
... Inflation Reduction Act was set in such a way that there was an income cap on how you could benefit from it.
$7,000-$7,500.
The wealthiest people-
Seventy
... are not able to take advantage of that, but we do wish we had your support-
Mr. Secretary, do you-
in lowering the cost of EVs.
Mr. Secretary, would you agree it's $7,500?
Say again?
Would you agree it's $7,500?
$7,500 is the maximum credit that is eligible, and we think that making EVs-
For the elites to buy their luxury vehicle.
... cheaper for working families to tune the $7,500 is a good move.
Mr. Secretary, excuse me. Do you think that it's fair for your administration to force constituents to purchase these electric vehicles when they're not working, and especially in northern Minnesota?
Well, the premise of the question is false, because we're not forcing anybody to purchase any technology. Can you refer to any particular policy that forces anybody to?
By twenty-
purchase an EV?
By 2035, you want two-thirds of America's Americans to be using electric vehicles. They don't work in northern Minnesota in the cold weather today. And I want to just share something with you. Mr. Garamendi and I agree with him, buy American. Last July, you sat in that same spot and answered our questions, and I told you about a concern that I have with child slave labor in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And I told you that we could mine these critical minerals needed for EVs in the district that I represent under the best labor and environmental standards in the world. But you and the administration went ahead with an MOU with the DRC in January of this year.
Well-documented child slave labor in the DRC, hardly any environmental standards, and your administration chose to enter MOUs with the Congo, where 15 of the 19 mines are owned by the communist country of China, where they use slave labors. It's unbelievable that you chose other workers over the American worker, and it's unbelievable that you won't allow mining here in Minnesota, and the United States. Your Secretary of Energy, Secretary Granholm, came to the Western Caucus, and I happened to ask her. I said, "Do you know the only nickel mine in the United States today?" She couldn't answer that. Do you know where it is?
No, I don't.
It's in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the Eagle Mine. It's the gold standard, and she's our Energy Secretary. Do we need nickel, cobalt, and copper for these electric vehicles as we transition? The answer is yes. We need to mine here in America with American miners, American labor. We can do it. The biggest copper-nickel find in the world, and your administration just banned it. Union labor, Mr. Secretary, that we want, and your administration took the union labor off mining, and not only in northeastern Minnesota, but across this country. Because today, this administration, they cannot give one example of allowing a mine to be opened in this country, and I yield back.
Right. Thank you. And just closing off on angry people, I hope you understand that social issues will predominantly drive well ahead of environmental issues in terms of the selection of products. So let me move on to another interesting area where we are well-positioned, and it's the area of multipolarity. And what you are seeing is this incredible divide between the East and the West, and with ever-increasing tensions making it almost impossible to bridge the gap between both the East and the West. What we have chosen to do is be a company that is Western-facing, very consciously so, taking advantage of this increasing regulation that's being promoted to establish regional value chains.
Of course, it's important in terms of lowering our geographical risk by not having a predominant position only in South Africa. We are looking to grow our exposure in the Western world, and in fact, provide a solution for opening up Africa's mineral wealth. So let's have a look at that. So we are well-positioned in the Western world ecosystems, predominantly in North America. You can see, and you will hear more about the Rhyolite Ridge lithium project in the USA. We are benefiting today from the Inflation Reduction Act, and we have received supportive loans up to a conditional loan up to $700 million for the Rhyolite Ridge project. We are well-positioned in Europe as well. We've got our Sandouville nickel refinery in France.
As you know, that was purchased with a view to converting it into a nickel sulfate plant. Some of our thinking is now taking us past a conversion into nickel sulfate and going straight to PCAM, including the recycling of batteries in that plant. We won't say much more about it, other than probably early next year, we will have better indications of the ability to jump the production of nickel sulfate. That's really class-leading thinking in terms of the downstream battery markets. We also have an investment in Verkor, and that's an alignment with the French battery market ecosystem. We receive a lot of support from the governments of North America, France, and in fact, Finland. Coming on to Finland, we acquired our stake in the Keliber lithium project.
It is a world-class project, ideally positioned in Europe. The Finnish government is our partner through the Finnish Minerals Group, and Mika and his team will talk you through that. But it's not a coincidence that we are focused on Europe and North America. As I've said, I wanna make it clear, we're a Western-facing company, and our aim is to provide solutions to the Western world for these critical minerals. Just a last comment is Africa is clearly an underexplored continent. It's well endowed, and it is currently, let's say, positioned between the East and the West. And I dare say there's a real tug-of-war taking place. We have put up our hand to deliver these African opportunities to the Western world.
As you know, it's well known, we are looking to be successful in Zambia on the Mopani Copper Project. But I think Africa is going to become a very important continent with lots of opportunity. We are Africans, and this is in our backyard, and as I say, I think we can provide solutions to the Western world in terms of responsibly bringing these resources to account. So thank you for that. That was really meant to set the scene. I am now going to hand over to the SFA team to cover the market. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Neal, and good morning slash afternoon, everyone. I'm here to talk about SFA's view on present SFA's high-level overview of the basics of battery technology and why lithium-ion batteries have become the go-to for electric vehicles. Before handing over to my colleague, Thomas, who will talk about the lithium market, in particular from a supply perspective. SFA's been around for over 20 years, and we provide market advisory services, and regular commodity and reports on a whole host of commodities.
The company was established primarily as a PGM reporting slash consulting think tank, and has since expanded into energy transition metals like lithium, nickel, and cobalt, but also focus on, more recently, the implications of the hydrogen economy, and also just the overall or wider implications of the energy transition on the metals and mining industry. So I'm going to start this talk by covering at a high level, as I alluded to, the different how batteries work, and also why we believe lithium-ion batteries are kind of the go-to solution for battery electric vehicles, despite there being competing technologies and competing rechargeable batteries. So essentially, the diagram on the left shows the different components contained within a lithium-ion battery.
The main three components are the two electrodes, the cathode and anode, respectively, and these are separated by an aptly named separator. During normal operation, ions of a given metal, in the case of lithium-ion, it's lithium ions, move between the cathode and the anode through the separator, and the ability of the two electrodes to hold essentially the number of ions that these two electrodes can contain, and the rate at which ions can move between or through the separator between the two electrodes, determines the overall performance of the cell. This is the same. The mechanics of this are the same for all batteries, be they lead-acid, nickel metal hydride, or the current state-of-the-art lithium-ion cells, or even going forward, lithium solid-state cells.
So on the right here, you can see the performance envelope of these rechargeable cells, and they're rechargeable because you can essentially reverse this process of moving the ions between the two electrodes. And that's pretty much the only difference between a non-rechargeable and a rechargeable cell. You can essentially move the ions back and repeat the process. So on the right, you can see the performance envelope for these different cells, and essentially, the higher energy density, or the further along the X-axis you move, the longer your range, and the higher your power density, the faster the car can accelerate. And lithium-ion offers essentially the highest performance on both these metrics, which is why it has been become the universal standard.
In the last 12-18 months, there have been, uh, commercialization developments for sodium-ion cells, but our view is that that the, the performance of sodium-ion cells, especially in the first generation, which is towards the lower end, they're not apt for the EV application. Rather, where they are suited for is in alternatives, which are less demanding on energy density or power density requirements. If we move on, we can see this through this essentially a Venn diagram. So if we were to separate the main emerging end uses for electrochemical storage in, in the different end-use segments, there are primarily two, which is electric vehicles, and on the other side of the equation, energy storage systems have much lower energy density requirements.
Because space isn't as big of a constraint, unlike a car, where there is limited space, essentially. A car has fixed dimensions, typically in a given energy storage systems have a much longer design life , so in theory, you can depreciate that asset over a longer period of time, whereas in an Electric car, they have typically a shorter life. But the main driver for lithium-ion being suitable in electric vehicles or more suitable in electric vehicles, is the energy density requirements that consumers expect. I.e., consumers expect a minimum range from their electric vehicles, and non-lithium-based batteries are not high enough energy density to offer that. That's not to say they will never be, but the current technology doesn't allow that, and we're seeing that in the technical specifications for the first-generation sodium-ion cells.
The energy densities they have are much lower than lithium-ion. Where sodium-ion does make sense is, as I said, energy storage. These cells are inherently cheaper than lithium-ion because of the abundance or relative abundance of sodium over lithium, and the use of different, but essentially cheaper cathodes. Again, although the best cathode for sodium-ion is yet to be determined. So it's not entirely true to say that sodium-ion batteries won't use the likes of nickel or cobalt. Some cathodes do actually use them, but in lower intensities. In our view, we predict sodium-ion to capture roughly 5% of the energy storage demand by 2030. But predominantly for electric vehicles, we do see lithium-ion being the leading technology. Now, within lithium-ion, there are different cathodes. Moving on, we can see that today, the market is dominated by nickel-based cathodes.
Over the last, say, 18 months or so, you can see on the pie charts, these, or the donut charts, rather. These show the split by overarching chemistry. I've not broken it down by the different compositions of NMC or nickel Manganese cobalt Oxide to show kind of the splits between High-nickel versus Low-nickel cathodes . I just want to focus on the overarching theme, which is the majority of roughly 60% this year, in the first nine months of this year, or 70% of all battery installations by capacity, have been using a nickel-based cathode, and roughly 30% at lithium iron phosphate or lfp cathode, which contains no nickel and no cobalt.
However, on a regional basis, this is very much a function of an almost 50% market share of LFP in China, and the proliferation of LFP outside of China remains relatively minute. It is expanding to some degree in the U.S., as you can see in the bottom right donut, in 2023, and it even expanded a bit last year. That is a function of predominantly Tesla producing or Tesla switching to LFP in the standard range models. However, the cells for these are still produced in China, and they're imported, and it's the same for Europe. So there is some scope for localized production of LFP, but it will take a few years for these LFP gigafactories to start producing and reach scale production. But for now, LFP remains predominantly a function of the Chinese market.
This is important for the precursors because nickel-rich chemistries require the use lithium hydroxide. now let me move on to the powertrain trends, and sales trends that we've observed in 2023 and SFA's, EV production forecast and overall, what that means for, the lithium demand market as well. BEV sales in 2023, or rather the growth of BEV sales in 2023, has indeed slowed. This isn't just a lower percentage because we are moving from a higher base. The growth in units, as the top left-hand side chart shows, is indeed 500,000 units lower than it was this time last year, during the first nine months of the year.
Last year, the number of units was about 2.2 million units greater than in 2021, and this year, we're only up 1.7 million units, compared to 2022. Now, this growth or these, I guess, lost units, if you want to call it that, have primarily come from China, where we're almost 900,000 units behind, and this is a function of loss in confidence from the Chinese consumer, from price wars that occurred kind of during the first half of the year as the OEMs battled to retain market share. But also, NEV subsidies were kind of slashed at the start of the year. So there was a normalization of growth to an extent.
And of course, there is the overarching macroeconomic condition, which or macroeconomic outlook, which for China, is much worse than was forecast at the start of the year. So there has been effectively lower than almost a million units lost of growth lost in China between last year and this year. The outperformer this year has actually been Europe, as illustrated on the bottom left chart, where we are up over 200 or a quarter of a million units between this year and last year. Now, this isn't enough to offset the losses in China, but it is showing that the region or the consumer demand pull from the region for electrification of or for EVs rather does remain strong regardless of the macroeconomic outlook.
The U.S. is a bit strange because there are both pull and push factors here. On the pull side, the best-selling EVs or the best-selling OEMs have had uplift from the Inflation Reduction Act, where the likes of Tesla and GM cars are now benefiting from the federal subsidy again. And overall, over a medium term, from a forecast perspective, you are seeing more investments in the North American supply chain. However, on the push side of things, you have things like the point of sale or the implementation of the point of sale access to the federal rebates from the Inflation Reduction Act coming in from 2024. You have the intent of the OEMs all switching to North American charging standard from as early as model year 2025, so from September 2024 onwards.
These are kind of incentivizing consumers to wait. So, to wait till next year. So, while sales are growing in North America, there is kind of a soft cap, and this is... As over time, we expect these kind of consumer, I guess, deterrence to buy an EV to reduce. And specifically for the North American market, we are also seeing more electrified pickups coming to market, more larger SUVs, which suit consumer preferences in the region. So as these models come to market, overall electrification efforts should increase as well. Despite this slowing growth narrative, it is also important to keep in mind that this slower growth is still outperforming the wider automotive market in basically all countries.
Now, the chart on the left shows you the top 15 by BEV sales, and you can see that the top bar in dark blue is basically bigger than the light blue in, on all countries. The only exception being South Korea, where there has been a slight decline. The only country outside of the top 15 presented here, where this trend of, BEV sales outperforming the wider automotive market, doesn't hold outside of South Korea, like I said, is the Philippines. Now, again, on the right-hand side, you can also see that this growth, BEV unit sales, they're still increasing, in, again, almost every market, with the exception of South Korea. Like I said, but again, South Korea as well, it's still flat. Basically flat. However, this growth, has meant that...
or this, this slowdown in China's growth, rather, has meant that China's share of global BEV sales has dropped from 50 to 55% from over 60% last year. And this could drop further if this growth trend continues in the last quarter of the year. Just to note that these figures are for year to September, so this is the unit sales are comparing like for like. Moving on. If we look at how the evolution of our forecast has happened, you can see that historically, there have been, you know, for over two years, we are up almost 50% from—for 2027, we were at about 17 million units, and we're now forecasting over 25 million units by 2027, and this is just for battery electric vehicles.
By 2030, that number is increasing from around 32 million - 36 million units in the space of a year. In EV penetration terms, this equates to about 35% of all light-duty vehicles by 2030. So by that, I mean passenger cars and light commercial vehicles, like delivery vans, et cetera. But this is weighted. If you look at just only passenger cars across all segments, that penetration rate is closer to 40%, so it is being weighed down by the commercial vehicles. The upgrade in growth is actually primarily coming from Chinese OEMs, which is quite strange because it's counterintuitive, almost, as I've just stated, that the sales in China are slowing.
But the Chinese OEMs are actually producing more, and the likes of BYD, they're actually looking to export more and increase their market share in ex-China markets. So while Chinese sales growth has decreased this year, Chinese production has actually increased. And Chinese OEMs are looking to increase their market share in international markets. And so from a consumption of metal perspective, China still remains the dominant force, or put another way, from an upstream perspective, Chinese trends or Chinese upstream players will continue to an extent dictate the overall structure of the upstream supply chain based on today's conditions. I just want to now move on to the U.S. and highlight the kind of changes that we've seen as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act.
So on the upstream side, or from an OEM perspective, what we've seen is, and you can see, we've seen a slew of announcements by OEMs and also cell makers, cathode makers, both to invest in North America to take advantage of the Inflation Reduction Act incentives, but also in Canada, where the government is almost matching the equivalent incentives. What we've seen in the US is the emergence of this almost battery belt, in the eastern United States, from the surrounding Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia. You can see this concentration of yellow dots on the screen.
This is counterintuitive because if we, if we look at the U.S. market, from a, from where, from a state-level wide policy, the, the states where these production hubs are emerging are actually the ones that, don't incentivize car ownership at all. Or sorry, don't incentivize the owning EVs, rather. So the likes of, you can see Georgia and Kentucky, for example, in gray, that have no specific statewide policies, that incentivize EVs. Rather, it's California, Colorado, are the main, are the, are the leading states which offer up to, up to $5,000 of additional credit on top of the IRA, plus, you know, up to basically, up to $7,500, additional. So this is on top of the IRA in Colorado. It is...
The point here is that it isn't necessarily the states where the EVs are being sold, which will be where the materials are being consumed. And so it doesn't necessarily matter on the politics of which who wins the next year's election on whether the IRA will be changed or the rebates will be changed. By and large, most of the Inflation Reduction Act incentives have actually been subsidies have been awarded to quote-unquote, "red states". So it's counterintuitive to believe that if a Republican victory happens next year, that those subsidies will be revoked at this point in time. And so I know that there have been a lot of questions asked to us, specifically by our clients, on what happens if a Republican president comes in next year or in 2025.
We don't view that as a huge risk on the Inflation Reduction Act. It could impact future allocation of subsidies or future awards, but the money that's already been awarded, we don't see that going anywhere. And that's kind of the point of the last two slides, is the spotlight on North America and the extent to what the resolution with which SFA is tracking this market. So circling back to what all this means for lithium demand, we see the gross lithium demand increasing roughly 23% annually out to 2030, reaching roughly or exceeding 2.5 million tonnes by 2030. And this is an increase of about 1.8 million tonnes over from where we are today.
Of this 1.8 million tonnes, 1.5 we see coming from EVs, and the bulk of that is coming from battery electric vehicles. Plug-in hybrids and heavy duties are the next biggest contributors, but the average battery pack sizes on BEVs, combined with the overall larger production volumes that we forecast or that we see coming through, means that the growth is essentially weighted to battery electric vehicles. So purely, battery-propelled, essentially, combustion and battery-propelled passenger cars. We see energy storage providing a kick in the second half of the decade, and while growth rates are high, these are off a relatively small base. So, but energy storage should be a significant growth factor next decade, or a significant contributor to growth in the next, from 2030 onwards. But after 2030, growth is limited from this segment.
And the likes of consumer electronics, such as laptops and mobile phones, these have a essentially much lower growth rate, in our view. And their intensity of use is also much lower, so there is both the volume and the battery size in factor there. So that's everything from me, and I'll now hand over to Tom, who will talk through the supply side of the lithium market. Thanks.
Thanks, Lakshya. Yeah, so I'm here today to talk about the lithium market, and what this means for supply and the overall market, when compared to demand. As you would have seen, in Lakshya's last slides, the amount of demand we project out to 2030 is quite considerable. So on our first slide, you can see our supply projections, including existing operations and what we call probable projects. These include those that are under construction or are board approved and are fully funded. As you can see, out to 2030, there's quite considerable growth of over 1 million tonnes in Lithium carbonate equivalent terms. This primarily is coming from places that are traditional lithium mining locations, such as Australia and Argentina.
So there's a number of expansions at existing mines, spodumene mines in Australia, and also some recently commissioned new mines in Western Australia as well. Likewise, in Argentina, there's been expansions at the existing brine operations there. But also a number of new brine operations are currently under construction or in commissioning phase, and are likely to add to supply from the region as well. A bit further out in the latter half of the decade, we get a lot more additional supply from new mines in Africa. A lot of these are based in places such as Zimbabwe and Mali, and many of which are Chinese-owned or funded. Likewise, in the latter half of the 2020s, we see an emerging supply from North America as well.
So this includes spodumene mines in Canada and some clay sedimentary deposits in the US. And also in this period, we see Sibanye-Stillwater's owned Keliber starting up production, adding to supply from Europe as well. So when we compare this to the demand projections, so you can see on the left-hand side, we have primary lithium supply. So the solid orange bars are the existing operations, the existing mines, and then they have the probable projects, and then the possible projects, split into their level of risk, essentially, so low risk, medium risk, and high risk. And then on the right, you've got lithium demand net of recycling.
And you can see that when you compare the two out to 2030, even with the probable projects under construction and the lowest risk possible projects, we're still a bit short of what is required to meet demand projections. This is largely, as Lakshya would have mentioned, due to growth in BEV demand. And you can see at the bottom right, the sort of regional split in terms of growth of electric vehicle demand, but also BEV demand, primarily, largely coming from China, Western Europe, and the US. And then on the bottom left, you can see again, where this potential new supply is coming from. So you can see that, you know, primarily, primary lithium supply from existing operations is largely stagnant from 2024, 2025 onwards.
And again, a lot of this is coming from Australia and Africa, the Chinese-backed mines in Zimbabwe, as I mentioned. But further out, the projects are primarily based, again, in Australia and Argentina, and like I said before, you get the U.S. and Canada becoming potentially quite key contributors to supply, over the medium to long term. Of course, a number of these projects have risks associated to them, with them, and a lot of the supply, the, you know, as, as I've said, a lot of the supply, additional supply required is likely to come from medium risk and high risk possible projects. And obviously, with those being greater risk, the likelihood of delays or them not reaching production at all, it increases.
So of course, that means further investment is still required in supply to keep up with our demand projections. And here you can see it in a slightly different way. This is our 2030 demand versus supply projection. So on the left-hand version of the chart, you have a demand column, so, you know, energy storage, hybrids, other end users, and then BEVs, the lithium demand for use in BEVs on top. And then that's stacked alongside potential supply, which you can see existing operations, lithium supply from recycling, and then the probable, the different categories of possible projects stacked on top of each other. And you can see that, again, similarly to the previous slide, that there is potentially enough lithium supply from these projects.
But when we, our probability assessment, and we sort of gauge just how likely we think each of these individual projects are to come online, you get the chart on the right-hand side. So you're going from potentially enough projects, but to meet demand, and produce enough lithium to be able to produce all the number of BEVs predicted, to potentially there not being enough supply at all once we factor in our probability assessment. So you can see that whilst when we determine the likelihood of these higher risk projects and the chance that they may be delayed, we get the situation where by 2030, the likelihood is that there still may be a shortfall in supply. So like I said, this could be down, slightly down to delays.
There's likely to be delays at various different projects. This could be related to issues with permitting, local opposition, various different uncertainty related to the resource types or the processing routes, and difficulties in the execution and the technicalities of these different routes and the projects themselves. So the potential shortfall is equivalent to the production of 5.8 million BEVs. So this, of course, may not... This is just sort of a figure to highlight the number of or the amount of production at risk, in simple BEV terms. Of course, in reality, BEV production would likely to be prioritised, or the lithium use would likely to be prioritised for utilisation in lithium ion batteries for BEVs.
In actual fact, the demand, other demand segments, or maybe energy storage may switch to alternative technologies or alternative metals to account for this shortfall. But it just highlights again the risk that despite there theoretically being enough projects, there still could be a shortfall in supply through the various technical and execution risks associated with many of these projects. And then looking at Europe specifically, so Europe is an even more extreme example of that trend, in the sense that European demand far exceeds the potential local lithium supply. So demand from EVs alone is estimated to reach 450 kilotons in LCE, Lithium carbonate equivalent, on a Lithium carbonate equivalent basis by 2030, with BEVs accounting for 85% of this demand by the end of the decade.
But lithium supply, or mined lithium supply is forecast to just be 164 kilotons, including all the probable and low, medium, and high risk possible projects. So as you can see, this is quite a considerable gap, quite a considerable shortfall. And it is again, equivalent to approximately 70, approximately 75% of Europe's planned BEV production being at risk. This is, you know, of course, assuming all the high risk possible supply comes on stream, which is far from certain, given the various issues, we've had in Europe recently, which theoretically means even more local, European BEV production could be under threat. Just to highlight some of these issues we've had, as you may well have seen, there's been a lot of local opposition and permitting issues that have threatened hard rock lithium projects.
They've already derailed the Jadar project in Serbia and more recently, are threatening projects in Portugal and also Spain. And while the Critical Raw Materials Act aims to help streamline the permitting process for these projects in the EU. It's not yet been adopted, and so there is, you know, the outcome of the act has not yet been seen. Because of the risks associated to European projects, the region may actually fail to meet its CRMA extraction target, that at least 10% of the EU's lithium consumption is mined locally in 2030. Now, excluding high-risk possible projects, the EU's figure for this would be less than 10%. However, if all these projects were to come online as planned, then that would be equivalent to 30% of lithium demand in 2030.
So again, it's highly dependent on these. The region is highly dependent on these high-risk lithium projects to even meet their targets. But yet, still with them, it remains far from self-sufficiency, not just in mining, but also potentially in processing and refining. Which of course means that Europeans' EV supply chain is likely to be highly reliant on raw material and lithium product imports from overseas, in 2030. But of course, a lot of other regions are looking to expand production, downstream production as well. And so global competition for raw lithium is likely to be fierce, which may limit material availability.
So just touch again a bit on that potential capacity, utilization elsewhere, and the other parts of the world that are looking, that are looking for, additional lithium supply from places such as Africa and Australia and South America. And you can see here that China's utilization capacity, so the monthly operating rate for Lithium carbonate capacity is on the left, and the equivalent lithium hydroxide capacity is on the right. And just the fact that throughout the past nearly five years, the capacity for both in China has been largely underutilized, and so there is still plenty of companies out there looking to find as much raw lithium, whether it be concentrate or Lithium carbonate, to, to convert into, to hydroxides, as much of that as, as they possibly can to, to fill capacity and, and, you know, increase profitability and increase revenue.
To summarize, this is what it means in terms of supply, demand balances, and price forecasts. You can see, as stated, there's the solid green bar is the current balance based on existing operations. As you go across, one, you've got the balance, including probable projects, and then including low-risk possible projects. You can see that in the medium term, through to 2026, the probable and low-risk possible projects could keep the market well-supplied. When you go further out into the latter half of the decade, you do see mounting deficits, even including these lowest-risk projects, therefore requiring, requiring the development and commissioning of the higher-risk projects, as already stated.
Therefore, on a price basis, we still, although the price is likely to reach a floor in 2024, we do think it's likely to start rising again over the longer term, helping to incentivize these high-risk projects. And even at current levels, despite the price still falling slowly, a lot of projects should still be incentivized, and should still continue to develop. And you can see that in the, in this rising price period is when both Keliber and Rhyolite Ridge are set to begin production. So to conclude, lithium-ion batteries are set to remain the go-to solution for electric vehicles, and NMC is likely to remain the globally dominant cathode chemistry.
While sales growth has slowed slightly in China, BEV sales continue to help form the wider automotive sector, and latest projections indicate a 35% penetration of BEVs by 2030. In terms of lithium, prices are predicted to stabilize at what are historically very high levels and rise longer term, continuing to incentivize the higher-risk projects. Of course, if further investment is still needed in supply to meet our demand projections out to 2030, otherwise, the equivalent of 6 million BEVs could be at risk based on potential shortfalls if the medium- and high-risk possible projects are excluded... and like I said, in Europe, 75% of BEV production is likely to be reliant on imported lithium.
And so just finally, this gives me an opportunity to invite you to the SFA Oxford Battery Metals Lectures in May next year. We have quite a track record of hosting these kind of events over the past 14 years. With speakers ranging from CEOs to key decision makers across the battery value chain. And with that, I shall pass on to James for questions.
Thanks, James. I do have a few questions on the webcast. The first is from Sandile at Umthombo Wealth , asking about guidance on the green portfolio capital commitments over the next 12 months. I think I'll park that question for later, 'cause we are gonna cover quite a lot of the detail on those, green metal, projects in the presentation. So if the question's still valid at the end, we can re-address that. The next one's from Nkateko Mathonsi at Investec: SFA revised the 2030 BEV growth outlook upwards, but Neal has warned about social pressures against BEVs. Does SFA factor in these social issues on their forecasts? Perhaps, Lakshya, you can answer that one.
Yeah. Thanks, James. So, to start off, how we do the forecast is, we use external data providers as part of. So we use the automotive production forecast from Global Data, who essentially compile the list of what OEMs are planning to produce by engine fitment and where they're planning to produce it. Historically, they have been quite conservative, actually, on the EV forecast, which is why, as I've shown, as EV sales today have outperformed, our forecasts have been revised upwards. Where we stand today compared to some of the other forecasters, we are still on the relatively conservative side of penetration rates, and some forecasts we've seen are actually forecasting even greater than the 35% that we have today.
Coming back to the question on how the social pressures, if we factor them in, they are implicitly factored in, in that we are still on the conservative side of EV penetration. And what I presented was, of 35%, was the global average. Obviously, the, the regional breakdown and penetration rates are different. So, for example, for North America, they are lower than, than that 35% figure. But conversely, in China, they are a bit higher. I, I hope that answers the, the question.
Yeah. Thanks, Lakshya, and, and this might tie in with the next question, which is: How will the world afford BEV? I guess that's the other side of the question. And how big is the chance that these BEV projections may not come to pass in 2030? So maybe if you can expand on your previous answer, and then maybe Neal can give a, give us a Stillwater view on it.
Yeah. So like I said, today, a big part of that BEV market is in China, and in China, sales growth has definitely slowed this year because of a myriad of reasons. However, the Chinese OEMs themselves are now looking to expand their presence in international markets. So a big risk to that forecast for 2030 is, today, that cost competitiveness relative to the internal combustion engine is coming from the battery supply chain in China, where they have achieved large economies of scale and integrated upwards successfully to lower their costs. So, interventionist policy and protectionist policy that basically slows down the proliferation of the Chinese OEMs growing into other markets is a risk that could slow down from our forecast further.
But if we are looking at how the Western OEMs are adjusting, it does—We, like I said, the Inflation Reduction Act, and as of this morning, the European Union has announced a final draft for the Critical Raw Materials Act. So how these policies play out for the Western producers and how the midstream supply, battery supply chain scales up to achieve the economies of scale necessary for cost competitiveness with the combustion engine, these are things that we're monitoring, and these are things that are risks to the forecast. Today, we assume that they play out as they have done in the past for China, but it could unfold differently. I'll hand over to Neal to present the Sibanye view as well.
Thanks, Lakshya. I think, as Sibanye-Stillwater, we are trying to ensure-
... that we are projecting a prudent and a moderate view of this growing segment of the market. It I may have created the perception that it's not a good place to be positioned, and if I've created that perception, that's the wrong perception. We do like the exposure we have, but we are not building our profile on hype. We are even more conservative than SFA. I don't know how you can scientifically include you know the resistance from social issues. I think that many of the projects that are marked as possible and probable are going to really struggle to come online, which ultimately will drive up the price of lithium, and that has a negative impact on the cost of battery electric vehicles.
From the clip that we played, you can see that social anger mounting. I think we need to be more cognizant of that. But of course, what you also saw in that clip was the fact that the U.S. as a destination, and I suspect Europe will be the same, will open up to miners like ourselves. So I do think we've probably got the most conservative view, but it's a safe view, and we are well positioned with our projects being high quality, low cost to benefit from whatever growth occurs in the battery electric vehicle or mobile battery and, you know, in future grid-scale storage coming out of lithium-ion batteries.
Thanks, gents. Maybe from the SFA team again, a question linked to the prices and costs of production. So first of all, why is the lithium price falling at such an alarming pace in 2023? And that relates, I guess, to the estimated cost profile of lithium projects going out to 2030, especially relative to current spot prices. So I guess, is current spot does it incentivize that new production coming online or not? And then a further follow-up on that is, how steep is the cost curve between coming and existing producers?
Yeah, sure. I'll answer that one. Thanks, James. So for the falling lithium prices in 2023, it's down to two things, really. As we've shown, the increase in supply, from Africa and Australia, in particular, going into China. And also the slightly slower growth, in sales in China, which led to sort of a bit of a build-up of stock in the Chinese supply chain, and that's coming from last year, where there was a real scrap for metal, and metal availability was a lot more limited, which drove the price up a lot higher than it had ever been before. In terms of the current prices and how that incentivises, projects, we still see these prices, even just below $20,000 a ton, being high enough to incentivise most projects.
There are some that are changing plans slightly and, you know, if we go quite a bit, if we go continue to go lower, then you will see some projects delaying plans and altering schedules. But currently, and based on our price forecast out over the medium term, the price should remain high enough to continue to incentivize development of most of these projects going out. And then in terms of the steepness of the cost curve, one thing that is often difficult to determine is just... the accuracy of the projects or the juniors' projected operating costs. So based on what we've seen from most projects, the cost curve should remain relatively flat.
Certainly some of the mines, new type source mines, like the lepidolite , for example, in China, are a bit more expensive. The operating costs are higher there, and as to a steepness in the fourth quartile. But generally, a lot of the projects in the rest of the world, operating costs shouldn't be that much higher or that much different to those existing operations. So the cost curve should, if those OpEx projections are accurate, remain relatively flat.
Thanks, both of you, for those, that response. A question, overall question on the market: Isn't it ultimately that a BEV is a durable good, thus susceptible to economic cycles, and therefore very much a call on future economic growth? And then the second part, so I guess for Neal, maybe, to respond to that question: Is it driven by economic cycles, or is there something else driving BEV adoption? And then, previously, SFA had forecast LCE of about 820,000 tonnes. The current forecast is 920,000 tonnes, with others being slightly higher. What factors have driven the successful implementation of these extra supply projects, and how are these factors anticipated to evolve to 2030?
Then just linked to that, while we can, from Adrian Hammond, just asking what assumptions for auto sales do we use? And I think you mentioned it earlier, Lakshya. Do we use LMC OEM forecasts, or do we apply any independent thinking on that?
Yeah. So I'll take the first and the third part of that question, and then Tom can go over where the supply increases have come from. So, yeah, BEVs being a durable good, that is true for all passenger cars. And to an extent, I suppose that is a call on future economic growth. But the other side of it is, there is a policy driver here that basically almost all international markets, as certainly the major markets, they are seeking to transition new car sales towards zero emission over time. In Europe, that timeline is 2035.
In quite a few markets, it is between, you know, the 2030-2040 period that policy is essentially banning the sale of new internal combustion engine vehicles, and so the industry is transitioning to zero-emission vehicles. And today, the most economically viable solution, at least in the passenger car segment, is battery electric vehicles, commercially available at least. So it is, it is not just a call on the economics, but growth, but rather it is, it is a policy driven as well. And I think consumers, despite the societal pressures and social pressures that Neal's brought up, on a wider perspective, there is greater environmental consciousness with, with... from consumers and, and as populations become increasingly urbanized, air quality is an issue.
So all of that, there, there is this desire from consumers to, to buy, a greener product if it is cost competitive with, with an alternative. So, and, and there are also policy drivers for OEMs, to go towards EVs. Regarding the assumptions we make on our, on our BEV forecast, yeah, there are certain, I guess, you could say, normalizations we do to the, the production forecast that we receive from LM, from Global Data. But SFA has... we, we have our own view on average battery pack sizes, which again, we are more conservative on, relative to some of our peers. And that impacts our global kind of battery demand forecast, which ultimately impacts our underlying lithium demand, nickel, cobalt demand, et cetera.
Similarly with chemistry outlooks, and the regional demand in between NMC or LFP, that is all proprietary to SFA, and that is we apply those on a country-by-country basis, almost, to derive our underlying lithium demand up. Tom, do you want to talk about our supply increase?
Yeah, of course. So, you know, in many cases, some of these projects will be a long time in the making, and it's just that, you know, once lithium prices got to the very high levels of recent years, that accelerated the push, or it accelerated the development of these projects to get them online. And led to, you know, final investment decisions being made and then construction started, and it's a lot of some of the new projects, particularly the ones in Africa, and it's been quite a bit of investment in South America as well, from Chinese companies, and they've really accelerated the development of deposits in parts of Africa, particularly in places like Zimbabwe.
And then, yeah, also the existing producers have obviously seen the very rapid increase in prices over the past few years, and as well as, you know, aware of the number of different junior companies trying to get into the industry and then to basically make quite a big investment into just maintaining their current market share for lithium, given the growth in both demand and supply. So there's been various different people or companies getting involved and investing in the space and looking further ahead, you know, obviously we wouldn't expect Chinese investment to decrease at all. And should also likely to get investment from the West as well.
So whether that be existing producers or oil producers such as ExxonMobil or car companies investing in that, in upstream projects, then, yeah, the West is gonna have to start investing in upstream to ensure supply of material for North America and Europe.
Thank you. I think this last question before we take the comfort break is for Neal, and I think this is probably where you say this, the disclaimer, Neal, that these are your personal views and not necessarily those of the company. But I'll ask anyway. Does Neal think that the statement of the politician in the video you played is or, are partially valid? And if yes, which ones, especially about the U.S. hindering mining inside the U.S.?
Yeah. So, I think we can safely say it's a company view. I was in Washington a few weeks back with our lobbyist, sharing the strategy of Sibanye-Stillwater with a number of congressmen, and a number of senators, and I can assure you that the Democrats see things quite different to the Republicans. So, although I heard Lakshya talking about, you know, a change in government with the upcoming election not really impacting the IRA, that might be so. But you could see ...
You could see the Republicans are pushing back against the legislation of, of, let's say, battery electric targets because they can't, they don't believe that their voters can support it. So that's becoming a social issue. I mean, he referred to the underperformance of batteries in cold conditions. That is real. Probably, perhaps not to the same extent that he may have, let's say, raised in the interview.
What I also do know is that I do think that a change in government will accelerate mining in the U.S., which is particularly pleasing for a company like ourselves that has put up its hand to be part of, let's say, bringing many of the high-quality resources in the U.S. to account. So I think, again, it's a balance. It's this balance between recognizing that a combination of technologies is required. If you push one technology at the expense of another, you create an imbalance. You will create social pressures. Even in Europe, you're seeing target dates for implementation of many of these new technologies being adjusted as realism sets in.
So I do think that the messages that we wanted you to take from that clip were that there is pushback against increasing the burden or the costs on consumers through legislation. Although everyone, I think, is supportive of reducing carbon, there's a limit to which they can do it, and that's why the question on economic cycles is also a good one. But it applies, as Lakshya said, to current vehicle production. And I think the other one is that America realizes it's got to do more about mining in America, which is good. Those were the key themes we wanted to come out of the interview.
As I said earlier, it's not about saying, "This is not a good thing." I think we are particularly well-positioned. But if anything, I'm trying to bring a bit of realism into the forecasting and how this may evolve. Thanks, James.
Thanks, Neal. We'll just take a five-minute comfort break now. If you could just return at 20 to the hour, and we'll continue with the rest of the sessions. We'll park the remaining questions till the end of the session and cover those at the end. Thanks a lot.
Good afternoon to everyone from Helsinki. In this beautiful picture, you can see not only a nice construction yard, but you can also see a refinery in Kokkola, which is advancing every day. It has been a great year, 2023, because we have not only started the construction of this refinery, but we have also, this year, Q4, started the construction of the mine and the concentrator. We are aiming to be the first one lithium hydroxide in Europe from its own ore, and our production ramp-up is planned 2025. Now, we are not only going to be the first ones in Europe, but we think that we are going to be the greenest one. We are very mindful of our production and product carbon footprint. It's not only the technology we use, it's the energy we use, but it's also the traveling we have.
It is an average of 3 days from Kokkola to travel to the continental Europe for our potential customers in Europe, and this makes the CO2 profile of our product outstanding against our peers. Here you can see where Kokkola and Kaustinen is located. You can see that it's on the west coast of Finland, and Kokkola is positioned extremely well because the refinery is going to be in the Kokkola Industrial Park, and there is a port next to this park. Now, the mines are only 60 km from Kokkola, so it is a very good logistical connection between the port and the mines, and then from the port, as mentioned earlier, to continental Europe. Here, we would like to show you a couple of milestones. You might know that Keliber Oy was established in 2001.
Sibanye-Stillwater acquired the original 30% stake 2021, and already 2022, we drew the option, this stake was increased to more than 50%. And again, 2023, it went over to 85%, our ownership in Keliber. Then again, H1 2023, through a rights issue, Finnish Minerals Group increased their share to 20% and Sibanye-Stillwater retaining about 80%. And that that is the partnership that we have created together with Finnish Minerals Group, and it's working extremely well. Couple of key numbers still for you to remember. Mineral reserves, 8.2 million tons. Grade, 1.0%, and if we take mineral resources inclusive of mineral reserves, it's 14.5 million tons. And with our yearly capacity of production, 15,000 tons. This means a 16 years lifetime for the mine today.
We haven't committed yet our offtakes. We have plenty of excellent discussions with potential candidates. We know that our most potential customers are going to come from Europe, and we think also that the green aspect of lithium hydroxide is very interesting for these customers. The total estimated updated CapEx is EUR 656 million. The majority of the funds, the capital is going to be spent 2023-2025. As you remember, the ramp up with external feed is 2025, and towards the end of 2026, we are going to ramp up to production with our own ore. With these updated numbers, our average estimated operating cost is EUR 6,759 per ton. Thank you very much. Let's move now to geology. So over to you, Pentti.
Thank you, Mika. In this first slide, you can see nicely our spodumene pegmatite ore. You can see those greenish minerals in this, in this photo, and they are those spodumene. All other minerals are quartz and feldspar, and also some muscovite white micas. Lithium is a light element that occurs in different kind of geological formations. The most common are pegmatite-hosted deposits, and then continental brines, and other are those sedimentary and geothermal sources. And these pegmatite and sedimentary type of deposits can be extracted by conventional mining operation, and it helps a lot in planning and scheduling point of view. Brines type of deposits are based on pumping saline waters to the surface evaporation ponds, and they have quite low cost production, but quite large surface footprint as well.
And if you think, this Keliber lithium project, so we have that pegmatite-hosted spodumene pegmatite deposit, and spodumene is that lithium mineral in our lithium project. And it is having good grades in, in that ways, and also, sedimentary type of deposit are also, if you think, new reserves in future, so they are good potential for that way. Pegmatite and brine type also having, process, that kind of proven processes already, and sedimentary and geothermal sources, those processes are still under development. Sibanye-Stillwater Keliber has reported, has declared attributable mineral resources from seven deposits, and they are Rapasaari, Syväjärvi, Länttä, Emmes, Tuoreet Saaret, Leviäkangas, and Outov esi. And the total number for those mineral resources are that 14.5%.
If you think those open-pit mineable mineral reserves, so they are associated with four deposits: Syväjärvi, Rapasaari, Outov esi, and Länttä. Over 90% of mineable, open-pit mineable reserves are held by two major deposits, Syväjärvi and Rapasaari. These figures are based on that what is Sibanye-Stillwater shareholding in Keliber Lithium project as at 31 December 2022. Sibanye-Stillwater Keliber lithium exploration is focused on western Finland, to here, Central Ostrobothnia region, where we have 13 exploration permit areas covering about 60 sq km. And then we have also 29 application of exploration permits covering about 80 sq km. Keliber is holding all significant known lithium deposits in Finland at the moment. This map in this slide, you can see, five of our drill targets during this year.
Number 1 is that, Rapasaari, number 2, Tuoreet Saaret, number 3, Syväjärvi, and then couple of greenfield exploration targets like Leviäkangas East and Timmerpakka, numbers 4 and 5. In this map, you can see nicely also that those very good local road network is already there. Those black lines and red lines are presenting those local roads. And you can see also here that Päiväneva concentrate location, at the southern side of our major deposits. Sibanye-Stillwater Keliber is investing in accelerated exploration and especially, especially drilling program. So during the latest years, we have, we have had exploration budget between EUR 1 million and EUR 2 million, and now we have in during this year, this year, we have EUR 4.5 million.
In the end of September this year, we were already drilled 23 kilometers, mainly to, our major targets, Rapasaari, Syväjärvi, and TuoreSaaret. TuoreSaaret is our latest discovery. It was discovered three years ago between Rapasaari and Syväjärvi. We have mainly drilled shallow levels, first 200 meters below surface. And you can see the diagram below or below this slide, that amount of drilling, annual drilling. So it has been roughly 14 kilometers by year, but now we are having forecast for 30 kilometers in the end of this year. Sibanye-Stillwater Keliber has continued successful exploration in this, our main area of interest. So we have got, numerous excellent or great lithium intercepts, and you can see, see this table of top 10 drilling intercepts.
And you can see the downhole length of intercepts are up to 86 meters, and, most of them are having that average grade, about 1% lithium oxide. And deposit was also mentioned here, so TuoreSaaret, and especially TuoreSaaret southern extension, has returned quite nice, good, high-grade intercepts. And based on these preliminary results, material increase in resources is anticipated. We are now updating our mineral resource estimate and, for 7 lithium deposits. So we are expected to have finalized this update work during next year. Thank you, and now I hand over to Markus Kivimäki, for permitting items.
All right. Thank you, Pentti. Now let's move forward to the permitting part. So Keliber project is in a good situation. It's well advanced with regard to the permitting, especially the key permits. And the key permits we consider being environmental permits and mining permits. For our first mine, that is Syväjärvi mine, we've had legally valid environmental permit and mining permit since the summer of 2021. Then moving to the right side, to the chemical plant or refinery, which is currently, as we've heard earlier today, which is currently being constructed in the Kokkola Industrial Park. Here, the required environmental permit we received in 2022, and it became legally valid then in August. Then the third part, which is needed for the integrated operations, which is the concentrator to be built in Päiväneva area.
That environmental permit was granted in December 2022. There was an appeal, or actually two appeals, against the permit, and we are currently expecting the process in the administrative court to end during 2024. The permit did include an enforcement order, which allows, and actually allowed us to proceed into construction despite of the appeals. Then, in addition, we have the mining permit for the Rapasaari mine, the second mine, which we are planning on taking online. That permit also has been appealed, and we expect the administrative court to provide a ruling already later this year. To conclude shortly, we've been successful in permitting, and we have been granted all the required key permits for the integrated operations.
As said, two of these permits have been appealed, but we are confident that these appeals will not impact the planned ramp-up schedule. And then, Hannu, I think you will continue from the next slide onwards.
Thanks, Markus, and, like said, permits have been granted, and, so like visible on the picture, and like said by Markus and, Mika earlier, the construction has been started. It has been started already on the seventh of March this year. By end of November, we will reach the full height of the building. The picture there is some three months, three weeks old, and you clearly see the progress, how we have advanced since the start. The ramp up will take place in mid 2025, and like mentioned on the bottom, right corner, we will start the ramp up with third party, meaning external, spodumene, concentrate. This slide shows the entire process, integrated process, from mine to concentrator.
Those two process steps are on the upper row, where the pictures are. After that, there is a truck transportation to lithium refinery and in the one continuous process, the spodumene concentrate will be processed as a lithium hydroxide. the good thing here is that from the mine to the concentrator, there is only a distance of 2 kilometers approximately, and from the concentrator to lithium hydroxide refinery, 66 kilometers road transport. This all means cost-effective production, low CO₂ emissions, and probably the most important thing, that we control the entire process, the quality, from the mining to the concentrator and lithium hydroxide refinery, and to the customer of delivery. We have selected a soda pressure leaching technology as the lithium refinery process and process technology.
The main benefits are low content of impurities like iron. Secondly, very important thing is inert and neutral side stream mineral residue. This is important topic because the lithium refinery will receive more than 200,000 tons input material in a year. We will deliver 15,000 tons to customers, and 200,000 tons is a side stream. And in case of soda pressure leaching, the side stream is pure sand, which can be used as a construction material. Then we go to the concentrator, where the construction start is now in November, and the construction time is bit more than 2 years, so we start to ramp up the production in very early 2026.
Next to concentrate the Syväjärvi mine, this is the mine number one, and we will operate the Syväjärvi mine 4.5 years, and after that, we will move to Rapasaari mine. In terms of capital expenditure, the Kokkola lithium refinery is the biggest one in the initial CapEx, and the concentrator is the mid one, and Syväjärvi mine, with EUR 9 million CapEx, is the smallest. Here, showing the full lifetime of the existing reserves, 16 years. Production start, like said, 2025, firstly with third-party concentrate, and then in 2026, we will start to use our own ore, high quality ore, and since that, we will have the integrated operation in use.
Fifteen thousand tons battery lithium hydroxide monohydrate is the production volume. Those two mines, Syväjärvi and Rapasaari, will last together 12 years, and like said by Pentti Grönholm, new exploration targets, for example, just in between of Syväjärvi and Rapasaari. Well, the fluctuation of annual production is between 14,000 and 16,000, so the 15,000 tons is not the maximum. Then, the full cost curve is with the blue line, and the euro numbers are on the right-hand side in the chart. The picture there on the right-hand side, it is something like one and a half weeks old.
Actually, it is a week ago Friday, then we had the snowfall first time, and in this picture, the construction is even more advanced than in the earlier one. So again, the operating costs, EUR 6,759, like mentioned by Mika, and then all sustaining cost, which is a higher number, EUR 7,259. This includes then sustaining capital over the entire lifetime of 16 years, when we think that also the mining, further mining development, is included. The left-hand side is like the steady state situation once we reach that in 2029, 2030, and then it is time to move forward and go deeper into numbers, and I hand over to Riku.
Thank you, Hannu, and good afternoon also on my behalf. In my part of the presentation, I will be covering three topics. First, an overview of the taxes, royalties, and other mandatory cost elements as we have them in Finland. Then a brief overview of the capital profile of the Keliber project, and then finally, a few words on the funding status, where we are. So first, here we have a list of the main elements under the headline of, of taxes and royalties. Once Keliber becomes operational and profitable, the standard corporate income tax, 20%, will be applied on Keliber. On top of this, we also have a recently introduced mining mineral tax.
Effectively, the feed into the concentrate that will be taxed on the metallic content of the feed, and this will become relevant for Keliber in year 2026 when we start the mining and concentrate the operations. Keliber will also pay compensation to the landowners to the extent that our operations are situated on properties which are not owned by Keliber itself. This is a relatively minor element for us, as Keliber owns majority of the land areas where we are having our mining operations. On the royalties, generally, one could say that there are no royalties in Finland, at least not in the similar way as in other countries.
But Keliber project will be paying a royalty to the government, according to a separate agreement made in 2014, whereby Keliber gained the ownership and control of some of the key deposits where we are now planning to start operations. Capital profile. The initial investment in Keliber comprises of three main elements: the Syväjärvi open pit mine, the concentrator, and the lithium refinery. And this investment totals some EUR 656 million. Majority of the CapEx outflow will occur this year and over the next two to two and a half years. Please note that the CapEx outflow estimated for this year is some EUR 100 million lower than we have previously communicated, and this is mainly due to later than anticipated start of construction at the concentrator site.
Sustaining capital over the life of mine is some EUR 104 million, and this includes mainly the opening up of new deposits and mine sites, and expanding the tailings facilities, water management capacity, and also plant maintenance. Financing of the project is well advanced. We have EUR 250 million of equity raised and paid in, and effectively, this is now the funding that we are using to advance the project. The equity funding will be complemented with debt funding by early next year, and the working number for the debt facility is some EUR 500 million. At the moment, we are in the process of evaluating all the different alternatives, what we have for the debt funding, including considerations for a green loan. Now I will hand over to Sirpa.
Thank you, Riku. The environmental and social aspects in the Keliber lithium project have been considered and comprehensively assessed throughout the whole project. In the pictures present some of the examples of the actions we have taken, such as adjusting tailings and facilities engineering to protect the flying squirrel habitat, equipping our culverts with ledges for otters, winter feeding the golden eagle outside the mining area, and constructing new ponds for the moor frog. The project location is very beneficial. The mining areas and the concentrator are mainly at areas that are already used for commercial forestry and peat production. The lithium refinery is at the Kokkola Industrial Park, where the supplies and facilities needed are readily available. The soda leaching process itself is sulfate-free, and the side stream, analcime sand, can be utilized, for example, in the harbor area expansion.
Our stakeholder work is systematic, it's open, and regular. We keep close contact to local residents, landowners, and future employees, and are visible in various events, informing about our plans, and of course, receiving feedback. An example of our work is participating local nature conservation projects, such as restoring spawning grounds for trouts near the mining areas. We strive for being the employer of choice by fostering a responsible, respecting, and safe work community. We promote diversity in recruiting and offer opportunities to professional development. The vocational schools and higher education institutes at the Central Ostrobothnia offer several programs in chemical engineering, business administration, and technology. We cooperate actively with them to ensure the availability of skilled employees in the future. Already at the early stages of the project, we have hired geologist students as summer trainees.
Some of them have later done their thesis work for the company and continued here as our coworkers. Thank you, and over to James.
Thank you. Thanks a lot. Just getting some questions from the webcast. Quite a lot related to the permitting process and the appeals. From Catherine Cunningham: Could we please get more detail on the nature of the Rapasaari appeal, timeline, potential implications for project economics? Is construction only going ahead on the concentrator while the appeal is in process? No, the mine will also obviously continue when it's due. But I'll let Markus respond to that. What do these Kilpi permitting appeals relate to? What happens if you are unsuccessful in the permitting appeals? And then what is the nature of the appeals on the permits, and what implication is there should the appeals not be in Sibanye-Stillwater's favor? Markus, could you respond to those, please?
Yes, I can. Sure. Thank you. Trying to take this one at a time. So I think the first one was about the, sort of the timelines and, and the... and also sort of the what the appeals were sort of, focusing on. On the timeline point of view, as I, as I tried to say, we expect the, the appeal processes to be done by mid-2024, and, and that means that we do not expect these to have any impact on the project timelines. And this sort of applies to both the environmental permit and the mining permit.
The enforcement order, which we got, relates to the building of the concentrator, which allows us to do it, and, looking at the sort of the project timeline, when we will have the permits in place, I'm confident, by the time that the Rapasaari mine sort of construction will start. Then, there was question about the sort of the, what the appeals, were focusing on or, or what they were about. There were two, appeals by, by third parties. One was, by a private citizen, and that was mostly focusing on, on, on issues relating to employee safety and, and dusting. And so, and in the Finnish context, that is not actually an environmental permit-related topic, so we are, we are sort of...
Like I say, we are really confident that that will not sort of be, gain any traction or have any merit in, in the court process. The other appeal was by an NGO, which actually, I think, has appealed to each and every environmental permit, which relates to anything close to mining in Finland over a long period of time. And as normal for this NGO, they have this kind of a shotgun approach, where they try to use all the arguments that they can think of. And the appeal also in this case is more or less a copy-paste exercise on other appeals that they've had against other mining projects in Finland.
Also, in this case, we've gone it through very diligently by the company team and our advisors, and we feel that we are in a very good position, and we have been able to to comment all the claims. And we see... We do not really see any possibilities, any material possibilities for the appeal to be successful. We are confident that we'll prevail in that.
Thanks, Markus. The next question from Chris Nicholson, and maybe this one's for Mika. When we announced the approval of the second phase of the development of the Kilpi project, we spoke about higher recoveries to offset some of the additional CapEx, but volumes are still guided to 15,000 tons of lithium per annum, and unit costs are unchanged. Could we elaborate on that?
Yes. Thank you, James, and thank you for the very good question. Originally, the background is that we got stricter limits from the authorities in our permits than originally anticipated and applied from our side. And based on that, we needed to change the technology we were planning for the wastewater treatment. And we found now a technology that we believe that can, in all circumstances, match the limits of the authorities, which is obviously the key, and we want to comply with that in all possible circumstances, as said. Now, the investment as such, which is close to EUR 60 million around, is not only about technology, it's also that we need to enlarge the current building. So it needs an enlargement building, for this purpose.
But the good news are that with this technology we can have higher recoveries of the lithium, and that means that we believe there is an additional EBITDA of EUR 10 million a year, which we have included in our updated financials. That means that if you take our IRR numbers or NPV numbers against the lower CapEx earlier, it doesn't really change the attractiveness of this project financially. The volume of 15,000 is an average production volume, and this has been kept unchanged here. Also, it doesn't as such have any major impact on the operating cost, which would then change again the final IRR or NPV numbers. Thank you.
Thanks, Mika. The next question from Nqabeko at Investec again. What is the long-term lithium price forecast used for reserve declarations? What price levels will increase the probability of a higher resource conversion into reserves? I'm not sure. Perhaps, Stefan, can you respond to that?
Happy to take it, James. In this study, as it stands, we've used between $23,000 and $25,000 per ton lithium hydroxide. our current view, long-term view is in the range of $34,000-$35,000 per ton lithium hydroxide. i think important to note is that Pentti has already hinted at an update to the mineral resources. Based on the result, there's definitely a material increase on its way. Based on that, we're likely to, in the course of 2024, update our resources as well as the mineral reserves, and that is likely to result in a material increase in these reserves, making use of the higher commodity price outlook. So we're actually quite optimistic on this.
We think it'll actually improve the valuation of the project quite dramatically. So definitely something to look out for. Thank you.
Thanks. Just, for Riku then, a couple of financial questions. What is behind the cost profile increase between 2031 to 2034? I think that was on the one graph that we showed. Then also, how confident are we that we'll be able to secure the EUR 500 million debt funding? And will Sibanye-Stillwater have to sign surety for this, i.e., will it have recourse to the group balance sheet? And then finally, and I'm not sure if you can answer this one, Keliber about IRR at spot, and when do we... When will we look to sign offtake agreements?
Thank you, James. A long list of questions, and I'll try to tackle those one at a time. If we start with the cost curve and the variability in our costs first, I suppose the general answer to the cost behavior is the variability within the key operational metrics, and three of those, especially, are relevant now for the cost behavior. First of all, the grades, i.e., the lithium oxide content of the ore, varies somewhat significantly within deposits and also across the deposits.
It was, I believe, on Pentti's slides, where the recent intercepts were presented, that gives you a flavor of the variability what we have on the lithium oxide content, and obviously, that has an impact then on the processing. Stripping ratios, waste rock volumes versus the ore, there is variability on that metric. On an average, the stripping ratio is 1 to 7, but there is quite a bit of variability around that number. And also then the final driver for the cost is open pit versus underground mining.
On Hannu's slide, where we have the life of mine plan, you can clearly see that the open pit and underground volumes are different between the years, and that is also having an impact on the cost level. Then on the funding and how sure or optimistic we are in terms of the funding. We are extremely optimistic and confident that we are able to run the process in a successful manner. We have a very good project, which has a very strong financial
... profile and key metrics. We know of a long list of banks that have shown interest towards us, so there is clearly interest and appetite towards a green lithium project in Europe. And with all this said, we are confident that we are able to secure the funding early next year. To what extent will there be recourse to Sibanye and the sort of Sibanye-Stillwater's balance sheet? What we have said earlier is that with Sibanye now having majority ownership in the Keliber project, we also have the opportunity to be evaluating corporate-style facilities to fund the project.
But, as I said in my presentation, we are now evaluating all possible alternatives for the funding, and we will be choosing the right one, and the one with... is of the most benefit for the project. But all in all, it looks very promising, and we are confident on that. On the offtakes, if possible, I could perhaps let Mika to tackle that one.
Yes, thank you, Riku. Concerning the offtakes, we haven't committed to any offtakes yet, which you know already, and we have plenty of potential good customer candidates. We are in a very good dialogue with them all the time, and we want to do offtakes when the time is right. Obviously, that is not too far away. It could be already next year. It could be right in the beginning of 2025. What we want to do is actually to get value for our green product, and we are after green premiums here when it comes to pricing of those offtakes. But we are very confident here because we have good discussions, and our potential customer candidates, they are willing to close these offtakes with us. But let us still wait for a while before we are ready time-wise to sign them.
Thank you.
Thank you. We've got one call on the conference line from Raj Ray, but before we go to that, I've got a question from Arnold Van Graan at Nedbank, which, as we know, is the greenest bank. And perhaps, Neal, I mean, you've been to both sites. Can you comment on where the best fishing is, Keliber or Stillwater?
Arnold, that's got to be the best question of the day. Let me say I'm not a fisherman, but the fishing I hear is great in both areas. I think the difference between Keliber and Stillwater, we bought the Beartooth Ranch, and we got a mine for free. Here, we had to buy a mine. Anyway, jokes aside, no, listen, they're both wonderful.
Thanks, Neal. I think, on that note, we'll go to the conference lines, to Raj, for his question.
Thanks, James. I've got a couple of questions. First, I think it's for Hannu. With respect to the Soda Pressure Leaching, I get the benefits of that process, but as you go from a pilot stage to a commercial operation, can you highlight are there any key risks to that technology that you can talk to? And also, when you're looking to get third-party concentrate, does this process behave well with all types of concentrate, or is there a particular quality of concentrate you'd need for the Soda Pressure Leaching?
Thanks, Raj. Hannu, could you respond to those questions?
Questions. So, first of all, soda pressure leaching is the novel part, which we have piloted 2 times, first with Syväjärvi ore in a continuous pilot process in cooperation with FLSmidth and Metso. And secondly, Rapasaari ore, same with FLSmidth and Metso as well, and both successful. From both of those pilots, we have gained lithium hydroxide. then we, of course, have process guarantees with both of those companies, both of the technology providers, and we have agreed a substantial on-site support once the mechanical completion is done, and we start the cold commissioning test, and especially then when we start to put spodumene concentrate in.
Then, related to the spodumene concentrate, we have, for the ramp-up period, three external potential sources. However, nothing. No, no deals done yet, but three places where to buy concentrate.
Thank you, Hannu. That's all the time we have for questions on the Keliber project. We'll respond to any outstanding questions at the end. Now I think we'll hand over to Rob van Niekerk, who will give an overview about the Rhyolite Ridge project. Thank you, Rob.
... Good morning, and good afternoon, everybody. I'm Robert van Niekerk, and I'm the Chief Technical and Innovation Officer for Sibanye-Stillwater, and I'll be talking to you the future Rhyolite Ridge joint venture. In 2021, we acquired a 7.1% share in Ioneer. At that time, we entered into an agreement with Ioneer to establish a JV to implement the Rhyolite Ridge project. In this regard, we still need to contribute $490 million for a 50% interest in the Rhyolite Ridge JV. Now, the area I'm going to be talking to consists of two basins, and I'll discuss them in a little bit more detail later. But for this purpose, I would like to say that the JV includes only the South Basin.
Having said that, Ioneer is to contribute another 100% of the North Basin to the JV for an additional consideration from our side of $50 million. Ioneer is, at the moment, the operator of Rhyolite Ridge, and they will remain the operator of the JV going forward. Rhyolite Ridge is one of the most advanced lithium projects in the U.S. It is a large, shallow lithium-boron sedimentary deposit in Esmeralda County, western Nevada. If you look at the right-hand side of the slide, and there Rhyolite Ridge is depicted by way of that star, we can see that the project is approximately 70 mi to the west of Tonopah, 200 km by road to the south of Reno, and about 230 km by road to the north of Las Vegas, in an area of existing infrastructure.
Ioneer completed a feasibility study in April 2020. This feasibility study confirmed the project economics and confirmed a very, very significant operation, producing 2.5 million tons of-- or mining 2.5 million tons of ore per annum, producing 22,000 tons per annum on average of Lithium carbonate, and another 174,000 tons per annum on average boric acid. At that stage already, the project had reached an advanced stage of engineering, and a lot of work has been done subsequent to that. The feasibility study also envisaged a 2-year development cycle. Insofar as the permitting is concerned, the project is in the final stage of federal permitting.
Perhaps I should refer you to the scale at the bottom of the page, where we can see that an air quality permit and a water pollution control permit was already received in 2021. A mine plan of operations, which needs to be approved by the Federal Bureau of Land Management, has been submitted, and a notice of intent published on December 20, 2022, marking the onset or marking the start of the NEPA process. The NEPA process continues, and Ioneer is of the opinion that a draft environmental impact statement will be issued by the end of this year. That being the case, the Record of Decision is expected in the first half of next year, and Rhyolite Ridge can commence operations in 2026. Having a quick look at the Rhyolite Ridge processing plant, the plant consists of three sections.
We've got the crushing and the vat leaching section, the boric acid production section, and the Lithium carbonate production section. As I said, the nameplate capacity is 2.5 million tons per year, and the plant will produce 22,000 tons of Lithium carbonate and 174,000 tons of boric acid on average per year. Sulfur, either in the form of pellets or in the form of liquid, will be delivered to the on-site sulfuric acid plant. Water will be supplied from local wells or within a radius of about 1.5 miles or so, and 35 megawatts of electricity will be provided by a steam turbine generator. The plant, excuse me, will be owner-operated.
If I can refer you to the right-hand side of this slide, and within the green envelopes, we have the mineralized South Basin and the mineralized area North Basin. We can see that the South Basin is approximately 8 square kilometers, and the North Basin, 14 square kilometers. Now, the feasibility study is less than 15% of this total footprint, and the South Basin has been extensively drilled by Ioneer. The North Basin has also been well-defined through 50 holes, or more than 50 holes for that matter. That was drilled by US Borax, Rio in the 1980s and 1990s, and a few more holes by Ioneer in 2016.
Again, if you look at the picture on the right-hand side of the slide, the resource potential of the South Basin extends to the north, it extends to the east, and it also extends to the south. And then, of course, the resource basin of the North Basin extends in all directions because it hasn't been included yet. So zooming in on the resources, we only have declared, or Ioneer has only declared resources for the South Basin. They were updated in 2023, and the total mineral resource is 3.4 million tons. ...
Again, if I can refer you to the, to the illustration on the right-hand side of the slide, that is an east-west segment of the South Basin, and immediately to the left of that is a stratigraphic column, displaying the mineralized package within the South Basin, and it starts with an M5 layer on top, then there's the B5 layer, the S6 layer, and the R6 layer. And that package is in excess of 150 meters thick in the center of the basin. There's essentially three types of lithium mineralization. The first type, or type one, is lithium with a high boron and low clay content. Here, there is 157 million tons of resource containing 1.2 million tons of Lithium carbonate equivalent. The second type, or type two, is lithium with high clay content.
Here, there's 75 million tons containing 1 million tons of Lithium carbonate. Then type three mineralization is lithium with low boron and low clay content, containing 1.1 million tons of Lithium carbonate. It is only type one mineralization, which is included in the 2020 feasibility study. Ioneer is busy evaluating future growth options, future growth potential of the area, with conceptual studies of all these layers or all these zones within the South Basin, and then also in the North Basin as well. In September of this year, Ioneer shared the test results for almost 80% of the 360 million tons mineral resource, and they maintain that it can be processed in a similar manner to type one mineralization. This slide demonstrates the multi-generational growth potential of the area.
By multi-generational, I mean what can be expected in the near term, what can be expected in the medium term, and what can be expected in the longer term. In the near term, we have the feasibility study, which, as I mentioned, only focuses on type one mineralization, and this is gonna be a significant operation. It's gonna have a life of 26 years. The point I'd like to stress here is, it is only 41% of the total type one mineral resource, and it focuses predominantly on the B5 horizon, or the B5 layer, and to a lesser extent, on the R6 zone. In the medium term, we've got the type two and the type three mineralization, which is the M5, the S5, and the R6 zones.
These zones, by the way, are already being mined, but they have been spoiled to the side, or alternatively, they have been stockpiled as part of the mining process. Ioneer is currently processing, or Ioneer is currently evaluating the processing of these layers at the moment. And then in the longer term, we've got the North Basin, which, as you've seen, is much larger than the South Basin. It is well-defined through historic drilling, as well as a gravity survey and leach tests in this regard are being progressed as well. This is a snapshot of what the total mineral resource looks like, and it's been divided into two categories. We've got the high boron content category, and we've got the low boron category.
If you look at the second column from the right, boron grade, parts per million, you can see that the boron grade in the high boron category is much, much higher than the boron grade in the low category. However, if you look at the lithium grade, which is the column which has been bolded, you can see that the lithium grades, to a large extent, are the same within the high boron as well as the low boron categories. In total, there is 360 million tons of ore resource at a lithium grade of 1,750 parts per million, containing 3.4 million tons of Lithium carbonate equivalent. The average boron grade is 6,850 parts per million, containing approximately 14 million tons of boric acid.
This declaration does not include the drilling program that was conducted in 2022 and the drilling program that was conducted in 2023. So in conclusion, what does Rhyolite Ridge offer? Well, it has the right products. That's in carbonate and boric acid. It's in the right location. It is in the U.S. It is well-positioned to serve the U.S. EV battery supply chain. It has an experienced team. Bernard Rowe has been with this project from the beginning. He explored this region, he led the team that developed the feasibility study, and he will also lead the team that will eventually develop the mine. We've already discussed the expansion potential in the medium term and in the longer term. There is third-party validation. We like this project. We have validated this project.
The US Department of Energy has also validated it through their conditional loan of up to $700 million, and there is a very clear path to production in the near term. So, thank you, everybody. I think I'll leave it there, and then I'll hand over to Neal. Thank you.
... Thank you, Rob. I'm gonna conclude briefly. I trust that through this presentation, you recognize that Sibanye-Stillwater is well-positioned for significant value creation from the supply of this unique combination of critical green metals into what we anticipate being a rising price environment. This is all about creating value and being well-positioned. We have a unique exposure to both PGMs and battery metals, and as I outlined right at the beginning of the presentation, I think that there's more of a balance coming in the market between internal combustion engines and battery electric vehicles, probably in the form of hybrids. We are improving our geopolitical positioning, and we're expanding our revenue base outside of South Africa.
That'll certainly accelerate once Keliber and Rhyolite Ridge come on stream and as we grow our recycling and secondary mining business. We are benefiting from our strategy by having positioned ourselves in Western ecosystems and the benefits we are getting from the IRA are substantial. We are demonstrating class-leading resource stewardship with our growing exposure to urban and secondary mining, in addition, of course, to our primary mining. You would have seen from the Keliber team's presentation, the Keliber lithium project is progressing very nicely. It's well-positioned and poised for delivery lithium hydroxide into the growing European battery ecosystem. It's got significant potential for scalability of both the primary supply out of Finland and, of course, the refining capacity, which is modular.
In fact, we can build modules around the world as we grow our battery metals portfolio. You would have also seen from Rob's presentation that the Rhyolite Ridge lithium project is really a nice project, strategically located, with a boric acid by-product, resulting in it having a low cost of lithium production, based on the by-product credit. We have a large footprint and a number of mineralized horizons, which we are really only now starting to make visible to the market. So this project has significant growth and scalability as well. We have significant US government support through the DOE conditional loan of $700 million and, of course, the benefits that'll come from the IRA.
So perhaps our purpose of safeguarding global sustainability through our metals is now better understood as how we are delivering into the purpose. Before we go on to Q&A, I would just like to thank all of those that put this presentation together: the IR team, the presenters, SFA Oxford, and others. Thank you very much. So, James, over to you now for Q&A.
Thanks, Neal, and thanks to Rob as well. You seem to have done your job quite well because I've got very few questions on Rhyolite Ridge. The one, only one really is from Adrian Hammond, asking about when we'll make a decision on our, on taking our share in Rhyolite Ridge for $490 million. Rob?
We are expecting that we'll get a positive Record of Decision by the middle of next year. And at that stage, we'll also have an amended feasibility, because the project area has shifted slightly to the southeast in order to cater for the critical habitat associated with Tiehm's buckwheat. So we will have an amended feasibility study, probably by the middle of next year, at which time we'll be able to take the feasibility to our board of directors, but as well as the ioneer board of directors for Rhyolite. So we're expecting to take a decision within next year.
Thanks, Rob. I think the next few questions will be for Mika. Or Mika, you can redirect if necessary. The first is, can you please comment on community support for the Keliber project? A question about whether debt funders would want offtake agreements before they commit to their funding. Then a question on the by-products feldspar, mica, and quartz. How pure is the quartz in the by-product, and how much of the by-products are produced? I'm not sure if you can answer that level of detail.
Thank you, James. Let's start from the local support for Keliber project. I have to say that the team-
... has done excellent job when it comes to local communities, authorities, et cetera, by informing them, arranging Q&A meetings, and it is very strong, and we are going to continue that so that the local people know where we are going with the project. The local people see also a great benefit for the region economically that we are creating jobs, we are creating taxes, so it's a very positive thing. Concerning the financing and the funding question on the offtakes, we need to remember that we are not going to do a traditional project financing, and that is because of the Sibanye-Stillwater group contribution for the project and that we have committed ourselves to the full project financing.
Of course, we want to see as well that the offtakes are well in place in advance before we start with our own ore 2026, and even before that, we are going to produce with the external feed. But we don't have to do them now. That is not a demand from the banks. And I think that, maybe Hannu could comment. The Keliber side product is the analcime sand, so I give over to you, Hannu. Thanks.
Yes, thanks. Thanks, Mika. The main side stream from the Keliber lithium refinery is really the analcime sand, which is pure sand, nothing else, and it can be used as a construction material and, for example, harbor expansion or road construction, pedestrian streets, or raw material for concrete industry. The first one is really the port expansion. With Port of Kokkola, we have a mutual understanding or a common long-term plan that we will deliver analcime sand to the port expansion raw material, and that has been permitted by the environmental permit authority. Then, additional things are like concrete industry and also soil improvement.
So there are some wetlands, where we have tested Analcime Sand as material and sand to improve the soil as a forest basement. Then, there are also further opportunities to research, like niobium from the Keliber ore. However, this is very early-phase thing, and we have started some R&D works with this topic. In addition to the community work, we have also received some funding, and positive things and some in terms of money from Business Finland. It is part of not the local community, but the national community, in magnitude of some single million EUR when counted together. Then, from EU Resilience Recovery Fund, we received EUR 7 million.
Thanks, Hannu. A question possibly for Charles, I think, from Chris Nicholson. Are we actually receiving the 10% operating cost credits at the USPGM operations under the IRA in cash, or are we just providing at this point, and when would we expect to receive the cash?
Thanks, James. Thanks, Chris. Yes, at this point, we, we're only providing for it. We're waiting for the final legislation, but once we submit our tax return, which would be after the financial year, we would then be claiming that, that credit. But, but as we said previously, it will be similar to a grant rather than a rebate on tax. But Chris, only in the new year.
Thanks, Charles. Another PGM-based question, actually, and I think this is probably for Richard, actually. Well, not recently. Today, we announced with Heraeus a new ruthenium-based catalyst for PEM electrolyzers, which we developed together with Heraeus. Could this change the game for electrolyzer adoption, and how is Sibanye-Stillwater positioned for this? Richard, are you able to comment on that?
Thanks very much. Thanks, James, and yeah, afternoon, everybody. Adrian, thanks very much. Good question. Absolutely. I think, you know, if you go back and look at the first slide that Neal showed or one of the first slides in his presentation, you know, it showed the shift of energy mixes more towards electricity. A big part of that was obviously growth in hydrogen, which in fact of all the sources is gonna grow the most, albeit off a bit of a low base. You know, when it comes to hydrogen production and specifically developing green hydrogen from renewables, that requires what's called PEM electrolyzers in order to undertake water electrolysis, and that uses PGMs. One of the biggest inhibitors has been that it has been very reliant on iridium.
To put that into perspective, the current primary iridium market is only about 250,000 ounces a year. And that obviously has led to, I think, some real concerns around, is there going to be enough to really meet demand? And that's also inhibited further development of PEM, PEM technology. So unlocking that concern, I think being able to show customers that we have an alternative technology, you know, is key to unlocking that development. In addition, we're also working with partners around optimizing recycling, along with our strategy, as Neal also explained there, to provide further comfort in that regard. So yeah, I think it's a key aspect to really unlocking PEM electrolysis in particular, which is a big portion of green hydrogen production going forward. Are we well-positioned for it?
Well, you know, at the moment, Sibanye currently supplies about 25% of the world's primary iridium and ruthenium. So, so I think the short answer is exceptionally well-positioned, because these are such rare metals. Along with our sort of business approach, we also work very closely with our partners in the value chain to make sure that this is done sustainably. So, so, so yeah, very well-positioned. Thanks, Adrian. Thanks, James.
Thanks, Richard. Just we'll quickly go to the lines. I believe there's one question from Raj on the conference call line.
Hey there. Thanks, James. So I actually have a couple of questions for James. One on Rhyolite Ridge, and a broader strategy question for Neal later. But first on Rhyolite Ridge, with the draft EIS expected likely for 2023. Can you remind us how the company or the project operators have proposed to address the buckwheat issue? That has been a challenge in the past. And second, with respect to the Rhyolite Ridge CapEx, I guess the DFS was 2020, if I'm not wrong, and we live in a much different environment today. So should we expect an updated DFS with new numbers on Rhyolite Ridge? And then I'll ask a question on to you later.
Can we, Robert, will you be able to answer that one? Sorry.
So, you know, I'll talk to that question. In quite a while back ago, Tiehm's buckwheat was declared as a endangered species. And in that regard, it was necessary to establish a critical habitat for the endangered species. But I, yeah, actually welcomed the onset of that regulation because it is in the interest of them and it's in the interest of everybody that we look after the flora of the area. And they defined a critical habitat of a radius of 500 meters in all direction. And the way they defined that critical habitat was by looking at a lot of issues, including all the insects, all the pollinators, and to see how far they move from the populations of the Tiehm's buckwheat.
So they've got a lot of confidence in that number, and they changed their mine plan of operations, and they submitted a new mine plan of operations to the BLM, which allows them to mine without impacting significantly and directly impacting any of the Tiehm's buckwheat or the Tiehm's buckwheat populations. So that is in order, and that is the mine plan that has been submitted, and it's in line with that mine plan, and a notice of intent has been issued. Can you just remind me what the second question was, please, James?
Sorry, Raj, do you want to repeat, the second part of your question, please? If we can just go to the line quickly.
Yeah, sure. Yeah, sure. The Rhyolite Ridge CapEx, as of the 2020 DFS, was $750 million. Now, we live in a much different environment today, so, are you looking to update those, the DFS numbers, anytime soon for Rhyolite Ridge?
Raj, the simple answer to that is yes, they will be updated. They'll be updated for escalation, they'll be updated for inflation, and they'll also be updated because the nature of the project has changed slightly. I just referred to that the project has moved in a south-easterly direction to avoid contact with the Tiehm's buckwheat, and this has necessitated a review or an amendment to the feasibility study. We expect to see that amendment come out in the middle of next year, so.
Okay, that's great. Thank you. And then one last question for Neal, if I may. Neal, it's a bit of a challenging question. I understand that today's focus is more on the lithium market and the lithium projects, but you also have this other portfolio of green energy metals-focused operations, as well as recycling operations that speak to your circular economy strategy. When can we expect some more visibility on some of these other operations? Because, look, Reldan, if I look at... Are you currently trading at 2x EBITDA, which is dilutive to your earnings, and then also Sandouville and New Century has its own challenges. So, can you speak to the growth opportunities you see in the rest of the portfolio?
Also in terms of timeline, when can we expect that to positively and accretively add to your earnings?
Yeah. So, Raj, obviously, I can't talk about the strategy in detail in terms of targets specifically, because that somewhat gives the game away. Obviously, it's a challenge having such low multiples on your share price or on your earnings. And of course, some of that, the low multiples are-
... are well understood, such as having a dominance of your exposure in South Africa and having a strategy that involves external growth, which obviously gets perceived as being risky because of, you know, potential debt issues and overhangs perceived due to equity. But it's a process you've got to work yourself through, or forever and a day, you're going to be constrained. So you're quite right, and we recognise straight away that when you buy Reldan at a multiple of 5, and we're trading at multiples of 2.5, 3, whatever it may be, it is dilutive on day one. But guess what?
We obviously have a plan that that multiple of five is actually much higher because we see a lot more upside in Reldan. So, that gets factored into our thinking. Unfortunately, because it's forward-looking, it's hard to share that with the market, and you have to give us the benefit of the doubt that we understand these issues. Oh, sorry, let me just finish what I'm saying. I think as these bolt-on acquisitions, especially in a low PGM environment, continue, and as projects like Keliber come to fruition, there will be an aha moment where suddenly more revenue is coming out of this space than perhaps out of PGMs.
Although I must tell you, I think the pendulum has swung too far on PGMs, and I think it'll come back. But nevertheless, we will have a much better-balanced portfolio. In terms of other commodities, such as nickel, again, I just wanna say that Sandouville has proved challenging in that we expected the losses to be a lot less. But I think we are on an exciting opportunity to actually leapfrog the step to build a nickel sulphate plant. Now, what those of you that understand the technology and the processing route would know that Sandouville is a chloride plant, and that expertise and that plant, if it could be used, and it can be, in our view, can be used to go straight to pCAM.
You suddenly have a, you have a real winner. Now, we're not quite there yet. Our technology and hydrometallurgical experts are busy with that, and I'm hoping that within the first half, perhaps even the first quarter of next year, we will have more guidance for you in the market. But the one thing I can assure you is that the losses at Sandouville will become a lot smaller because we've made huge improvements on availability and throughput, but the nickel market has turned against us. In terms of New Century Resources, well, I'm pretty pleased to say that that's recovered, and it's delivering exactly in line with our expectations, and it's not negative.
Although zinc is not really a primary focus, there's been some other issues in the zinc market that I think are gonna benefit us, such as, as far as in plants and so on. You know, and I think Charles will provide an answer to the overall status of the company. But essentially, our balance sheet is ring-fenced for our operating business. Our growth and acquisitions require a different way of assessing and funding. And we're very mindful of how we do that, without just over-reliance on our balance sheet under these conditions. So, you know, hopefully, you get some comfort in that we're familiar with exactly what you're referring to and how we see it.
Thanks, Raj.
Thank you, Neal. Back to Charlie.
Thanks, Neal. I think the last two questions I'll direct to Charles. As you said, he can cover the overall, I guess, financial situation of the group. The question from Adrian is regarding group covenants and liquidity. Where are leverage ratios currently? Well, I mean, we can only give obviously-
Half year
... from the half year. What flexibility does Sibanye-Stillwater have, given current PGM prices? And then the second question was about funding the $490 million for the 50% Rhyolite Ridge JV stake and the timing of the cash outflow. I think Rob dealt with the timing, but maybe you could talk about how are we gonna fund it.
Yeah. Thank you, James. So in terms of the balance sheet, Adrian, you would know that, you know, we came through a very tough period and, you know, in the last, I would say, three years, you know, we managed to restore the balance sheet. At half year, we did dip slightly, and when I say slightly, 0.01 times net debt to adjusted EBITDA. So I would say, for all intent and purposes, still flat. But, you know, where we are in the market currently, specifically around PGMs, and, you know, as capital expenditure on Keliber is starting to ramp up, we see that we'll go slowly into a net debt position, but, you know, still within our comfort levels of one times. Or so not within, below our comfort level.
So from that perspective, we're still in a very healthy position. We are busy with our 2024 operational plans, and there we have the opportunity then to obviously, you know, plan the operations so that we remain well below, you know, our covenant levels. Now, just as a reminder, our covenants sit at 2.5 times net debt to adjusted EBITDA, so still lots of headroom. Similarly, on a liquidity perspective, you know, we've got $1 billion on the dollar RCF, ZAR 5.5 billion on the rand. Now, the rand, we will refinance early in the new year, but I do not expect any challenges there. So yeah, I think fairly healthy.
We will monitor the covenant situation, and as I said, we have the opportunity now to reset for 2024, considering the tighter price environment we have. Insofar as Rhyolite Ridge is concerned, you know, there we'll have to see, you know, what our options are at the time, and that's all gonna be dependent on the cash flow. You know, we expected it to be over probably four quarters, you know, as the capital expenditure starts ticking up on the project. So then we'll look at possibly external financing. Now, you know, there's a whole suite we can look at, you know, be it term debt, be it, you know, a bond, whatever the case might be.
But yeah, I think, you know, we, we've modeled that, and that doesn't necessarily impact covenants, but, you know, you know, we just need to make sure that we get the best possible outcome. Now, you know, we, we can also see a case where some of that can be funded from free cashflow. So, you know, I, I would say probably between 40% and 50% can potentially come from free cashflow as well. So, yeah, I think on Rhyolite Ridge, you know, just remain flexible, so that we can fund it as and when that is required.
Thanks, Charles. I think we'll call it a day. It's been quite a long session. There was one last question that just came in regarding whether we would consider an IPO for Keliber for financing the projects. I think if you just look back on the Keliber section of the presentation, you'll see that we are fully equity-funded, for, for all that portion of the, financing requirement for the project, and we're currently looking at, debt funding for the rest, as Riku, discussed in some detail. So I think on that note, thanks everybody for attending. I hope you found, found the session useful. And, perhaps next year we'll get to test whether the fishing is better at Stillwater or at Keliber. But thanks a lot, and, look forward to the next time. Thank you.