Nordic Iron Ore AB (publ) (STO:NIO)
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Sep 16, 2026, 5:29 PM CET
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Earnings Call: Q2 2026

Aug 20, 2026

Summary

Q2 centered on finalizing the PFS, confirming a robust 23-year mine life, $325M NPV, and 15.6% IRR. Resource upgrades, new apatite by-product, and expanded offtake discussions position the project for growth, with DFS and financing targeted for 2027-2028.

Hannes Thorstensson
Metals and Mining Analyst, DNB Carnegie

Hi, and warm welcome to today's presentation with Nordic Iron. My name is Hannes Thorstensson, and I am Metals and Mining Analyst here at DNB Carnegie. With us today, we have Ronne Hamerslag, CEO of Nordic Iron, here to present both the Q2 report released today, but also the result from the PFS announced yesterday. We will have a short Q&A after the presentation. You can send in your questions through the website. With that said, I leave the word over to you, Ronne. Welcome.

Ronne Hamerslag
CEO, Nordic Iron

Thank you, Hannes. Good to be here and do this presentation from the update of the Nordic Iron status and going forward. The main things we are going to go through today is the quarter two report, the PFS study result that was out yesterday, and of course, the most interesting part is the pre-feasibility. Before that, we have a quite international audience today. I am very pleased and happy with that, and that is why we do this in English. Some of these people are new to the company, so short introduction to Nordic Iron first. Nordic Iron is a mining company. It is focused on restarting and reviving the mining industry, especially around the Ludvika region in Bergslagen. Bergslagen is a traditional, very famous area for iron mining, iron production, and steel production.

We have a very good probability to make an ultra-high-grade iron ore concentrate, being in the top 3%, 4%, 5% of the global seaborne market. It is really a top-notch product. We have also in the study now added the apatite as a by-product, adding additional revenue streams. We have the basic permits in place for initiating the Blötberget part of the project. I will go further into exactly what is the project, the different parts in Blötberget and the Väsmanfältet. Of course, we need to look also into the history. Some people think the mining industry moves very slow, takes a very long time, and in a way, yes, it is, but these are huge changes in the industry.

For example, if you look into what is happening in the steel market today, the blast furnace main route for iron-making out of the iron ore has been there for almost 1,000 of years, 1,000 years. Of course, going through that kind of transition takes time. It is a big step. The blast furnace is very energy effective. It is a good process to produce a good iron, or pig iron, from the blast furnace. One drawback with the blast furnace is that it emits a lot of carbon dioxide. Why does it do that? Iron ore is an iron oxide. You need to remove the oxygen from the oxide to get the iron out. That has normally been done by carbon and melting the iron ore. You get carbon dioxide, and you get molten iron. Super good process, energy efficient. Drawback is the carbon dioxide emission.

What is happening now in the world, in the steel market, is that a lot of our potential customers are doing a transition, going to other low-emitting processes and new metallurgy, going to direct reduction based on natural gas or hydrogen, changing the carbon dioxide into water, basically vaporized water that is going out instead of carbon dioxide. One key point here is that we are not dependent on that. Steel has been around for more than 1,000 years, blast furnace for 1,000 years. Steel and iron has been used for several thousand years. There is an increased demand with the global GDP development and the global population. It is very important to remember that the higher iron grade you have, regardless of your iron-making process, the metallurgy for your iron-making, the less energy it consumes and the less carbon dioxide it is going to be emitting.

That is a very important point there. Diving back into the Q2 report. The second quarter was very much focusing on delivering the pre-feasibility study in Q3, as we have been promising to the market earlier this year. That was the hard work that has been done throughout the quarter. We appointed DNB Carnegie as a certified advisor in May, so we have a very good collaboration now with Carnegie on those perspectives, and that is also one reason why we are here at Carnegie today. We got additional exploration permits granted in the area, extending the area around Blötberget. There was an AGM, Annual General Meeting, in June. Board reelected. Annual Report for 2025 approved and adopted. The big thing, of course, is after the quarter, we have released the PFS finalized results, and that was published yesterday evening in a separate press release.

There are some numbers here, balance sheets, nothing dramatic really. The drilling program we have been executing during full year of 2025 has been completed in Q1 2026. That is why we have less investment in the second quarter this year. No drama, I would say. Going down to the pre-feasibility study results, and I am very pleased and very happy to announce that with the retake, we have done some restart, retakeover in the project, but now we have a really good and stable project going forward with Blötberget and the Väsmanfältet combined into one project. Of course, there is a lot of financial metrics on this slide, but important ones are the NPV value or the net present value of the project, $325 million , IRR above 15%, 15.6%, and I think that is really strong values in the market as of today. Mine life estimated to 23 years.

If we then move over to the production, we have estimated the Fe grade in the iron ore concentrate to be above 67.5%. We have modest put it on 67.5% to ensure that we have a stable and robust financial measurement in the feasibility study. Total production, almost 46 million tonnes of concentrate. People that have been following the company know that we have had the previous studies in 2016, were much lower of total amount of concentrate, 60 million tonnes of concentrate in 2019. It is a huge improvement of the project now, a lso addition of the apatite by-product. The total net revenue that we foresee in the study is $5.4 billion , quite substantial amount of money. Diving into the numbers a bit.

Here you have the sensitivity, life of mine, the grades, and also the total amount of concentrate, almost 46 million tonnes, as I said. We have calculated together with our partners and financial advisor, an average price for the product, $124 a tonne. The total apatite pricing, $200 a tonne. Of course, $200 a tonne might look more attractive than $124, but the volume is far less. I will come back to that on a coming slide. The metrics are really good. $325 million in the discounted net present value. We have used the 8% discount rate. Then you can see the sensitivity on the pricing, on the NPV, on the long-term sales pricing, IRR impacts, and the payback for the project. The base case we have used in the study is $124, the low end is $104, and high end is $144.

We think we have a very robust and good project, good financial metrics, and really an appealing project. Further down into this, you can see the free cash flow on this graph. The main investment, the construction of the mine is now predicted to start by the end of 2028, the first quarter 2029. You see that the free cash flow goes down because we have a lot of investment. 2031, we are predicting the first ore coming up to surface. You see that the cash flow with the bars are trying to sweep over from the negative to the positive side. We have a good production, good revenue, free cash flow from 2031 up to 2052 in the current PFS study. On the slide, you can also see the expected proportion on the apatite concentrate revenue being around 5% additional revenue to the company.

A by-product is very interesting in that way that is more or less available with no cost. It is some additional flotation and some additional material handling that we need to add. But otherwise, it's basically a free cost additional revenue. That's going to be 5%, so that's really improved the financial metrics, basically just ripple down to our bottom line. If we then go over to the total mining, here is the mine plan. As you can see, we start to do underground working in 2029 and 2030 and 2031. First ore is coming up 2031. Then we are ramping up 2032- 2033 to full production from 2033 onwards to 2052 with the current PFS plan. You can also see the average grade over the time.

Some people that are not used to the mining industry might wonder why the free cash flow is fluctuating that much over the years, while the ore production is this stable. But, the answer is basically the grade or the orange curve in that. You have a fluctuation in the ore grade, which actually means a bit of fluctuation in the amount or the volume of concentrate you can actually produce from that ore. That makes a bit of a fluctuation in the free cash flow. Also, some additional sustaining capital investment when you go on to new main levels in the underground mine. That also pick a bit from the free cash flow. Everybody that has followed the company for quite some time know that we have an offtake agreement with Cargill that is covering the initial 25 million tonnes of ultra-high grade iron ore concentrate.

There is potential upside to continue dialogue with Cargill around the additional, let's say, 20 million tonnes of concentrate that we basically put on the table now with this pre-feasibility study. That's a huge improvement to the project. Then we have the apatite by-product added. We are not as certain on the actual grade of phosphate in the apatite, so we need some more metallurgical test work in the next coming study phase. A big remark is that we have not put any value in this model yet to the rare earths because the apatite market today doesn't really value rare earth in apatite as of today. Everybody following this industry knows that there's a change in geopolitics, and the importance of rare earths going forward. We expect that to be a potential upside. Moving on then.

A mining company isn't better than its mineral resources and mineral resource, I used to say, and that's a bit of a fact because that's where you basically dig up your revenue and your profit. We have done a quite extensive drilling program in the Blötberget deposit. It was starting in December 2024. People that has followed the company know that the target was to increase the Blötberget deposit with in total, 35 million tonnes of in situ mineralization. We achieved 27 million tonnes. You can see that in the bar graph. We increased the in situ mineralization from 67 million tonnes to 94 million tonnes. That's a huge improvement with 27 million tonnes. At the end result, the Golder study back in 2019 predicted ore reserves of 34 million tonnes, and now we have almost 56 million tonnes of ore reserves.

Ore reserves are the thing that you dig up, you can produce concentrate of, and you can sell it. The Blötberget deposit as such has grown a lot over the last one and a half year. If you're new to the mining industry, and you don't know this kind of terminology on mineral resources, mineral reserves, ore reserves, and all those kind of things, I really encourage you to go into the JORC Code webpage, for example. We are following the JORC Code, 2012 Edition. There you have clear and good definitions on all the different categorization of the mineralization in a mining project. Because the mineralization, the resources, and the reserves, is really what determine the profitability and the length of your project. You need to understand the different parameters. In situ is the lowest level of confidence you can have in a mineralization.

Ore reserve is the highest. Moving on then to the Blötberget and Väsmanfältet. It was fantastic to increase the in situ resources in Blötberget. Now, we are looking into all the pre-feasibility studies for Blötberget and Väsmanfältet together. All in all, we have almost 149 million tonnes of in situ mineralization at the cut-off grade 25%. Again, that's the important metric. You need to define where you cut off your resources and reserves and your mineralization. If you go to too low percent, then you get a huge amount of tonnage, but there's no financial value in them. Blötberget and Väsmanfältet is the first areas we are going to mine, starting up in Blötberget. With the current pre-feasibility study, we see that we will start the production, as I show in the previous slide, 2031.

With this mineralization, the PFS points at mining until 2052, at the latest, I would say. As you can see in the final bullet there, the current mineral resource as reported from Blötberget and Väsmanfältet together is 104.5 million tonnes, and there is still a potential upside. To explain a little bit on that, we have that also in the press release that we have identified a compliant exploration target up to close to 80 million tonnes. That is going to be the next ambition for the next exploration campaign and drilling campaign in the Väsmanfältet. You can see the picture showing Lake Väsman, then you have the different mineralization. As you see from the slide is that the lenses two and three, we have enough information to confirm that as an exploration target up to 80 million tonnes.

We have not enough information on the areas one, four, five, and six. That is what we are going to plan and do in the future. There is still an upside potential prospective targets after this up to 80 million tonnes exploration target. I mean, there is still much more to be found. Also in Blötberget, I am sorry that picture is maybe quite small, but you can see the red area and the orange area is where we see prospective targets for additional drilling. In the drill campaign we have been doing now in mainly done in 2025, we have extended to the depth, and we have widened it a bit, the deposit, and there is a further possibility to do that in the red and orange area. We do not have enough geological information to define those as exploration target and put any tonnage or grade on it.

The next prioritized thing for the exploration team is the target for Väsmanfältet, 8 million tonnes to 80 million tonnes of additional mineralization we hope to find. Together with the pre-feasibility study, there is a lot of mineral resource and ore reserve statements. There is a combination on this slide. I also encourage you to visit our website, where we are going to post it more in details. We are going to have the JORC table ones, as they are called, that are giving more information, how the mineral resources, ore reserves are defined, evaluated, and the process to get up to that. We have also made a similar presentation like I am doing now, but more dedicated into the resources and reserves. That is done by our Manager of Geology, Johan Högnäs. I really recommend you, if you have time, to look into that.

We will update everything on the website in the next coming day or two. Hopefully before the weekend, everything is going to be updated. I know that there are some old numbers on the webpage if you jump in there right now. As you saw from the press release, it was ready and done and dusted very late yesterday evening. We will do our best to populate the website as soon as possible. Again, very important information metrics to be knowing if you are an investor in this industry. Permits update. Of course, there has been a lot of different question, discussion regarding. We have an environmental permit. As I said before, we have the permit in place. We can initiate the Blötberget construction, the Blötberget site. We can do the infrastructure building for the on-surface. Then we will amend the permit.

The plan is to amend the permit to adopt to the changes or improvements in the Blötberget mine plan, mine project. For example, one big thing that we are changing is that we do not have a surface tailing storage facility. If you have walked around on different mine sites, you can see big tailings of waste material. We will store everything underground. That is a huge improvement in the Blötberget operation. Less environmental footprint, but that requires an amendment in the permit. Then when we have done that, we will then do the further amendment on the Väsmanfältet. In the current plan we have, we start in Blötberget with the full mining capacity, and then Väsmanfältet will come onstream roughly five, six, seven years after Blötberget. The most critical part there is that Väsmanfältet is onstream, feeding material into the process plant before Blötberget is depleting.

I am not worried about that. Then we have found, as you saw, improved mineralization in Blötberget. That means that we will intend to plan for additional mining concessions so we get a larger area and a larger deposit that we can mine. We have two mining concessions in Blötberget today, number one and number two, and the process has started up to add a third mining concession to be able to dig up even more ore in the future. On a high level path forward, we aim to be one of the few major Swedish producers of ultra-high-grade iron ore concentrate. We will basically start in the Ludvika region with the Blötberget and Väsmanfältet. We have other mining concessions like Oxberg. There are still unexplored areas nearby Blötberget and Väsmanfältet.

As you saw on the exploration target slide on Väsmanfältet, we still have four areas just next to the ones that we have defined as exploration targets. They are really interesting to further analyze in Blötberget. We have our hands full to increase the mineral resource. Then, of course, now we have 20 more million tonnes of high-grade concentrate on the table, so of course we will focus on getting offtake covering that. Cargill Metals or other player. Of course, the partnership with Cargill is very appreciated, so that is going to be the first focus. We have the apatite. Apatite by-product is quite new in the discussion with our customers. We have ongoing discussions on the offtake.

No offtake is secured as of today, but that we want to achieve as soon as possible so we can bring those real financial metrics and the customer commitment into the DFS study. The long-term target is to be a real strong and good mining company in the Bergslagen region, delivering a good profit with good dividend, and expand into different areas with the mineralization and projects we have. Diving into the more hands-on time plan then. Today, we have released the PFS results, or actually yesterday. We have the Q2 result out today. What we are going to do now is to capitalize the company for the next phases, the further exploration into the Väsmanfältet to really go and hunt these possible up to 80 million tonnes additional mineralization in Väsmanfältet. Kick up the definitive feasibility study and take us up to a project financing.

We expect the DFS exploration and closing of project financing during 2027- 2028. Then we can start the mine construction 2029. As you saw on the previous slide, first ore up 2031, and then we start to really produce, sell, and deliver at least and up to 2052. The more we find, the more we are going to expand the life of mine. The more we find, we can look into increasing the annual production. But this is the current plan we have from the pre-feasibility study. The next study, the definitive feasibility study, will give more insights on more resources and more financial results. I think we are over to the Q&A part. Just to summarize again the investment highlights. We can keep this slide on when I look over to Hannes and ask, is there any questions from the audience, or is it crystal clear?

Hannes Thorstensson
Metals and Mining Analyst, DNB Carnegie

Not as of now. It is crystal clear. If you wish to ask a question, please send it in through the chat, and I can read it out to Ronne.

Ronne Hamerslag
CEO, Nordic Iron

Yeah.

Hannes Thorstensson
Metals and Mining Analyst, DNB Carnegie

I could start. First of all, thank you for the presentation and congrats to the promising results in the PFS.

Ronne Hamerslag
CEO, Nordic Iron

Thank you, thank you.

Hannes Thorstensson
Metals and Mining Analyst, DNB Carnegie

Could you elaborate on why your iron ore concentrate is particularly attractive for so-called green steel? What types of steel producers are especially interested in your product?

Ronne Hamerslag
CEO, Nordic Iron

Yeah. That's a very, very good question. Iron ore exists, I used to say, in two flavors, magnetite and hematite. Magnetite is a magnetic part of it, and you can, with magnetic separation, get up to very high grades of concentrate. Hematite is not as magnetic, so you need to have a gravimetric separation. You get lower grades of that. The amount of magnetite we have in deposits or in the mineralization is of very high interest because then we can get a higher grade. Not to be too technical, but in the blast furnace, the iron ore is melted, so you get a slag process. You can remove the impurities or the deleterious elements, and you get the pig iron that is molten.

In direct reduction with hydrogen or natural gas, it's a solid-state reaction, which actually means that all your deleterious elements and pollutive elements stays into the product. That's why it's a higher demand on the grade in the input feed to direct reduction processes. I think that's the key point. You also asked about which kind of steel industries. As I said on my slide, the higher the grade you have in your input feed, the less energy you consume, the more clean product you have, the lower cost you have. Everybody wants a cleaner product. We are mainly looking or focusing on the European and Middle East, North African market. There's a big transition in Europe, both of aging blast furnaces. They need to update blast furnaces or change the metallurgy route.

It's a good window of opportunity the next coming two decades in that transition in the European steel market. Middle East, North Africa is focusing on natural gas, direct reduction, and that's also a good and evolving market. That was the short answer to a complicated question.

Hannes Thorstensson
Metals and Mining Analyst, DNB Carnegie

Apart from the high grade that you can achieve, what would you say is the most interesting part with Blötberget as a deposit? Is it the infrastructure around?

Ronne Hamerslag
CEO, Nordic Iron

Yeah, I would say, it is not Blötberget as one deposit. It is this region. It is a long straight of mineralization. Southwest of Blötberget and Väsmanfältet, you have the old famous Grängesbergs mine, which is under another company. But the mineralization, the possible deposits to find, there is a lot of historical mines in this area. There is a saying in the industry, that the best way to find a new mine is in the shadow of the old headframe, meaning that the mineralization is very close in that area. So it is not Blötberget alone that is, so to say, that most interesting part. It is the whole area and the region and the connecting mineralization.

Hannes Thorstensson
Metals and Mining Analyst, DNB Carnegie

A question from the webcast. Any timeline for the DFS? Could you maybe—

Ronne Hamerslag
CEO, Nordic Iron

Yeah. The plan is to do further exploration on the DFS during 2027 and 2028. With the DFS, we can do the full project financing, and the target is to do that then by the second half of 2028 with the current timeline. Then, we can start the construction more or less on New Year's Day or the day after New Year's Eve in 2029. That is what we are aiming for, what we are shooting for, what we are working day and night for in the team.

Hannes Thorstensson
Metals and Mining Analyst, DNB Carnegie

Sounds great. From Catherine here, "Thank you, Ron, for a very good presentation and congratulations to the PFS result. Given that Nordic Iron is now entering a new phase, what is your plan with regard to increasing the awareness of the company among investors and other stakeholders?"

Ronne Hamerslag
CEO, Nordic Iron

Yeah. Thank you for that question. With this PFS now freshly made, it is really just out from the copy machine or printing machine. Now we have a good story to tell. Now we can go out to the market and tell, "This is the project." It is Blötberget and the Väsmanfältet together. We are exceeding 100 million tonnes in total resources. That puts you on a completely different scale in the global, so to say, mining industry or iron ore mining industry. The plan now is to travel as much as possible, meet as much as possible, different investors. With the PFS, now we can tell what the project is.

Previously, we had an old study from 2019. A good study, good numbers, but of course, it is kind of aging now. Now with this study, it is the time to really talk to the market.

Hannes Thorstensson
Metals and Mining Analyst, DNB Carnegie

You mentioned apatite as a potential by-product.

Ronne Hamerslag
CEO, Nordic Iron

Yes.

Hannes Thorstensson
Metals and Mining Analyst, DNB Carnegie

Can you briefly explain what that is and how it can become a potential bonus in your?

Ronne Hamerslag
CEO, Nordic Iron

Yeah. Well, I would say it is already a bonus in the plan. To explain what apatite is, I know this might be not obvious to everyone. Apatite is a phosphate mineral. Phosphate mineral is a phosphorus and oxygen together. From phosphate, you extract phosphorus, and phosphorus you use in fertilizer. Fertilizers are used in the agriculture industry. There is a growing demand around in Europe for getting fertilizer for the agriculture, because the supply chains we have had in the past with the new geopolitical situation, some of these countries we are not willing to buy from anymore. There is a growing shortage of fertilizer in Europe. That is really where the key thing with apatite is to get the phosphorus out, to making a fertilizer. As said, we do not have any concrete offtake.

We have initiated early discussions with potential buyers of that, and they are actually then producers of fertilizers. They have been waiting for the PFS to say, "Okay, how much apatite can you produce? What is the volume, the annual volume?" Now we can really start up that discussion. As a side note, the apatite carries a lot of rare earths. Today, rare earths are not giving extra credit in the apatite market. We see that it might happen in the near future that rare earths becomes more and more attractive, and it could be that that can also add value to the apatite by-product.

Hannes Thorstensson
Metals and Mining Analyst, DNB Carnegie

You mentioned offtake.

Ronne Hamerslag
CEO, Nordic Iron

Yes.

Hannes Thorstensson
Metals and Mining Analyst, DNB Carnegie

You have an offtake agreement, which you briefly covered in the presentation, covering the first 25 million tonnes of concentrate. Could you explain how such an agreement works in practice? How important would you say it is for the financing of the product?

Ronne Hamerslag
CEO, Nordic Iron

Yeah. Of course, I cannot go into any specific terms in the offtake. In general, offtake agreement, the mining industry is a bit different from many other industries. There is a price index, a global price index for iron ore products. Based on that, there is more or less a formula that evaluate your product depending on the grade you have, the moisture, deleterious elements, low phosphorus, low sulfur, and those kind of things that you don't want in. Basically, a mathematic formula that calculates the price. What we're going to do is that the mine is nominating a certain amount of tonnage to the offtaker, then you have a discussion in the year before, so to say. Then you do a commitment between the buyer and the mine or the offtaker and the mine.

Then you're committed to procure that from the offtaker, and we are committed to deliver that during the following year. Basically, it's a one-year commitment planning all the time. You also asked why is that important to have, I think it's really good in the discussion with the financiers that we have been having so far, that we can guarantee that we get an income. When the first ores come up, goes on the train, and is loaded on a vessel in the port of Oxelösund, we know that we have a commitment from Cargill that they will take it and we will get the revenue in. The mining industry is quite capital intensive, so of course you need to get the revenue stream to cover your cost.

I think that is really a good point to have the offtake in place, guarantee that the first tonne going to be sold and we're going to get the market price for that.

Hannes Thorstensson
Metals and Mining Analyst, DNB Carnegie

Thank you for that. Another question from the website regarding the same topic.

Ronne Hamerslag
CEO, Nordic Iron

Yeah.

Hannes Thorstensson
Metals and Mining Analyst, DNB Carnegie

The question is, who will be your customers? Cargill is of course one.

Ronne Hamerslag
CEO, Nordic Iron

Well, Cargill as such is the offtake partner. They doesn't produce any steel themselves. We, of course, have a close collaboration with Cargill and see exactly which are the steel mills or steel works in Europe or Middle East, North Africa that is going to take it. In a way, we have a good relationship with Cargill, but in a way I could say that is Cargill's problem.

Hannes Thorstensson
Metals and Mining Analyst, DNB Carnegie

Yeah.

Ronne Hamerslag
CEO, Nordic Iron

They have to pay me when I start to deliver.

Hannes Thorstensson
Metals and Mining Analyst, DNB Carnegie

Yeah.

Ronne Hamerslag
CEO, Nordic Iron

I am not worried that we are going to find the right steel mills that is going to use this. As I said, it is a big transition ongoing in Europe the next coming two decades that is demanding these higher grades. At the same time, globally, a lot of the iron ores are depleting, so the average grade in the world that are available is going down, and we are coming with something that is actually going up. That is a big difference.

Hannes Thorstensson
Metals and Mining Analyst, DNB Carnegie

Another question here from the webcast. Regarding the additional funding needed for the upcoming development activities and the move towards a DFS. Can you rule out a new share issue? Or is an equity raise also one of the financing options currently being considered? If you could say anything about that.

Ronne Hamerslag
CEO, Nordic Iron

Of course, we need to get the capital in to do the further exploration, the definite feasibility study. Exactly how that is going to be done is a process we can start now with the DFS at hand. Of course, the final retake of the feasibility study that put us into Q3 is not in favor of that raising the capital now, w ould I like to start that earlier, but that it was exactly the right decision the board took in January to include the additional drilling. So we really expanded the Blötberget deposit to include apatite, that basically generates profit without bringing any cost into the project, almost any cost. Then adding the Väsmanfältet into the project. Now, we have completely improved the metrics. So we have not decided, or the board have not decided exactly how we are going to do that.

But with the PFS, that discussion will start now.

Hannes Thorstensson
Metals and Mining Analyst, DNB Carnegie

Makes sense. Looking a little further ahead, what would you say are the most critical risk factors between today and the planned start of the production 2031 that could affect the current timeline? What is the most critical?

Ronne Hamerslag
CEO, Nordic Iron

There are many parameters or many risks.

You have to be very positive and proactive if you work in the mining industry. I would say I do not see any risk or any problems. We are going to get this mine going. Of course, one thing we just mentioned, we need further cash to get into the definitive feasibility study. With that, we can do the project financing. We would like to do more exploration drilling. There is no big risk in terms of technology, mineralization, location, railroad, power. More or less, just give me the money and I will start the mine. I am positive.

Hannes Thorstensson
Metals and Mining Analyst, DNB Carnegie

Sounds good. You are talking about a mine of life of around 23 years.

Ronne Hamerslag
CEO, Nordic Iron

Yes.

Hannes Thorstensson
Metals and Mining Analyst, DNB Carnegie

Could you elaborate a little bit? What happens after that?

Ronne Hamerslag
CEO, Nordic Iron

What happens after that is that we have found more ore and we are still mining. That is my main plan. Assuming that the end of life is 2052, in the environmental permit we have a plan that has been approved by the authorities. It is called a reclamation plan. Basically everything we are building up between 2029 and 2031 needs to be dismantled, taken away. We need to take away all the buildings, power lines, transformers, mobile equipment, concrete. We need to put some good soil back. We need to plant trees. We need to close up the mine. A few years after that, more or less, no one will see that it has been a mine on that site. That is the regulation or the requirements from the authorities today when you get the permit to do a complete reclamation afterwards.

I am sure we are going to find more ore, so we are going to still be producing after 2052. I am not worried about that.

Hannes Thorstensson
Metals and Mining Analyst, DNB Carnegie

Me neither. A question here. Can you tell a little bit about CapEx and risk regarding this? You had a slide about the CapEx plan. Maybe you want to elaborate a little bit about that.

Ronne Hamerslag
CEO, Nordic Iron

I'm not really sure about the risk and the CapEx plan. The capital we have planned now in the pre-feasibility gonna take us from start of construction, the surface buildings and the surface site, the process plant, the transformers, the rail yard, and everything is geared up for the annual volume going up to around 4.8 million tonnes. We're building the site to have a capacity of 5 million tonnes input feed in total. That's the plan. We're going to start to feed it with material from Blötberget, and then eventually a few years later, we get in a combination of Blötberget and Väsmanfältet. It's actually no real additional cost to bring in Väsmanfältet to additional CapEx, as long as we stay within the 5 million tonnes total mill capacity. If you want to expand that, it might be, but that's not in the plan, t oday.

It's a good project, a good net present value. We are not in the project financing to find the full CapEx right as of now, so I'm really sure we're going to be able to do that in 2028. Don't know if that really answered the question, though.

Hannes Thorstensson
Metals and Mining Analyst, DNB Carnegie

Maybe. A follow-up on that one. Let's say in the DFS in—

Ronne Hamerslag
CEO, Nordic Iron

Yes.

Hannes Thorstensson
Metals and Mining Analyst, DNB Carnegie

—2029, is it possible that the CapEx will be lower, than you are presenting now or even higher?

Ronne Hamerslag
CEO, Nordic Iron

Of course, there is a possibility that it can be lower. We have done a lot in the pre-feasibility study now to move things from actually being CapEx into OpEx. We have a lot of leasing agreement, managed service agreement. We will look further into automation and things like that. I would expect if the inflation is zero from now and until then, it should be roughly the same numbers. I do not see that is going to be a big change in the CapEx, as long as we stay with that size. If the exploration targets and we find much more or a certain mineralization, we change the plan, then, of course, this have an impact, but I do not expect any big change, no.

Hannes Thorstensson
Metals and Mining Analyst, DNB Carnegie

Makes sense. No further questions from the chat, so I guess we give them a chance to send the final questions here. Otherwise, I leave the word over to you if you have any closing remarks.

Ronne Hamerslag
CEO, Nordic Iron

Well, thanks for listening. It has been a hard work and a very nice work with the team. We are fully committed behind the company on this pre-feasibility result. We are going to take the company now to the next level, further exploration, further improving the project in the definitive feasibility study. As said, please look into the website to see more details on the mineral resources or reserves and anything. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out, in Swedish as well. We do this for the international audience today, but we have a lot of information in Swedish on the website as well. Thanks for listening.