Good morning, and welcome to the Ferro-Alloy Resources Limited Investor Presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen-only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted at any time by the Q&A tab situated in the right corner of your screen. Just simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company will review all questions submitted today and file a response to it if it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll. I'd now like to hand you over to Nick Bridgen, CEO. Good morning to you, sir.
Good morning. Sorry, I've got a screen to respond to. I'm not quite sure if anyone's listening to me.
Hi there, sir. If that's the poll, just respond to the poll and then proceed.
I see. Yes. Thank you. Sorry about that. Anyway, good morning to everybody. Yes, I'm gonna go through this presentation. Alongside me are Will Callewaert, our Finance Director, and Andrey Kuznetsov, Deputy Director of our operating company. If I need any help with any questions, they will be there. On the presentation, if I can just skip the first few pages and start at the overview. I'm gonna make this a very short presentation because most of you, I think, will have already know the story and have heard me before. I'm just gonna really focus on the new news with a little recap on where we are and who we are for those that it is the first time.
We're dual listed on London Stock Exchange and the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange in Astana, but all our operations are in Kazakhstan. Our main reason for being is that we have a very large and very interesting project, the Balasausqandiq project, which we're just completing a feasibility study on. That should be out by the end of the year. Based on our previous test plant, which we've expanded and adapted, we're actually in operation and making vanadium and molybdenum and nickel from bought-in concentrates. We won't start mining until the main project is in operation. Vanadium is our main product. It's a critical metal in European, American, and British eyes, and for good reason. It's got a huge new future as a battery metal.
The vanadium redox flow battery is the favored technology for long-term bulk storage of renewable energy. It won't be used for cars or anything mobile, but it's in its niche. It is a front-running technology. That may increase the consumption of vanadium by up to about 30% compared with today. In its traditional use, it's also growing very strongly because adding a very small quantity of vanadium, like 1 kg per ton, 1 part per thousand, it virtually doubles the performance of the steel, so it cuts down on the amount of steel required. As 10% of the world's CO2 is produced from making steel, anything that cuts down on the amount of steel is good news and likely to happen. That's why it's on the critical list.
Now I'll go straight to the reason why we're holding this meeting, our production results. If you look at column Q2 under 2023, that's the most recent quarter that we've reported on. As you can see, that's chalk and cheese from anything we've done before. In numbers, the tons treated is 95% up. The amount of vanadium is 85% up, vanadium production. Moly production, 57% up. Nickel production, 95% up. It really is quite extraordinary. Those percentages, by the way, are compared with the average of the 2022 quarters. Really very good result. The obvious question is why, this really gives the answer.
We've been working on a lot of factory upgrades that have both been focused on raising production and recovering more of the value from each ton that we treat, because the typical concentrates that we treat contain vanadium, molybdenum, and nickel, and now we recover it all. There's nothing left on-site, nothing wasted. There's a few things which have just gone on stream which are interesting and which will affect the future more than the past. We've got a secondary repulping circuit to raise the overall recovery. We've just starting production of vanadium pentoxide. We produced AMV, ammonium metavanadate previously, but now we're doing our own conversion. It raises the price we get a little bit.
We've just converted all our equipment to gas, liquefied natural gas, which is a lot cheaper, more reliable, burns hotter, and should lower our costs and reduce emissions. Last but not least, really our recent history has been blighted by unreliability of supply of concentrates. We've had enough contracts, but our suppliers have used any and every excuse to fail to deliver. We've signed lots of new contracts, and we're sure that for the future that problem has gone away.
That also will make a huge difference. I deliberately haven't repeated all the pages in our standard presentation about the project, but I don't want anyone to forget that because the existing operation is less than 5% of our projected future NPV, and our real future is dependent on this project. I've just kept this one slide because this really encapsulates everything. We expect to be the lowest cost producer, $1.54. This is now out of our 2018 Competent Person's Report and these figures will be superseded by our latest work when the feasibility study's announced at the end of this year. Nevertheless, these figures are exceptional. That $1.54 or if you count byproducts, 'cause we've got some very interesting byproducts, it'd actually have a negative cost of production of the vanadium. These figures are quite exceptional.
The latest figures that I've got just recently from Bushveld and Largo, who are the other quoted primary producers of vanadium, both have cash costs of production around the $6 mark per pound. We're exceptionally low. We believe we'll be off the scale lowest cost producer. What that translates into, because it's a very large project, is an NPV of $2 billion. As I said, this will change, but there's been no big changes signified. Operating margin of 79%, and because it's a relatively low CapEx project, a huge IRR of 89%. Really it is an exceptionally interesting project. The reason for it, I won't go into any details, is that we're a different type of ore from most of the rest.
Everyone else is treating titaniferous-vanadiferous magnetite, and that means concentrating and roasting, and we don't have to do those steps. We have a much better deposit, much lower cost, very interesting byproducts. The immediate future, vanadium, the fundamentals of the market are looking very, very good. There's been big cost increases in the suppliers, as I said, which should drive price increases. The demand for steel is going inexorably up and the batteries seem to have really got going. I think there's already about 5% of supply goes into batteries, and that I think would be a lot more if the vanadium were available. Very good market to be in.
Feasibility study is scheduled to be out before the end of the year, and then we'll move into phase I development, which is 1 million tons per annum of ore, production of 5,600 tons per annum of V2O5, vanadium pentoxide. Then we'll move immediately after that's commissioned successfully, we'll move to phase II, which will be a 3x bigger step, taking it to 4 million tons a year, in total. That total vanadium production then 22,400 tons per annum is about 10% of today's existing production. We will be a very significant producer, and with our cost structure, we will be transformative to the market, and we'll be able on our own to supply a good part of the additional vanadium that the world needs.
That's really all I wanted to say. Questions and answers.
Perfect. Nick, thank you very much for your presentation. As you can see, we received a number of questions throughout today's presentation. William, at this point, if I could just hand over to you just to run through those questions where it's appropriate to do so, I'll pick up from you at the end.
Great. Thanks very much. We've received a number of questions, and we've tried to loosely categorize them into three categories, those being financial, operational, and being related to the feasibility study. We'll start with the financial section. We received two questions that are quite similar, so I'll answer those together. And those questions are, the last broker analysis from Liberum, dated February 23, had the plant as generating $5 million free cash flow a year once at capacity. Is this in line with company projections? Coupled with that, the second question was, are you able to give any guidance on what this run rate of performance, if continued, would mean for annualized profits for the small existing plant? You've referred to a $10 million target in the past.
Well, we can't give any specific guidance here because obviously that's price sensitive information. As a company, we believe that $10 million of free cash flow is an achievable target for the existing plant on an annual basis. You know, obviously, we do operate in a competitive market in processing catalysts, so it's difficult to be certain about whether we'll meet that target on a day-to-day basis or not. Obviously, you know, that's what we're gearing up for, and that's where we're aiming. The next question we've had under financial is as follows: Is the company still planning on issuing U.S. dollar bonds next year to fund a portion of the construction of phase I, as stated in the Competent Person's Report?
The Competent Person's Report actually makes reference when we're talking about the financing for phase I with of being either debt or bond financing. As it stands at the moment, the likelihood is that we'll use debt finance. Commercial development bank lending rather than bond finance. The next question, which I think Nick's gonna answer for us is, what is the average cost of vanadium production worldwide?
This question is really quite interesting. You have to bear in mind that about 70% of world production comes from what are called the co-producers. Those are steel makers using magnetite that contains some vanadium that's recovered as a co-product. If you look at the statistics that some brokers research reports, they show those co-producers as quite low cost. What they're only doing is picking up the additional cost of treating the vanadium-containing slag. They're ignoring the costs of the combined operation. It's very hard to say what their costs are. The overall operation is generally not very profitable, so in other words, likely to be high cost.
Much easier to understand is the primary producers, especially as Bushveld and Largo, as I've mentioned earlier, are public and publish their information. They both treat this titaniferous magnetite. It means they've got concentrators and roasters, so it's generally a high cost operation, as is 95% of vanadium production. They're around the $6 cash cost of production mark, one a little bit above, one a little bit below. So quite high cost, bearing in mind that today's vanadium pentoxide quoted price is around the $8 mark. It doesn't give them much margin. We of course are much lower than that. Average cost, I'm afraid it's almost impossible to say because of this high co-production supply to the market.
Most of the growth in the market is expected to come from primary producers because these combined co-production operations are not generally very, financially attractive.
Okay. Thanks, Nick. Moving on to the next section, that being operational. The first question here is for Andrey, and it follows: I heard earlier this year it was hard to move rail freight around the north of the country due to coal transportation to meet shortages. How is freight reliability currently?
Thank you, William, and thank you for the question. It is absolutely correct. It's not only at the north, it's actually across Kazakhstan, where we're facing shortages of railway wagons, which causes operational, I would say, headaches. From our side, our strategy, we are working with very reliable and strong forwarders and owners of railway wagons. From our side, we do not feel that there are delays in the transportation because we are trying to order things in advance. Instead of, let's say, in two weeks time to receive a railway wagon, we're trying to order stuff in one month. That's of course creating a certain operational hurdles, but from the operational financial point of view, that is not impacting us too much.
Thanks, Andrey. The next couple questions, these are for you, Nick. Is Caspian oil output a good proxy of spent catalyst supply? I hear output should increase in 2024. The follow-on question is, will this have a positive effect?
Caspian oil output isn't really a good proxy at all because we're not limited to buying local catalysts. We can buy from really a very wide area, including North America. What's mainly affecting catalyst supply really is the worldwide refining of oil. The big change in that really which this question alludes to about 2024 is the IMO, International Maritime Organization, rules that will require shipping particularly to burn cleaner fuels to reduce their outputs. They're targeted mainly at reducing sulfur output, but a by-product is that they will also mean that more vanadium is removed from oil. There is expected to be a big increase in these catalyst supplies.
We haven't seen it yet, but it is supposed to be coming and, of course it will attract competition as well. Yes, there is scheduled to be an increase.
Thanks, Nick. The next question under operational is: Is the local LNG market there subject to price controls, and how does the price compare to international prices? One for you I think, Andrey.
Thank you, William. Well, the answer actually is yes and no. In Kazakhstan,
liquefied natural gas market prices are divided. There is one part is so-called social gas, which goes to the population. Another part is the industrial gas for industrial needs. The social gas is fully controlled by the government while the industrial gas is much less controlled. Of course, there is a certain impact of a certain control, but much less. It's much more market-driven segment of liquefied natural gas market. From our side, we're working with various suppliers and which includes, of course, trying to get at best price, best quality.
I think so far we were not facing any challenges and problems with purchasing of it and do not expect any future challenges within this area.
Thanks, Andrey. Moving on to the final section of category of questions, those relating to our feasibility study. The first question for that is as follows: Has the company looked into using the waste heat from the reactors to generate power, which could be used to sell to the grid and charge an on-site VRFB? How about that for phase one? I think, Nick, that's one for you.
Sure. I'm not quite sure what the questioner means by reactors, but we use autoclaves, leaching, but that's not exothermic. It doesn't produce any waste heat. What will produce waste heat is the sulfuric acid plant. That will produce quite significant amounts of heat. Now, probably we won't use that for making power energy, electrical energy, because we need it as heat. We'll have a steam generator. It will supply a very significant part of our heat power requirements for the plant. There will be additional requirements, but yes, it will all be put to good use. We haven't quite finalized our thinking on this.
When we get the final numbers on heat and electricity requirements, we still have the option of putting a generator using this heat to generate power. At the moment, the thinking is we probably won't.
Thanks, Nick. The next question relates to our carbon.
Nick, it seems like we've just lost William there.
O kay. I'll take over. The question is: Is the carbon black substitute you intend to produce suitable for use in the tire wall or the tread? And what percentage of the rubber do you intend to replace? Can this be done in tandem with already recycled carbon from tires and plastics, which seems to be in the early adoption stage or as an alternative? How does it affect the wear of tires and the grip? Well, Will and Andrey are both experts on this in different fields. Perhaps Andrey, if you answer in the first instance and I'll add anything that-
Of course.
You missed.
Thank you, Nick. At the current stage, our research and testing that we have made is that the product that our carbon concentrate is will be suitable for the car tire sidewalls, and generally for passenger tires. Generally, I would say for the rubber products. It showed so far based on the tests that have been made in Kazakhstan and Belarus that the replacement of carbon black with our carbon concentrates is not getting physical and mechanical properties of the rubber worse. Answering the second part of the question. Well, of course, it's right now still a matter of further testing and research that we're doing.
So far, the research that has been done in Kazakhstan, we have been replacing 20% of the carbon black, and as mentioned, without any damages to the properties of the rubber.
The only thing I might add is that we're about to do a second stage of testing in the U.K. in a rubber specialist firm of consultants. With that, we will then start marketing. At the time, manufacturers really control their own recipes and do their own test work. It's not something that we can do really for them. We will prepare a whole battery of performance tests, and then it will be up to them to do their own test work and as part of the process of negotiating offtake.
Great. Just one final question on the feasibility study. This one's for you, Nick. How are the results of the feasibility study progressing by comparison to the 2018 Competent Person's Report?
Really, no surprises. We had in fact done a, what you would call a local feasibility study before we embarked on this study. It's not surprising. We had run a test plant, the one we operate now, and we commercially sold 20 tons of product. So we really did know a lot about it before. The mineral resource estimate, under SRK's advice, we increased the drilling density in ore body number one, and that resulted in a very big increase in the amount of contained vanadium. It's not quite as radically a difference as you would think. Well, 34 million tons of ore compared with 24 on the old estimate. In terms of quantity of ore and quantity of contained vanadium, it's a very big increase.
What it tends to be is a halo of lower grade material around the same ore bodies that we had previously identified. It's not as radical a change as you would think. The change that it is is very much for the better and gives us a lot more optionality in how we develop it and a much longer life, of course. In metallurgy, very much in line with what we've done before. We don't expect any big changes. We've done a lot more work on the carbon, but I won't say any more about that because that was the previous question. That's mostly new.
We did include a value for the carbon in the Competent Person's Report, but only as a value to sell it as a raw material for smelting to make ferrosilicon, which is obviously a much lower value than what we're looking at now. In terms of the CapEx, first of all, I do expect quite a large increase compared with that 2018 report just because of inflation. There have been two big additions to it. One is a carbon concentrator. Obviously, we didn't need that under the old planning. We've decided to add a sulfuric acid plant, really in order to well, two reasons. One, to get that exothermic heat value that I talked about earlier, but also reliability of supply.
Obviously, sulfuric acid is crucial to our operation, and having our own plant means that we'll have no issues of supply. Very much on track with what we had before. Those increased capital items will pay for themselves by the revenues that they add, if not more so. Everything else is pretty much on track. No surprises.
Okay. Thanks, Nick. I think that concludes our Q&A session.
Perfect. Thank you, Nick, William, Andrey. I think you've addressed as many questions as you can from investors. Of course, the company will review all the questions submitted today and will publish those responses on the Investor Meet Company platform. Just before redirecting investors to provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important to the company, Nick, could I just ask you for a few closing comments?
Just to thank everyone for attending. It's very good opportunity for us to actually engage because our head office being in Guernsey, not everyone could come to our AGM. Very nice to have this opportunity.
Perfect. Thank you once again for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors now to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure it'll be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of Ferro-Alloy Resources Limited, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good morning to you all.