Morning everyone, and welcome to this Second Quarter Presentation for Green Minerals. My name is Ståle Rodahl. I'm the Executive Chairman of the company, and I'm here with Øivind Dahl-Stamnes, our CEO. We find a disclaimer on page two. On the financial highlights for the first half, the main items here are one of negative cash flow from operating activities of NOK 2.8 million, EBITDA of close to NOK 2 million, and in the main, the difference there is linked to the incentive program for employees. Also, it's worthwhile commenting on cash, which you will find at NOK 5.45 million. This cash number does not include the Bitcoin acquired by the company by the end of the quarter. On the EBITDA level, I think the number of main interest here is the second quarter EBITDA, which was down to NOK -0.58 million .
With that, the company has almost, or we could say, delivered already in the second quarter, delivered on the ambition to cut costs by 80% from 2024 levels. We're pleased with the speed of the cost reductions there. When it comes to other highlights for the quarter in the market environment around us, I think number one, the U.S. Executive Order signed by the U.S. President in April 2025 really underpins the global momentum that we've seen in deep sea mining over the last few months. What's interesting here is that it's really sovereign states that are now taking the lead with the National Seabed Authority, more or less having placed itself a little bit on the sidelines here with its very slow-moving approach in the opening process here. Norway, of course, is one of these sovereign states.
On the Norwegian authorities, preparations for or towards the first licensing round in Norway are continuing. NOK 150 million was allocated to exploration in the 2025 government budget. I think it's worth to note that this is up 5x versus previous years. Additional data from this has already been released, and Green Minerals is implementing these data into our models as soon as we get them. New discoveries are being made, and we expect license awards in the second quarter of 2026. Importantly, the company in the first half secured optionality for our shareholders through a significant runway extension with the help of a significant contribution from the founders. This includes the before-mentioned cost cuts of 20% and also a guaranteed rights issue that was carried through in March.
We are very pleased to see that we have been able to maintain competency in the organization while reducing capacity, which was really the aim that we set out with here going into the year. At the end of the quarter, the company announced that it has adopted a Bitcoin treasury strategy. Importantly, and as the press release states, this strategy has been adopted to support the operational strategy of the company. I'll get back to that a little bit later in the presentation. The cost of the initial purchase was close to $106,000 per Bitcoin. In the P&L for the strategy, this is the mark-to-market P&L. You don't find it in the accounting numbers that we have presented, but the mark-to-market P&L is NOK 0.42 million as of yesterday's close for Bitcoin.
We are pleased to see that a number of new shareholders have joined us over the last few months. To the benefit for these, we are going to make a rather thorough presentation of the main background for the company, our goals, ambitions, and strategies. We are going to take you through the development on licensing on the Norwegian continental shelf. We are going to take you through the main parts of the technology development that has been taking place in Green Minerals. We are also going to look at some key numbers for our project, which we find really, really exciting. We hope you will do too. To start with the background here, it has to do with the lack of critical minerals. Green Minerals is really at the center of one of the most important geopolitical developments going on in our time.
That has to do with China's control of a number of critical minerals and a critical need, really, for countries outside of China, and in particular the West, to secure additional sourcing of these minerals. When it comes to copper, which is our main, the main mineral then for Green Minerals, I think the chart to the right on this page explains well what is going on. What you see here is the link, or call it the lack of link, between the rapid increase in exploration budgets over the last two decades, in combination with the lack of results from those budgets into results from copper exploration. You will see that new finds are going down while exploration budgets have increased a lot. This is really at the heart of why we find this world-class resource that we have come across on the Norwegian continental shelf as particularly interesting.
Another few interesting points have to do with the regulatory environment and so on in Norway and Norway's sovereign role on the Norwegian continental shelf, which we will get back to. The copper market, the balance in the copper market itself is of key importance to understand our strategy here. Another point, I think, is that the copper market is large. Not all of these minerals markets, these critical minerals markets, are large enough actually to take on significant supply in the amounts that we're talking about from the deep sea, but the copper market is. We're very comfortable with that. I mentioned the geopolitics of advanced energy. Green Minerals, of course, find itself to the left in this chart, engaged in mining and eventually also processing, although that has not been taken a decision on exactly how that will happen.
Mining and processing are the key areas for Green Minerals. What you will see, just glancing at this graph for a second, is that there is one particular country that has really taken a corner position in processing, and that is China. The rest of the world is now at China's mercy when it comes to access to finished product, finished processed product of a number of these critical minerals. With China now using its strong position here to also ban exports of some of these critical minerals at times, this has happened a number of times over the last few years, the situation has become untenable for particular countries in the West. Remember, many of these minerals are key to production of arms and ammunition.
This goes directly into not only the national economies of some of the largest countries in the world, but it also goes into the core of the national security for a number of these countries, notably, for example, the U.S. Securing or building supply chains outside of China is really of key importance for these countries. Green Minerals, with the position that we have on the Norwegian continental shelf, really sits in the middle of this geopolitical tension and will be able to, when opened up for in Norway, to provide at least a part solution to the issues at hand here. With that, I hand it over to Øivind for a rundown on the Norwegian or the continental shelf. Øivind, please.
Thank you, Ståle. This is also a slide that we have presented several times and to you and new shareholders.
This slide, in many ways, demonstrates and summarizes Green Minerals' ambition on the Norwegian continental shelf. To the right, there is a map of the Norwegian Sea. Within the yellow area is the area that was opened by the Norwegian Storting in January 2024 for marine minerals activity. To the left, the table reflects the shelf directorate's latest estimate of resources. This table is for the seafloor massive sulfides only. These types of deposits are mainly found in areas three, four, and five along the Mohns and Knipovich ridges, a distance between Jan Mayen up to Spitsbergen, that's over 1,000 kilometers long. This table truly demonstrates that we have a world-class resource on the Norwegian continental shelf. The estimate for copper, which is the most valuable and also, as Ståle said, the focus for Green Minerals, is close to 40 million tons, or twice the annual global production.
In addition, there are substantial amounts of zinc, cobalt, gold, silver, and other metals. I'd like to emphasize that this table is for the seafloor massive sulfides only. The shelf directorate has also presented an estimate for crusts, where copper is about 50% of the SMS resources, and zinc is even higher than for the seafloor massive sulfides. I think it's very 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 the universities over the recent years. Many of these are shown on the next slide. Next slide, please, Ståle. The figure represents a 3D perspective of the seafloor between Jan Mayen to the southwest and Spitsbergen to the north in the picture, along the ridges, Mohns Ridge and the Knipovich Ridge.
The names, or the blue, are the deeper areas with the water depths down to 3,000+ m. The warmer colors represent the flank areas where we also find most of the discoveries made. These areas have water depths between 1,000 m and 2,000 m. Along the ridge, you can find many of the names of the discoveries that have already been made. [Deep Insight], a little bit northeast of Jan Mayen in the lower left corner, was discovered in 2023. It sits at 1,100 m water depths. It has an estimated tonnage of 10 to 15 million tons of ore and has very high copper content. Next to [Deep Insight], there are strong indications of another deposit only 2 km away from [Deep Insight]. It has been named Grøntua.
This supports the cluster theory, which says that where you find one discovery or where you make one discovery, the conditions are favorable and you will also make other and new discoveries in the vicinity. To the very north, you can see the Jøtul discovery. Next to the Jøtul discovery, a new discovery was made late last year and announced early this year by the shelf directorate. It has been named [Jigra]. Initial measurements of copper in this discovery are between 2%- 30% copper. It's very rich in a mineral called atakamit, a very, very copper-rich mineral. The proximity to Jøtul supports the cluster theory. It's important to keep in mind that these discoveries are located literally on the seafloor. They're not buried. They can be discovered by bathymetric mapping and also visual inspection.
Compared to oil and gas and also traditional and conventional land mining, these are easier to find and also at less cost. Next, please. As regards the first round, as Ståle mentioned, we expect the round to be announced around year-end, late this year, very early next year, with awards in the second quarter 2026. The map shows the area that in dark gold color, the area that was opened by the Norwegian authorities in January 2024. The yellow blocks are the 386 blocks that were suggested for announcement in the first round. We are very pleased that all our first priority blocks when we in the nomination process were included within the yellow areas. As Ståle mentioned earlier, the authorities are preparing for the first round.
The mapping activity by the Norwegian authorities has been stepped up 5x compared to previous years, and it's now in 2025 at the level of about $15 million. All these data that are collected, geological and environmental data, are made available to the industry for free. Green Minerals is ready to file an application as soon as the round has been announced. Okay, Ståle, I'll leave it to you again.
Thank you. To take you through our strategy around building the company, we have announced our partnership for responsible production with a number of world-class partners, notably Oil States from the U.S. with RiserTec and also Soil Machine Dynamics when it comes to the mining machines on the seabed. There are also a couple of other partners whose names will be unnamed until at the later stage.
We're really pleased with the consortium, and we have together developed a production concept which looks like this. To the best of our knowledge, this is the only concept that has been developed for the Norwegian continental shelf at this point. It really, I think, puts Green Minerals in a really good position when it comes to licensing discussions. What you see here is a system based on a semi-submersible as the production unit. It is purpose-built bulk carriers with a disconnectable turret system. You see the riser there between 1,000 m and 3,000 m with really fast deployment, 10 hours for 3,000 m. You see the pressure exchange chamber close to the bottom there, and then the mining units on the seabed. In the following, I will show you an animation of how this concept would work there. All right.
What you just saw is a semi-closed loop production system, which has been designed particularly for the harsh environment on the Norwegian continental shelf. I think it's important to note, as you saw from the video, there's no noise in this system at any point in the system, above, over and above what you find in the natural environment around it. The only emission from the system is then filtered seawater that is being pumped back to where it came from. I think with this, my understanding is that we have put to rest many of the concerns, at least from the NGOs, regarding how this would look. I'm going to take you through a few numbers on this just to put it in perspective and also put it in perspective to traditional terrestrial mining.
What you will understand from this system is that it has a number of advantages compared to traditional copper mining. These advantages result in key economic metrics that really are disruptive to the economics of traditional copper mining. Number one is there are no infrastructure investments needed. For those of you familiar with terrestrial mining, you will know that these infrastructure investments can run into the billions of dollars and take several years. We are talking about infrastructure investments that in many cases are larger than the entire investment for the entire system that we have. Our CapEx is between $1 billion- $1.2 billion, and it should be put in that perspective. The CapEx/ ton, if you just look at the equipment as such, is about a third lower for us than for traditional copper mining.
Thirdly, and which is really important, is that it's the opportunity to optimize production in deep sea mining compared to terrestrial mining. The reason is that we have zero sunk cost in the mine. We simply pick up the equipment and leave for the next site whenever we feel that a better ore grade could be had at a different point. Where that cutoff will be, we haven't communicated yet, and we wouldn't know until being there producing. If that cutoff is 2% or 1% on the copper, the point here is that we have the flexibility to decide and just to, at a very small cost, move on and start producing at what we regard as being the optimum grade.
Also, we have a cost advantage in terms of CapEx or the business model itself, where we will introduce an oil and gas services business type model, which is asset-light and which bodes well for the capital efficiency of the project. When it comes to the environmental part of this, I would say up until two years ago, most of the questions we got around what we're doing here were around environmental and biological factors. It's interesting to see that over the last few months, this has now changed. Most of the questions that we are getting are around techno-economic factors. Of course, that speaks well for the work that has been done by the authorities and by the industry also in putting to rest some of the main concerns that have been raised here.
On that point then, as I said, I just showed you a semi-closed loop, harsh environment, deep sea mining system, and how that would work. There is no midwater plume. Return water is transported to the seafloor, and there are no pumps creating noise along the riser system. Also, we will see a sharply reduced overburden because of the efficiency of the ore, which means less waste and less tailings. I just want to add here, I don't remember if I even brought that up, but of course, the average ore grade that we are looking at for this resource looks to be somewhere between 5%- 6% or thereabouts. Øivind mentioned that tests have been taken showing up to 30% copper. We wouldn't expect that on average, but a number around 5%- 6% seemed to be reasonable.
This is compared to new finds terrestrially that are at 0.6% and lower. Please see our excitement over this resource in that light. The following graph shows you what the numbers would look like on a company level for Green Minerals with one harsh environment deep sea mining system at work. This cash flow profile shows you our numbers up to date, that's 2025, and then assumes that the company will bear the future exploration costs after having been granted license on its own account. There is no certainty that that would happen. Our ambition is to bring partners in, which would make this cash profile or the low point of the cash flow profile significantly better to the tune of probably around $25 million compared to the number you see here or $-35 million in 2028.
When the system starts producing, cash will build rapidly, as you can see. On the fifth year of full production, we're up to $700 million in net cash on a company level with around $176 million on current copper prices in annual EBITDA. Peer mining group multiple is around 6-9x , and we certainly, with what we've shown you here, given the advantages of deep sea mining, the efficiency of the ore, and also, I think, lower environmental footprint than terrestrial mining, would expect a multiple for a mining company like this to be in the very high end, if not somewhat above what you see for the mining sector at large. This is on the company level. If we were to look at these numbers on the project level, we are talking about EBITDA of around $500 million per year.
We would then also look at the CapEx of between $1 billion- $1.2 billion to get the system going. Again, really solid cash return on investment, as you understand. We've been getting a number of questions regarding our ability to undertake the rather large projects we've been involved in, given the limited funding for the company. On that note, we have put together the following slide, which shows you the projects we've been involved in and the funding from Green Minerals directly into these projects. Half of the table has been concluded already. That is, three of these are done already. One is ongoing, and that is the exploration data. Half the table or the bottom half is in progress or pending license award.
I think it's interesting to note here that we said at the outset that we would base ourselves on an extensive partnership thinking and a partnership model and providing Green Minerals' competency into these partnerships. It's really what we're all about. So far, we have succeeded well with this. The production concept that I showed you is significant CapEx, have been going on for some time, meaning years, and involved a lot of people. The cash funding from Green Minerals has been zero. Of course, the in-kind funding and contribution into the project through our personnel has been significant. We participated in two research cruises on the Atlantic mid-ocean ridge, where we, amongst others, gained access to SMS material that has been key to conduct waterfall studies in co-processing with terrestrial ore.
Significant CapEx, we're talking to the tune of $10 million- $15 million per cruise, and the cash funding from Green Minerals has been almost negligible. It has been very, very low indeed. This is something we're very pleased with. When it comes to exploration data, this is really built on the public-private partnership model that you find in Norway, where the authorities are fronting the industry ahead of decisions to open up and beyond until licensing, basically. That means that we or the industry has been getting access to, and that means that Green Minerals has also been getting access to baseline exploration data of more than $50 million that has been implemented in our models. You've seen some of it today from Øivind. We continue to receive the data from the authorities this year, as we said, to the tune of $15 million.
By the end of this year, we will have more than $65 million. Technically, not on our balance sheet, but if we were operating in any other country, and for example, compared to the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, where we're also involved, we would have had to fund $65 million ourselves to get access to this data. This is one of the reasons that we really favor the Norwegian continental shelf for starting up our activities. Needless to say, our funding, our cash funding into this has been zero. Implementing these into our models, of course, is at our own cost, and that is being done by our own personnel. I mentioned access to SMS material. This enabled the world's first blendability project that we ran, together with the Geological Survey of Finland. The results were really good.
We're really happy to see that we will be able to co-process ore from the deep sea together with similar ore from onshore Scandinavia. The funding from Green Minerals also here has been really low. CapEx admittedly low for the project, but almost negligible funding from our side. We have four projects ongoing and/or pending license award. That's our Deep MineX. It's a project together with SMD . It's our exploration CapEx that I touched upon, which of course is significant, which we aim to take together with our partners. It's also the production system. We're talking about the CapEx in the tune of $1 billion or above, where we also see our partnership model helping us. There's one thing worth mentioning, actually, both on the CapEx and the production system. That is that the implementation of our Bitcoin treasury strategy may change Green Minerals' funding share.
If the strategy proves itself able to grow to such an extent, we believe that would be a major positive for our shareholders, and it would improve Green Minerals' position ahead of licensing and through licensing significantly on the Norwegian continental shelf. This is something where we really see BTS being able to contribute to the company's operations in a significant way. On the Bitcoin treasury strategy, the backdrop here is one of us seeing real inflation risk versus a significant future capital expenditure for the company, and that capital expenditure being some years out. Bitcoin has the advantage of being decentralized and showing non-inflationary properties. It's an attractive alternative to traditional fiat in an era of monetary expansion that we have certainly been in for some time.
A main point for us when adopting this has been the broad institutional support and approval Bitcoin in particular has been getting over the last few years, with notably the SEC also putting its approved mark on it here a couple of years ago. The long-term project horizon in our operations makes BTS particularly well-suited for us. As I said, we see real inflation risk versus our future capital expenditure. We want and have long wanted to hedge against the fiat debasement. Also, the long project horizon reduces the volatility risk, meaning that the long-term view, essentially, that we have on acquiring Bitcoin flattens out the volatility risk or reduces the volatility component of the price movement in Bitcoin, which is a prerequisite for us to do this. When it comes to the project CapEx, in itself, it guides a certain significance in the BTS ambition for the company.
Each harsh environment deep sea mining system CapEx is to the tune of $1 billion- $1.2 billion. The company expects more than one of these systems to be employed on the Norwegian continental shelf. Certainly, with us having the only known production concept for the NCS , we certainly have an ambition to be involved in more than one as well. Each system is to be financed through a mix of debt and equity, as anyone involved in this type of business would understand, and anyone who has followed Green Minerals for some time would understand. This means that not all of the system will be financed by equity, which means that not all of the system will be funded by acquiring Bitcoin. The BTS ambition is there to part finance the equity portion. That would be the correct way to understand this.
I think it's important to say also that there is no guarantee that capital will be available to fund our BTS ambition. With the background I've just given you, you understand that this strategy makes particularly good sense for a company with projects like we do and the project horizon that we do. We will certainly do our best to execute on the strategy. We'll just see as we go along what the results will be. We started shortly after announcing the strategy by acquiring four Bitcoins. This was in the end of or in the latter part of June. We have done so, and we have said that we will, of course, maintain a fair amount of fiat cash in the company. At any point in time, you will see the company holding more than one year of operating expenses in fiat cash.
This goes back to what I just said about the volatility risk. We don't want to see any negative impact for our shareholders from such volatility risk, thereby the fiat cash part of the strategy. With this acquisition, the company holds 0.2 Bitcoin per million shares. The cost basis for the first purchase was close to $106,000. The mark-to-market P&L as of close yesterday was $0.42 million in the Bitcoin strategy. This, of course, mark-to-market profit has not been reported and is not a part of the results that we have reported today. It is in our balance sheet at cost.
In summary, what we have done in the first half of 2025, following the adverse move by the Labor Party in securing the 2025 budget, a highly surprising move, I would say, on the 1st of December last year, delaying the first licensing round with around one year, is that we have set out, as we said, to build value while increasing our runway. Looking back at the first half, we are pleased to see that we have been able to do exactly what we said. Just to take a step back, on the 9th of January , 2024, the Norwegian government opened up for deep sea mining in Norway. This was with an 80% majority. That decision alone de-risked Green Minerals as a business case.
Green Minerals nominated areas of interest in the second quarter of 2024, and we're pleased to see that all our areas have been adopted in the first licensing round. We believe that Green Minerals is in pole position for a license win, or should I say more than one license win? We believe that our Bitcoin treasury strategy may leverage this strong position further, and we will seek to develop it the best we can there. The production concept has been developed together with globally leading partners, each in their field, and is ready. The world's first blendability study that we did with VMS and SMS confirms our business plan, and it adds significant value to not only us and our project, but to the entire industry, we believe.
The mining infrastructure in the Nordics has been well developed, and we expect off-take agreements to be announced closer to first ore. The deep sea mining metrics are superior to traditional terrestrial mining. We've taken you through the business model. We've taken you through the economics. We also talked a little bit about the environmental issues here, where we can certainly say that there has been a pre-perception onto what this would mean. A lot of that has been put to rest by excellent work by the authorities and also contributions from the industry. The investment case for the project that Green Minerals is involved in is unusually strong financially. We're talking about the pre-tax cash return on investment of more than 300% per annum. We're talking about the pre-tax cash payback time of four months on the company level.
In the first half, we secured long-term optionality for our shareholders. This was secured through a significant in-kind commitment from the founders of the company and a guaranteed rights issue with significant support from our shareholders. The long-term product horizon that we have provides strong incentives for and gives a potential significant leverage through our Bitcoin treasury strategy. With that, we believe we've been delivering well on the strategy, and the company is now ready for the next step. Just finally, a reminder, Green Minerals is primarily a copper play. We didn't talk so much about it today, but in the world first processing study that we did, copper was the main area of interest. We have an ambition to be able to process also for cobalt. That would add significantly to the numbers you have seen today. I should underline these are numbers only for copper.
If we were to include the second round processing successfully with cobalt, it would add significantly in the hundreds of millions of dollars on the project level to this project. In any case, Green Minerals should be seen that that would be a bonus, I think, if we are successful in doing that. Until then, Green Minerals should be seen primarily as a copper play. The MoU that we have in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone on the license there provides upside on other key battery metals longer term. With that, I think it concludes our prepared presentation for today. With that, I hand it over to Øivind for Q&A.
Okay. Then we're open for Q&A. I see there's one question here. There's one asking, what are the implications of the results of the processing study? I think I can take that, Ståle.
I think the concern was that the seafloor massive sulfides could not be processed in traditional ways and in existing infrastructure. We wanted to test that out. The results were very positive. We proved that SMSs can be processed in existing infrastructure and with high recovery rates. The implications of that is that we do not have to build new beneficiation plants to process SMSs. We can get very high recovery rates in current processing plants mixed with the land-based ore material. There's another technical asking if we have any thoughts on where we want to bring the ore. Ståle, do you want to comment?
Yeah. I think you just touched upon it, Øivind, and that is the significance of the study, whether we are able to utilize existing infrastructure or needing to construct new infrastructure for the industry.
The importance of that study is that it gives us the option, or it gives the industry the option to bring this ore into existing facilities. Let me give you an example. The biggest copper mine in the Nordics turns over more than 40 million tons of rock every year. The output of that is a meager 60,000 tons of copper. This is producing copper at a 0.16% ore grade. We are coming in with copper at 5%- 6% ore grade. You can imagine what this would mean for the profitability of the processing facility handling that low-grade ore. By the way, one production system from our side would mean turning over 1.5 million tons of rock to produce 75,000 tons of copper, just to put that in perspective. In any case, what this study then shows is that we're able to do that.
It gives a lot of meaning for owners of existing facilities like that to add our ore to the processing, thereby increasing the profitability on existing facilities and also extending life of mine for existing mines. We have not signed up for anything there yet. We are open, of course, to sending this ore, to ship this ore to wherever we get the best paid for it. I think that is essentially our answer at the moment. We are very happy to be open on that front as it gives us the opportunity to talk to a number of companies, not only companies located in the Nordics. From an industry point of view, from a strategic point of view, it would make the most sense to put it into existing facilities close to us.
We'll see what the willingness and ability to pay will be compared to mining companies that are further away from us.
I think there's no further relevant questions that we have not touched upon yet in a very thorough presentation. I think we'll stop there. Ståle, concluding remarks?
Okay. Yeah. Sure. With this, I just want to thank you for your attention. On purpose, we have delivered a thorough presentation, taking you through many aspects of what we're doing, more of a Green Minerals 101, if you like, everything from market environment, regulatory issues, where the industry is heading, and also dived into our own technologies and numbers. We hope that provided you with a better understanding of our company. If there are any further questions, do not hesitate to reach out to our Investor Relations, and we will get back to you the soonest we can.
With that, we thank you and see you next time.