Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this First Quarter Conference Call for Green Minerals. My name is Ståle Rodahl, I'm Executive Chairman in the company, and I'm here at different locations then with Øivind Dahl-Stamnes, our CEO. Financial highlights for the quarter, as you've become accustomed to, there is a cash loss of around NOK 2 million that has continued for the quarter. We announced earlier in the year a significant cost-cutting program following the delay to the first licensing round, which will lower our quarterly cash run rate by approximately 80% going forward. Highlights for the quarter: the company completed a successful and oversubscribed equity raise, raising NOK 11 million. Combining this with bullet number three on this page, this means that we have secured optionality for our shareholders through a significant extension of the company's runway. Actually, we are super happy about this.
The company now has visibility for runway further than we have actually ever had since we started up. At the current run rate, we will be able to run the company for five years up until we receive a license. Obviously, we hope that will happen significantly sooner, but at least this is the runway that we now got. These cost cuts, together with the guaranteed rights issues, are behind this, but also importantly, we are able to maintain competency in the company whilst at the same time reducing capacity. This is really key at the current juncture, we believe, for not only the company, but for the entire industry as we are waiting for the licensing round to get going. We are really pleased about this.
We took action really quickly after the surprise turn of events on the 1st of December with the budget deal with the far-left party and the government. We are now in a very good position then for license award and to have secured the optionality to take on licenses for a considerable amount of time. Further, we announced that we have extended the memorandum of understanding that we have with a group of nations for a really large license in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. This MoU has been extended until 2027. Just to remind you, the size of this license is quite something. It would be if we were to equalize this to North Sea oil and gas blocks, we are talking about the size equal to 180 North Sea oil and gas blocks or around 5x Aker BP, for example.
The license contains more than 200 million tons of wet nodules, and there has been $40 million of exploration sunk into the license. We are really pleased and excited about this MoU. We will take our time waiting for the opening process in the ISA before we take on any cash commitment here. This is really key to understand Green Minerals, I think, against the rest of the industry. That is our clear focus on holding cash spend at an absolute minimum until we can match it with revenues. Further, in Norway, the authorities are preparing towards the first licensing round unabated. Another NOK 150 million was allocated to exploration in the 2025 budget, and this is up 5x versus previous years. In addition to that, there is a hearing round on regulations ongoing as we speak.
We are having additional data released from the Shelf Directorate, and we are working these data into our models as we proceed throughout this year. In a way, you could say that just mathematically, the company, through this PPP in Norway, we are able to add to our data library at zero cost. Currently, our data library is around $50 million at zero cost. By the end of the year, we expect to have around $65 million of exploration data at zero cost. New discoveries are being made, and Øivind will get back to that. We expect the license award in the second quarter 2026. Further, the important turn of events here subsequent to the end of the quarter was that a U.S. executive order was signed by President Trump in April.
This order kickstarts U.S. deep sea mining, both in the U.S. and in international waters, in order to combat China's grip on critical minerals, which I will get back to. This executive order underpins the global momentum that we are seeing in deep sea mining. WWF lost their opening case against Norway. This verdict came in February. There is a 70-page verdict for anyone to read, but I think that is important. New Zealand is considering withdrawing the ban it has had on DSM for quite some time for a reason that I think is interesting to quote their energy minister. That is that New Zealand now feels that the ban has been based on shrill environmental alarmism, and they want to take a more science-based approach, which would be the same that we have been doing in Norway.
To top it all off, China is exploring a deal with Kiribati, and I think that really underlines the importance and the timing of the U.S. executive order that came out just a couple of weeks ago. Why is deep sea mining so important? Why can't we just continue to take up these minerals on land? These charts, of course, are a little bit different between different grades, but we are using copper, as copper is the metal of focus for Green Minerals. It essentially shows you one of the biggest reasons for turning to the deep sea to add more metals to the global economy. As we're seeing here, there has been a 600% increase in CapEx from the large miners over the last 20 years. At the same time, we have seen that significant fines have been declining steadily.
Indeed, over the last 10 years or so, almost nothing, no new commercial finds or discoveries have been made. Obviously, pouring more CapEx into this exploration does not really matter. We have come now to a stage where this resource has been exploited on land, and 70% of the planet are made up of the deep sea. Indeed, going there, we have the possibility to find significant resources of a quality that we have not done on land for the last 150 years- 200 years, as we will show you. The second slide here shows the need for the West then to be doing this. This has to do with the geopolitics of advanced energy. I would like to draw your attention to the second column here, which is processing, where China has got a firm grip on the processing of these critical minerals.
We have seen over the last few years that China has started to put export controls in place on some of these, which has really put the West in an untenable situation. Some of these minerals go into the West high-tech and indeed defense industries. With the geopolitical situation being as it is on the planet currently, this is simply untenable for the West and untenable for NATO. Green Minerals is to the far left in the mining column here, of course, and you only see the China flag in rare earths. If we were to redefine this column into which country controls these reserves, you will see China all over the place, also on cobalt, for example, the DRC, lithium, and so on.
From mining through to processing, at least, it is of utmost importance for the West and for NATO to start rebuilding this supply chain into something that will give a more stable supply of these minerals going forward. Indeed, this is what lies behind the U.S. executive order. Indeed, this is one of the strongest reasons for why Norway, after having done thorough research for more than 20 years, has decided to open up for deep sea mining. With that, I leave it to you, Øivind.
Thank you, Ståle. Moving to the Norwegian continent itself. In 2023, the Shelf Directorate presented their mineral resource estimate for the Norwegian Sea, both for the Seafloor Massive Sulfides and also for CRESTS. The table shows their resource estimate for the Seafloor Massive Sulfides. This estimate is significantly up from previous estimates that were presented by others earlier.
It truly demonstrates that the Norwegian Sea holds a world-class metal resource. The estimate of copper, the most valuable metal and also our focus area in Green Minerals, is close to 40 million tons, and that amounts to about 2x the annual global production of copper. In addition, there is substantial zinc, cobalt, gold, silver resources, and also other metals. I think it's important to note that this resource estimate is strongly supported by several very copper-rich discoveries that have been made on scientific cruises by the Shelf Directorate and universities, as I will show on the next page. Next, Ståle.
This figure is a 3D perspective of the more than 1,000-km-long ridge between Jan Mayen and Spitsbergen, called the Mohns and Knipovich Spreading Ridges. In blue colors are the deep areas, often down to 3,000+ meters of water depth.
In more warmer colors are the flank areas where the water depth is 1,000 meters-2,000 meters. Along the ridge, you can see the names of several of the discoveries that have been made already. All the way in the lower left corner, Deep Insight was discovered in 2023. It is in about 1,100 meters water depth. It has an estimate of 10 million tons-15 million tons of ore with very high copper content. Next to Deep Insight, there are very strong indications of another deposit only 2 km away, strongly supporting the cluster theory that says where you find one deposit, you are likely to find other mineral deposits. All the way to the north, in the upper left corner, you can see a name Jøtul. Next to Jøtul, there was a new discovery made in December 2023 and confirmed in March now this year.
In early April, this was announced by the Shelf Directorate. The name of the discovery is JIGRA. Early measurements made on board on the ship indicate copper content between 2% and 30%. It is also very rich in the mineral atacamaite , which is normally a very, very copper-rich metal. Again, in the close vicinity to Jøtul, this demonstrates that the cluster theory holds. I think also what is important to keep in mind is that these discoveries, they are all on the seafloor. They are not buried. Compared to, for example, the oil and gas industry and also conventional mining industry on land, these are relatively easy to detect at a much lower exploration cost. Next, please.
As regards to the first license round, Ståle has touched upon this already.
We are now expecting the round to be announced around year-end this year with awards in the second quarter 2026. The map shows you with bold black lines the area that is, starting with an 80/20 majority in January last year, opened up for mineral activity. In yellow are the 386 blocks or partial blocks that were included or that were suggested for the announcement in the first license round. It is worth to notice that all our priority areas in Green Minerals were included in the yellow areas. As Ståle also mentioned, the ministry and the authorities have stepped up the mapping activity significantly. The budget this year is about five times the budget for previous years. All these data will be made available to Green Minerals and the industry.
In Green Minerals, we will be ready with an application then hopefully now within a year's time or so. Yes, Ståle, I'll leave it again to you.
Thank you, Øivind. In the following, there will be a few slides, a section with a few slides that repeats a message that we have delivered a couple of times before. This is to the benefit of new listeners on the call and indeed some new shareholders that came into the company here in the beginning of the year. Briefly, Green Minerals has established a partnership for responsible production. We have done so with globally leading companies in their field. Indeed, Oil States leading the consortium together with ourselves and the Riser Tech Technology owned by Oil States and also Soil Machine Dynamics on the subsea equipment.
In addition to that, there are other partners in this consortium, names who will remain undisclosed until we get closer to production. The mandate for this partnership has been to create or design a production concept with the least possible impact on the seabed as well as the surrounding waters when producing for these minerals. In the following, I will show you a video that clearly demonstrates this production concept. What you're seeing here is a semi-submersible. The company needs only a large platform deck with some stability. This one is modeled after the Henry Goodrich, which is a 1980s type of platform owned by Transocean. You saw the production team there. It's two individuals with remote controls controlling the production of the platform. The pressure exchange chamber or the pump is being lowered in the current section. Here you see the riser from OSI.
It has two fluid lines going down and one line with a slurry going up. Here, you can see the entire production system with the seabed unit in front. You see the pump, the riser, the platform, and the bulk carrier on top. Here, the seabed unit is being connected. The bulk carrier is being moored through a disconnectable turret, which is a Green Minerals invention. Technology has been taken from oil and gas. All the technology you're seeing here is essentially subsea oil and gas that has been adjusted to this use. It's TRL-9 across the production system. Here you can see the unit starting to cut or basically to gather ore, which is being crushed, mixed with seawater, and is being pumped through the riser, through the platform, and directly onto the bulk carrier.
In the bulk carrier, this ore then is being filtered. The seawater is then being filtered and is being pumped back down to where it came from, which is the seabed. What you are seeing here is a semi-closed loop system. I am sure anyone understands that there is essentially no emittance of anything from this system. It is filtered seawater being pumped back down. Otherwise, there is no emittance of anything from the production system into the water. Here we are seeing the disconnectable turret in operation, one bulk carrier moving out, taking the ore to shore, and the next one moving in. The port we have chosen here is Narvik, where there is an existing infrastructure to transport this ore further. Here you see the entire production system. I think it is important, other than what I said about emittance, also in terms of sound.
There are no pumps along the riser system. The sound on the entire production system has been tested against the natural sound in the surrounding seawater. At no point along the production system is the sound in the system higher than what you have in the surrounding water. We believe this shows that we will be able to extract these minerals from the seabed in a sustainable and environmentally friendly manner. In particular, if you compare to the way this is being done on shore, we think this is indeed environmentally friendly.
For those who want to dive into this in further detail, I can recommend the report by two professors in the U.S., Paulikas " Stale", that in 2020 came out with a report indicating a reduction in the environmental footprint of more than 90% from deep sea mining compared to terrestrial mining. Yeah, just one comment. You see the chopper over the bulk carrier. This is because of the distance to shore. There will be no personnel transport with helicopter from shore to the production system. This will happen together with the bulk carrier and then transported by chopper from the bulk carrier to the platform. Just to look at the economics here. I think, indeed, just want to sort of make a comment there because I think over the past few years, we have done a lot of work.
Most of the questions we've had have been around the social acceptance or the social license then to produce from the deep sea, in particular on factors connected to the environment and biological factors. Lately, we have a strong sense that all the data that has been produced by academia and indeed the Norwegian Government, amongst others, has given very good answers to these concerns and questions, which naturally occur when going after a new resource like this. Lately, the questioning to us then has turned more on economics of a project like this more than, I would say, the social license. We have, of course, together with our partners, done a lot of work analyzing the cost structure of a production system like this and what the profitability would be.
Obviously, we did this even we had the sketch for this even before we started as an asset test to the project. It has been developed further with our partners. I think there are some factors that are really important to take on board to understand deep sea mining. I would also say to understand Green Minerals and where we may differentiate from the industry. First of all, there are no infrastructure investments needed in deep sea mining. This is really important. It is important for the timeline, and it is also important for the CapEx needed. As you know, terrestrially, these new projects are far and few between, and you need to go to real faraway places to start producing. The infrastructure investments can be really large and into the billions of dollars before you even get started. We do not have that in deep sea mining.
We simply take the equipment on the boat and go out and start producing. The CapEx per ton of mineral produced is more than 30% lower than what you see on shore. This is just directly on the production equipment, not taking into account the infrastructure. When it comes to production efficiency, I think it's worthwhile remembering that we don't have any sunk cost in a mine like this, like you have on shore. Whenever we feel that the ore grade is getting suboptimal, we will simply pick up the equipment and leave for the next site. A case in point here can be if you look at the Boliden Aitik mine in Sweden, where they are producing now more than 40 million tons of ore, but only 60,000 tons of copper coming out of that.
They are down to a 0.16% ore grade, which is something, of course, that we would never do, would never have to do in the deep sea. Where we will leave it, we will see. The starting point is around 5%-6% ore grade, or about 30x higher than what Boliden is producing from Aitik. Of course, this bodes well if the processing facility that Aitik's ore goes to were to add our high-quality 5%-6% Ore- grade ore. It would bode well for the processing efficiency of that facility if something like that were to happen. We have done the test, as you all know. It is a world-first test between SMS and VMS.
We know that we can indeed co-process our ore with this low-quality ore and raise the value and the life of mine for something like Aitik or others in the same position. In addition to that, we will introduce an offshore oil and gas services business model. We come from oil and gas, and this is a business model that we are used to. We are confident that we will be able to introduce it to this industry, which bodes really well for the capital efficiency in this project, which I will get back to you. Returns are set to be significantly higher than what you see in terrestrial mining. On the environmental side, I touched upon it, but more than 90% reduction in environmental footprint expected. We will have a semi-closed loop, harsh environment, deep sea mining system then.
We already talked about how this will work technically. Important to add also, there is no mid-water plume as far as we can see, and no pumps creating noise along the riser system. Finally, just the quality of the ore. It's a sharply reduced overburden with less waste and less tailings. The cash flow profile for the company will look as follows. This is on the basis of only one production system. As far as we know, we are the only company that has gone through the entire value chain that has a production concept in place. We see no reason why Green Minerals will be limited to one production system, frankly.
We believe our system should be adopted on several projects on the Norwegian continental shelf, and we indeed expect that to happen, which is really interesting, I think, from a cash flow point of view, given the oil service type of rental model that we're looking at. In any case, the max drawdown that we can see for the company, and this has then been adjusted for the one-year delay following the budget deal with the far-left socialists that the government did in December. The maximum drawdown that we can see for the company is around $35 million. This assumes that Green Minerals will be out exploring at our own cost and at our own balance sheet for three years. That will not necessarily be the case.
I can just say that right away, as you have seen from us previously, and I will get back to a table showing you the projects we've been involved in and our cash ban. As you've seen previously, we've had quite some success with limiting the cash ban on the Green Minerals accounts. We really expect that to continue. If that were the case, you can take out, well, approximately $30 million from that max cash drawdown, actually. The company, we think, will be in an unwieldy position to get to production with, I think, a historically low cash ban, partly because of our strategy and the way we've been doing it through our partnerships and partly through the PPP model in Norway.
This is one of the reasons that we really, really favor Norway as the region to start up, although we do have a very exciting license also in the CCZ. When cash flow starts to flow from this production system, it will be solid cash generation. Based on current copper prices, and we have only assumed copper then to be processed here, steady state EBITDA would be in the area of $175 million annually. I can add that there is no guarantee that this can be done, but we have ambitions to see if we can be able to do a second round of processing also for cobalt. If we were successful, you can add $250 million-$300 million per year to that annual cash flow. That is actually quite something. The numbers I am showing you here are on a Green Minerals basis.
That means that we have paid off the contractor. We have paid off the consortium to run the system for us with no CapEx on our balance sheet. Paying them, the contractor, for this. On a project basis, a project like this, meaning around 1.5 million tons of ore lifted per year with around 70,000 tons-75,000 tons of copper produced, will be running at more than $500 million in EBITDA. We are paying quite a lot to have this CapEx off our balance sheet. As you understand, the project profitability here is quite something. This is just one project, and there are thousands of deposits out there on the Mohns Ridge or nearby the Mohns Ridge. There is no reason why we should limit ourselves to only one of these production systems.
Indeed, with the right partner in place, we hope to be able to put out more than one. A number of, say, three- five, I think, would be natural to run for. First things first, first a license and the first production system and learning from that, and then more systems after that. Truly exciting. It's a world-class resource. That's the most important thing. You really don't find this on shore anymore. We have a world-class regulator together with us. We are really super happy to be doing this in Norway. Lastly, our consortium and the work that we've been there is also something that we are really pleased with, and we look forward to continue working with this world-class consortium going forward to make this happen in Norway. I touched upon this history of CapEx and funding that Green Minerals has been doing.
To the right here, you see the status of the project, where half of them has been finished already. You see the resultant take on Green Minerals cash from these projects. The bottom line here, what we are trying to show in this table, is that Green Minerals has been participating in a number of high-profile projects, some of them with quite large CapEx attached to them, but with close to zero funding need from Green Minerals' side. Our input has been in kind. Our input has been the competency and the position that we have as a front runner for a license in Norway. The table that you see here is, in our opinion, quite something. It has added a lot of value to the company. I mentioned that we have more than $50 million in exploration data in our computers already.
The competency that we have added through these other projects and the value of that, it's hard to pin down on an exact number other than that it is large. It is really large. We have developed a production concept at zero cost or zero cash cost for Green Minerals. We have participated in two research cruises at an almost insignificant cost. I think this is important. There are other ways of doing it. Indeed, there are peers forking out in the tens of millions of dollars to go out on cruises. We are just super pleased with the way we've been able to do this. The baseline exploration data, this is from the government. This goes for not only us, but for the industry. This has been made available to us at zero cost. We have done the Blendability Project, which is a world-first project.
Admittedly, it's a low CapEx to do the project. This has all been on shore. We have been able to supply the material. Thereby, our efforts in cruises and, call it, research-type exploration has been important. Our funding cost has been negligible. We are involved in other projects as well that are in progress with the zero funding cost for Green Minerals. These are important projects on their own. On the last two lines, you find the next really significant to large CapEx items. That is our exploration CapEx. This is pending. The production system, the same. We do not have, there is no guarantee what the cash spend for Green Minerals will end up being on exploration and production system.
Indeed, our ambition, and with the track record that we have and the learnings that we have had so far, our ambition is clearly to be able to do both the exploration CapEx and the production system without taking that CapEx onto Green Minerals' balance sheet. This is all, of course, to protect the return for the shareholders. Not least, to make sure that the current shareholders, the existing shareholders, end up being the shareholders that will benefit from the significant cash flow that will take place in a few years' time. I think what you are seeing here, this table, is something that sets Green Minerals apart from the industry, really. This slide, Optionality Secured, we show this in our last quarterly report as well.
I'm not going to take too much time on it, only conclude that the founders in the company have made a significant commitment. Together with the cash raise of $11 million, we have then been able to extend the runway to what we see as around five years. With this founders' commitment, we're able to cut costs with 80%. This is based on what used to be the run rate of $10 million per year. We are increasing business development activity. The ecosystem of potential partners is expanding as we speak. The cost for the shareholders is limited to an option program to a team of a handful of people that will be earned, that will be vested, and executed over a five-year period.
We're really happy with this solution and the way it protects shareholder interests and optionality for shareholders for a considerable amount of time. We're also super happy to be able to show to the authorities the ability for this company to raise money even in the most difficult of times, which it, of course, was in the first few weeks after the very surprising one-year delay to the first license round. Competency being maintained, this is done through consultancy contracts and board directorships. Our consortium is ready and ready to act as soon as license is on board. As I mentioned, the first round license application has been we've come far on that ball. It has a high readiness level.
We should be in a position to pretty quickly deliver it after having received the license papers, which we expect to be in the fourth quarter of this year. Yeah. We have mentioned that the license work is continuing for the authorities. The hearing round on regulations is going on. There is a quintupling of investment into the sector this year by the government. This is indeed something that the company is benefiting from as we go along throughout the year. In summary, we are building value while increasing the runway. I think this is the main take for Green Minerals for the current year. Importantly, Norway opened up as the first country in the world for deep-sea mining on the 9th of January, 2024. This was with an 80% majority.
All of Green Minerals' nominated areas were taken on board in this first license round. We see Green Minerals as being in pole position for a license win, really. The production concept has been developed, as you've seen today. This is done together with globally leading partners. We're ready to execute as soon as the authorities push the button. The world-first blending study is super important from an industrial point of view. The mining structure in the Nordics is well developed. We expect offtake agreements to be made closer to first door. The deep-sea mining economic metrics are superior to traditional terrestrial mining, as we've gone through. This has to do with several things. It has to do with the resource, has to do with the business model. In sum, this gives some quite unusual return numbers for a mining company, as you will see.
The pre-tax cash return on investment is more than 300% per annum. This is based on only one production system and based on CapEx being taken outside of Green Minerals' balance sheet then. The pre-tax cash payback time for the entire project is less than four months on current copper prices. Mind you, this is assuming that exploration CapEx will be taken by the company, which I think there is, how should I say, there is a certain probability that that will actually not happen. Then the cash payback time is considerably less than four months. Anyway, these are certainly interesting figures from an investment perspective. In sum, long-term optionality secured through the founders' in-kind commitment and the guaranteed rights issue that we did.
We are just super pleased and want to thank our existing and new shareholders for the support that you have given the company, in particular, these first few weeks after the surprise delay by the Norwegian government. That is something that we are very humble and grateful for. As a reminder, Green Minerals is primarily a copper play. This is the metal that we have done the most research on, that we feel the most confident on, has to do with both substitution risk, supply-side risks, and other things. This license that we have in the CCZ provides upside to the company on other key battery metals when the transfer of rights has been made and the company chooses to invest further into that license. That would be all from us. I think that was a quite thorough run-through of the status for the company.
Let's see if there are some questions. You can ask that in the Q&A section. Let's just give it a few seconds to see if any questions come up. Okay, I can start with one. The question is, what size are the licenses that we are talking about here? Øivind, do you want to answer on that?
We don't know exactly for sure how big each license will be, but we anticipate that one license will consist of several blocks. These blocks are of the same size as you find in the North Sea when it comes to Oil and Gas blocks. Each block is about 12 km by 28 km in size. We can anticipate that one license will consist of several of such blocks.
Yeah. Okay. So how much do you expect to produce per annum when fully up and running? So yeah, that's what I alluded to when I said 1.5 million tons per deposit. And then the question is, this is 1.5 million tons of ore. So with the ore quality we're seeing, say, around 70,000 tons of copper. And then the question is, how many deposits we will be producing for eventually? The question is, what do you mean by fully up and running? Fully up and running one production system, 70,000 tons of copper, and with our target of, say, three systems- five systems, you can times that by three or five, meaning that the company will become a significant copper producer on a global scale.
By the way, just want to add to what Øivind said about the copper resource estimated on the Norwegian continental shelf, it is of about the same size as the one that is estimated for all of China, just to put it in perspective. Where will you source the funding from? I think that's something that we will need to come back to. That is definitely too early. I can say as much as that, of course, with deep-sea mining moving up the agenda for several players in the industry, the interest for this is definitely out there. We'll just have to wait and see what happens. I think we will leave it with that. Thank you, everyone, for listening to this call. We will see you again in three months. Thank you.