Okay. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Centerra's educational molybdenum webinar. I am Lisa Wilkinson, Vice President of Investor Relations. For many of you joining us today, we have likely met at a conference, on a road show, or during a one-on-one meeting. For those of you who are new to Centerra and joining us specifically to learn about molybdenum, welcome to you as well. Today's webinar will start with a short presentation followed by a Q and A session. We have compiled the questions submitted in advance, but there will also be an opportunity to ask questions during the session. At the bottom of your screen, you will find a Q and A box where you can submit your questions at any time. We will do our best to answer as many as possible during the webinar, and if we do not get to your question, we will follow up with you directly after the call.
Today's presentation may include forward-looking statements and the use of non-GAAP measures. For more information, please refer to our cautionary statements in our presentation and the risk factors outlined in our annual information form. We are excited to be hosting today's webinar on understanding molybdenum and market fundamentals. Today's discussion is intended to be primarily educational, providing a high-level overview of molybdenum as a metal, its historical and emerging applications, and the fundamentals that are driving supply and demand. We will also provide an overview of Centerra's molybdenum assets and how they fit into our broader corporate strategy. We are also planning to host a more detailed moly teach-in in the spring of 2027, following the release of our guidance.
That session will focus more specifically on our moly business and strategy, including a more detailed discussion of the business and its financial and operating fundamentals to help investors better understand our assets ahead of first production at Thompson Creek. Now turning to our panelists. Joining us today are Ryan Snyder, our Chief Financial Officer, Hélène Timpano, President of U.S. Moly, and Karine Pearson, Vice President Commercial. With that, I would like to turn it over to Ryan to provide a brief overview of Centerra and how our moly assets fit into the broader portfolio and strategy.
Thanks, Lisa. Good morning, everyone. As Lisa mentioned, I will give a brief overview of Centerra. I know this is a moly-focused presentation, but obviously, it fits into a broader Centerra story. Just looking at this slide with the map, Centerra has two operating assets at this point in time. Our main asset and our foundational asset is Mount Milligan in B.C. It is a gold-copper asset. It produces, as you can see there on the slide, about 140,000 oz-155,000 oz of gold this year and 50 million to 60 million pounds of copper, and it is a very long-life mine. It currently has a mine life until 2045. We believe there is room to extend that further, but it is a long-life asset in a tier one jurisdiction in B.C., generates really strong free cash flow.
Our second operating asset is the Öksüt Mine in Turkey, another really strong cash flow generator. Guidance for this year is 120,000 to 135,000 ounces. It currently has a mine life till 2029, but we are working on a life-of-mine extension study, which will be announced in February of 2027 as we look to extend that mine. In terms of development projects, we have a really interesting portfolio. There are two projects that touch on the gold and copper space. The first is the Goldfield Project in Nevada. We are currently building that project right now. It is slated to come online in late 2028 and will be our third gold-producing asset in the portfolio. It has a CapEx cost of about $250 million, and we are well on our way in terms of development of that asset. Then longer term, a more substantial asset is Kemess in B.C.
It is, like Mount Milligan, a gold-copper asset. It is pretty similar in size to Mount Milligan. It is about 170,000 ounces a year of gold and 60 million pounds per year of copper. We have released a PEA on this asset in January of this year. We are working on a PFS for this asset, which will be announced in the middle of next year. We view that as another long-life asset in B.C. The PEA outlined a 15-year mine life. We think that is the starting mine life for this asset, and we will be providing further information on Kemess as we move along going into the future. I think one of the other hallmarks of Centerra has also been a really strong balance sheet. You can see there on the slide, we have about $400 million of cash.
We also have a $600 million credit facility that is untouched, so about $1 billion of liquidity and no debt on our balance sheet right now. We are utilizing that balance sheet to develop these assets and also reduce our share count at the same time. I did not touch on the molybdenum assets here. That is the focus of a lot of the presentation, but that is the other source of development and growth for Centerra. We have these gold and copper assets. We are also well on our way to restarting the Thompson Creek Mine in Idaho. First production there is slated for mid-2027. It is about a $425 million-$450 million capital project that we are most of the way through, and Hélène and Karine will touch on that coming up. That will bring another cash flow generating asset into the portfolio.
When you step back and look at Centerra, it really is a polymetallic story, gold, copper, and molybdenum, with cash flow being generated from all of those commodities. We can just move to the next slide, please. Our plan is to self-fund a really interesting growth story. As mentioned before, we have a really strong balance sheet. Our two operating assets make excellent cash flow. The focus there is really strong execution. At Öksüt this year, we have increased gold production guidance, and we are well on track to meet that. At Mount Milligan this year, we have reduced our AISC guidance due to strong copper production and copper credits. Both of those mines have made already over $200 million each of free cash flow this year. So really, really strong cash flow generators.
We are going to use those funds to develop the assets in our portfolio and the substantial metal we have in the ground. Continue the development of Goldfield and bring that online by 2028, and eventually look to develop Kemess, which will likely take place in the early 2030s, and continue to build out this molybdenum business. We think this is a differentiator for Centerra. If you step back at Centerra, two years ago, we had two operating assets and we did not really have defined plans for the growth of this company, and molybdenum is a part of that. We took a long look at the supply and demand dynamics, which Karine will get into, felt really positive about the future of molybdenum.
Molybdenum prices have increased quite substantially since we put out a study and made the positive decision to move forward with Thompson Creek, and we are excited what those molybdenum assets can bring to the portfolio as a diversified source of cash flow for Centerra. With that, I will pass on to Karine to talk a little bit more about the molybdenum market and supply and demand dynamics.
Thank you, Ryan. Just to introduce moly, what is it? How is it used? Many people are not so familiar with the moly market, but moly plays an essential role in modern industry. It is used diversely. The market is around 670 million pounds in 2025, and steel is the largest end use, with engineering steels and stainless steels accounting roughly two-thirds of the end use markets shown here. Where does the supply come from? At Thompson Creek, we will have molybdenum concentrate that we will produce at Thompson Creek Mine, and the molybdenum is a primary byproduct from Thompson Creek. We will then take that concentrate and process it at our processing facility at Langeloth, which makes molybdenum finished products. Those main products are technical grade oxide, ferromolybdenum, and we also make some specialty chemical products.
They just serve different customers and different processes at different parts of the value chain. First of all, technical oxide is the, I guess, the main product, and it is used as a feedstock to also produce ferromolybdenum. Technical grade oxide is mostly used in steel-making, and it provides strength properties to steel, but also in stainless steel, moly provides corrosion resistance and allows it to be used in high-performance applications. Market is showing quite a lot of strength overall, and if we take also our chemical grade products, they are used in catalysts and lubricants, pigments, and we can have some high purity specification requirements. In general, chemical grade products command a bit of a premium over other products, and the quality of our concentrate from Thompson Creek allows that diversification as we blend those products in. If we go to the next slide, please.
Looking at the overall demand picture, we're looking at a fairly strong growth potential, 3% compound annual growth over the period to, say, 2030. Demand has been actually growing stronger in recent years, and we've seen some pretty solid growth in different regions showing different growth rates. How is moly used? Which are the main applications? Moly is fundamentally an alloy metal. In oil and gas, for example, that means drill steels, oil country tubular goods, well heads, pipelines, energy infrastructure. If we look at aerospace and defense, that's also a particularly interesting market. It's not one of the greatest markets by volume, but it's certainly one of the strongest areas of growth, where molybdenum has been used in nickel-based alloys for jet engines and turbines, and high-temperature aerospace applications. Energy is the other sector.
There are diverse uses in the energy sector, in power generation, in turbines, reactors, pressure vessels, and heat exchangers, and across nuclear, hydro, geothermal, and hydrogen infrastructure. These markets have been particularly interesting because they've just been showing the strongest demand growth rates over this period. As we go out, we expect the demand to continue, and those growth rates should be solid, and those segments of oil and gas, energy-related applications, and aerospace will continue to grow probably at a faster rate over the short term. Next slide. In terms of moly supply, moly supply has been particularly challenging in terms of the availability of molybdenum because there's been very strong demand, but also we've seen some reduction in production from existing copper mines. Moly being produced as a byproduct of copper, we've seen underperformance of production volumes from Chile.
Typically, we've seen a response from China in terms of production, but I guess there's the common misconception that China can just turn on the valve of additional concentrate production. We've not been seeing that ability as much of late. We are seeing a quite tight concentrate market currently. It's an opportune moment really for us to bring on Thompson Creek. Thompson Creek is one of three primary moly mines outside of China. We will obviously be starting in 2027. As we're seeing a bit of a supply crunch, we have a bit of an opportunity here as Thompson Creek ramps up. The timing is pretty perfect there. Thompson Creek is expected to start production in mid-2027. It's capital investment. Unlike a lot of primary moly mines out there, we already have all the We're well-financed.
Most of the capital investment has already been completed. A lot of other projects out there have additional, are potentially can be brought on, but they have additional capital to be paid. The brownfield restart at Thompson Creek really de-risked that capital investment, and it's one of the few sources of supply that is coming on stream in terms of supplying some of the moly deficit. Next slide. If we take a look at historical moly prices, the price for molybdenum has been fairly volatile historically. Since July, we've seen quite a rally in prices. The project evaluation for Thompson Creek feasibility was at a $20 per pound moly price. As we see, the prices have ticked up quite significantly since then.
We do get the occasional moly price spike, but what is kind of different about this rally in the moly price is it has not been that cyclical event. It has been much stickier, a much more solid increase. We are ticking up towards a $30 average for 2026 year to date. The spot molybdenum price right now is at $34.50. We continue to see that strong support for molybdenum prices going forward. Although part of it is supply and demand, when we think about pricing, it is higher value steel demand. We are seeing solid growth in steel demand, but also greater intensity of use of molybdenum. If you take a steel, maybe if a 0.1% content of moly would equate to a kilogram of moly contained, some steels may contain as much as 7% moly, so that would be 70 kg per ton.
As we see in those higher value steels, that has been pretty supportive of price at the same time as a tight molybdenum supply. I will hand over to Hélène.
Great. I will get into some details on our Molybdenum business unit. What is really unique about our business is that it is a vertically integrated business, and it is located in the U.S. We are a domestic producer of strategic minerals. I will talk about Thompson Creek and Langeloth here and get into a few more details on the slides that follow. With the mine, it is located in central Idaho. As Karine was saying, it is a primary mine, which means that the product at the mine is only molybdenum versus a byproduct mine that would have copper and molybdenum. When you have a primary molybdenum mine, you are getting a very high-quality concentrate. In fact, Thompson Creek is known to be among the best in the world. You do not get impurities like you might find in certain byproduct concentrates.
The benefit of the mine as well is that it is a past-producing mine, and there is significant established infrastructure, and that has allowed us to get back into operations. We have been mining the pit already for two years now, and we are in the process of refurbishing the mill and also getting the tailings facility ready to resume operations. This gives us a very strong head start and has allowed us to pursue the restart in that range of $425 million-$450 million. We are very well on track with our project, so we are expecting to have production by mid-year next year. Flipping to Langeloth, this is a downstream converter. Again, that is a differentiator for us because having the downstream step is not necessarily typical these days in the U.S.
It's located very strategically just outside of Pittsburgh, and that puts it in a very well-suited location for supplying steel-making customers who are the primary users of molybdenum. The Langeloth facility has been around for more than 100 years, so very extensive operating history there, and it has a capacity of 40 million pounds installed. We have been working to ramp up that volume. Thompson Creek will provide an opportunity to further ramp up the capacity utilization at Langeloth. When you think about the vertical integration benefits of having these two assets in the same portfolio, that really was underpinning why we decided to make the decision to restart the business. The benefits of the vertical integration, it comes from three things. Number one is that capacity utilization that I spoke to at Langeloth.
Having the captive feed coming from Thompson Creek will allow us to take a step up in the production levels at Langeloth. Looking at where we are today, we're running at about a third of our capacity at Langeloth, and this is exclusively from third-party concentrates that we're purchasing as the offtaker. But flipping to in the future when the mine is ramped up, that will add around another third to the production levels at Langeloth. That will be a very important source of de-risking in order to have that constant volume and contribution towards defraying the fixed costs of the operation. The remaining third would remain available for us to potentially add more volumes, again, depending on market conditions, but that gives us a lot of flexibility.
The second lever in the vertical integration value proposition is the fact that, as Karine mentioned, the Thompson Creek concentrate allows us to produce very high purity products, like the chemical-grade products. This allows us to have a potentially higher margin production as well. The third lever is the fact that, again, the quality of the Thompson Creek concentrate gives us the flexibility to potentially blend it with poorer concentrates, which would typically have a more attractive discount for us to purchase. Those are the three main levers that create the vertical integration benefit.
Looking at the impact to the market, I think it's just important to note that while Thompson Creek will be adding production to the market, given the dynamics that Karine was talking about, 13 million pounds is really only about 2% of the market, and that's not even going to meet one year of demand growth. The mine is coming at exactly the right time, but we aren't expecting it to have any sort of significant impact on the price. The last asset in the portfolio, which we won't speak too much today, is Endako, but I do want to mention that it's another past-producing mine that we own. It's a primary mine, just like Thompson Creek, and it also has significant existing infrastructure, including a world-class mill.
So, as we think about its role in the future, it could become a potential follow-on source of primary molybdenum production for us in the future, but it remains on care and maintenance today. If we flip to the next page, I will talk a little bit about the progress we are making at Thompson Creek. As I said, we remain on track for first production mid-next year, and we are on track to deliver that within the $425 million-$450 million capital program that we have guided. The main components of that restart is really two things. First thing is stripping of the pit, and we have been at that now for two years. Then the second component is refurbishing the infrastructure, specifically in the mill, and also in the tailings facility.
Looking at the mining side of the equation, like I said, we have been doing that for a couple years now, and we are making good progress in developing the pit. We will have sufficient stockpile to be restarting on time, and that has been progressing very well. Then flipping to the composition of the team, again, very important factor. It is a hot market, but I am pleased to report that we have our full management team in place, and we are also now starting to ramp up the hiring in the mill, which will position us well to get into commissioning activities starting later this year. As of the end of September, we were at 65% complete on the infrastructure refurbishment, and the progress is really ticking up because now, at the end of October, we had added another 10% to that, so we stood at 75%.
So, we are making very good progress. This is very active time in the mill right now. If you think about what are the key things that we need to accomplish to remain on track for the balance of the year, we expect to be substantially completing the mill construction this year, and then commissioning readiness will begin. The tailings and the water management infrastructure is another area of focus. We did achieve the substantial completion of the rock toe buttress, which is an important aspect of our tailings facility, so that was a big milestone for our progress. Then, of course, continuing to ramp up the hiring and make sure that we are fully staffed for those operational roles. Flipping to the next page, get into a bit more detail on Langeloth.
So, Langeloth, being just outside of Pittsburgh, has that very attractive location for supporting our steel customers. In fact, our customer base, we are serving most of the U.S. steel producers. So again, this is longstanding relationships that we have and very well positioned to be supporting them. The products that we are making, as Karine alluded to, are supporting very topical industries right now, especially in the U.S. So, we have seen very strong demand from our customers linked to that thematic of the re-onshoring of steel, and a steel that is used in very strategic industries for the U.S., where we are seeing significant investments, whether that be in oil and gas or aerospace and defense, and other industrial applications. In fact, we are even seeing some emerging use cases in advanced computing related to AI.
One of the real differentiators for Langeloth is the fact that it's the only U.S. producer of ferromolybdenum, which is a form of the metallurgical grade molybdenum, and that's a critical alloy that's used to strengthen specialty steels. Being the only producer of that product in today's environment where security supply is essential is very important for our position in the market. The other thing that's worth noting about Langeloth is that we are producing other products that can be monetized as part of our moly roasting operations. One of those products is rhenium. Rhenium is a byproduct of molybdenum, and it's a critical mineral in the U.S.
It's critical because the U.S. is import reliant, 75% import reliant for rhenium, and it's irreplaceable in the production of very critical components in aerospace, for example, the turbine components that would be used in very high precision defense applications. Then the other product that we produce as a byproduct of moly roasting is sulfuric acid, and that comes because in the roasting operations, we are capturing and converting the sulfur dioxide, and then we are producing saleable sulfuric acid. Lastly, I'll just touch on the team. Like I mentioned, it's a 100-year operation at Langeloth, and we're very experienced. We have lots of flexibility as well in how we run the facility. We have six roasters, so this gives us a lot of different possibilities in how we want to run the facility and flex within that up to 40 million pounds of capacity that we have.
The key aspect of how the business will change, and I'll speak to this on the next slide, is when we bring the Thompson Creek production on starting next year. If you look over time, the facility has run, in fact, in the 40 million pound range in the past, and it's Thompson Creek's startup next year that's going to create the opportunity for us to step up our capacity utilization and leverage the fixed cost of the facility. If you look at where we are today, we're operating in that approximately one-third capacity utilization range. Again, as a reminder, it's all third-party concentrates. But the bar on the right illustrates what the business model will evolve to once Thompson Creek is up and running.
We'll keep that one-third of third-party concentrates, and then we'll add another third of our own captive feed coming from Thompson Creek, and that's the very high purity feed that I was talking about earlier. So right off the bat, that gets us at about two-thirds capacity utilization. Having the captive feed is especially important in such a tight market, like Karine was explaining, because then we aren't going and competing with other potential off-takers. We have it readily available to produce. Then the remaining third is some flexibility that we have to potentially continue to step up our capacity utilization. We'll make that decision based on the market conditions at the time. Being less than nine months away now from first production at Thompson Creek is going to really set us off in this direction.
Next year is, of course, the ramp-up year, but what is shown on the right-hand side there is a good representation of what we can expect in 2028 and beyond. That summarizes the asset mix that we have in our Moly business. I think before turning it back over to Lisa, I just want to take a moment to recognize the team. It has been a tremendous effort over the last number of years, and I just really appreciate everyone's ongoing commitment each and every day to being safely getting after the ramp-up and keeping us on track for an exciting time as we approach first production next year. Thank you to everyone. With that, I will pass it back to you, Lisa.
Great. Thanks, Hélène. Before we start the Q and A portion of the webinar, just a quick reminder that you can submit your questions through the Q and A box on your screen. We are going to start with some of the questions that we did receive in advance of the webinar. First, briefly walk through the commercial model at Langeloth and how this will change once the business becomes integrated with Thompson Creek.
Yeah. To kick it off, I will just remind everyone that Langeloth, the commercial model there is really a processing spread structure, and Karine can elaborate a bit more on what that means. But strategically, Langeloth is a nice addition to the business because it dampens the volatility that we have historically seen in the molybdenum market. That is a feature that we can elaborate on a little bit more. I think that it provides a nice moderating feature to the business. Karine, if you could speak a little bit more to that commercial model and then also the importance of QP matching.
Of course. As Hélène mentioned, it is a QP, it is a premium spread model. We purchase concentrates, and we look at how we optimize that material through our roasters. We consider different blends and what is the most optimal markets to sell the different products in. That depends on the quality of concentrates that we get in and our own feed. Obviously, with Thompson Creek, we have many more options there for blending. Then, in terms of QP matching, which Hélène pointed out, we try and not to really take any risk there. We manage that through optionality in our contracts and then try and manage that QP risk. It is not really hedgeable, so it does require a physical matching of QPs.
Great. Thank you. Our next question that came pre-registered was, how do you see the moly byproduct oversupply risk evolving, and where will it come from?
We do get that question a lot because, of course, there is some pretty constructive views on what will happen with copper production. It is important to remember that copper production growth doesn't necessarily translate into equivalent growth in molybdenum supply. Karine, why don't you touch a bit on that so people can understand why that is not the exact read-through?
Yeah. I mean, when you look at copper production, moly is obviously a byproduct. Probably only around 60% of production is due from copper as a byproduct, and that varies a lot from year to year. If you are going after copper grades, you are pushing pretty hard on copper. That actually may result in reduced molybdenum recovery, and we are kind of seeing that right now. Then on the flip side, if there is increased copper prices, then that may incentivize additional copper production, and that may mean additional projects that do produce molybdenum. It is not a switch that you can just flip on. Even though we are seeing higher copper prices and everything is incentivizing new copper supply, actually, the gap between that supply arriving is some considerable amount of time. Hence why we are seeing some high moly prices currently.
That is right. I think it is also important to note that to recover the molybdenum instead of sending it to tails would require additional investments, and there needs to be a business case around that also. It is another consideration as you are thinking about byproduct moly coming online.
Great. We have had a lot of engagement on our live Q and A here, so we have got one. Unlike gold and copper, moly is not traded on futures exchanges. How are the prices established? What drives the price movements, and how should we be watching to understand where the market is heading?
I will answer the part about the exchange possibility and hedging options. It is true that there is no real liquid large-scale hedging market available for molybdenum, so that makes any sort of conventional hedging opportunity really impractical at scale. It is important to understand the dynamics of what is driving the price movements, and Karine, you can elaborate on that further, please.
Yeah, sure. We obviously try and monitor what is happening to price. It is a fairly opaque market, so there are mine production disruptions and dislocations globally. Even though there are reported index, which how we contract is based on an index, even though it is not hedgeable, it is the spot market that drives the index. There are these dislocations and imbalances, and therefore, different product premiums in different areas. We try and optimize through geography, through the products that we produce, and each year, our strategy will change based on where we see the optimization. But in terms of contracts, they are all a base of an index, which is reported.
Great. This next question, there could be some variability depending on asset, but do you have a sense of a general incentive price that would see a meaningful primary mine supply response ex-China?
Yeah. We talked a bit about the outlook for additional molybdenum production. I think you have to consider that these are large capital investments, so that idea of an incentive price is very important. Big ticket for any sort of greenfield, we were talking about $800 million and more in today's environment, it is probably $1 billion or more, and also the time frames to get such a project permitted and constructed. You have to have a pretty constructive long-term view on molybdenum. Why don't you talk a bit, Karine, about what you think that minimum viable price is to incentivize the primary production and those actually financing and pursuing those other primary development projects that we see in the pipeline?
Yeah. It is difficult to put an actual number on what that incentive price would be because you have to see a long-term price for the life of mine. And obviously, moly can have that cyclical variability. You do have to believe that prices are going to be very sustained, probably above $25 moly for the entire period of that mine life. But the issue is the capital investment. There is much more. Bringing on stream a primary mine is actually kind of challenging overall because it is much easier to put a capital investment, say, on a copper mine and get moly as a byproduct. So, although the prices are at a level that could incentivize that production, most of that incentivization would be where we see additional supply coming on stream in China rather than in the Western world.
Great. So, another one here. Can you talk about skilled labor availability as we ramp up Thompson Creek? How is the hiring process going? Are we facing any pressures? How many people are hired now versus how many you will need when the mine reaches production?
Yeah. Great question. It is a hot market, but we have been successful in achieving our objectives towards the ramp-up, so we have been very aware of that, and we have been working hard to mitigate it. I think that as we look at where we stand today, we probably have around 250 people that are on site, and this is allowing us to be achieving our targets on the mine side. The mill, as I mentioned, is the next frontier. We have been getting after the hiring very early. Idaho is having a bit of a mining renaissance, so we acknowledge that, and we know that it is going to be competitive. One of the levers that has been available to us to help supplement is just bringing on some contractors.
We do have an area of the pit where we are using contractors to supplement our own labor force, and that's been a good de-risking measure. I think that the value proposition of the U.S. Moly business is also pretty attractive to employees, so I think that that's also getting some applications in the door. But it's something that we're going to need to stay focused on, because I expect that given the current market environment, we are going to continue to see the competition in the workforce. We'll have to keep at our plans and our retention efforts as well. Don't want to deny the challenge at hand, but I think that we're very well-equipped to be working to maintain our workforce and keep us on plan.
Okay. Molybdenum prices have been strong relative to historical levels. How much of that strength is structural versus cyclical? What gives Centerra the confidence in the long-term outlook?
Well, when we approved this project a couple of years ago, we did take a constructive view on the molybdenum fundamentals. Our study was done at $20, and that was fairly close to spot at the time, but we did see the features of the market that would provide a strong outlook for continued high prices. Where we are today, I mean, really, it has exceeded our expectations, and that's creating a very significant margin opportunity at the mine specifically. It's the value engine once it's built, because we'll see significant premium to what we can produce the molybdenum for. I think looking longer term, it's those structural fundamentals that are important to understand, and what would we expect as far as a continued deficit. Karine, could you talk to a couple of those structural features to help people understand?
Yes, for sure. I mean, when you're looking at the overall structure of the moly market, fundamentally, it's a late-stage commodity. The intensity of use of moly is increasing overall as we're having higher performance steels and those stronger applications. From a demand perspective, we're seeing that very strong. Okay, there are some sort of short-term dynamics right now that are particularly related to defense, energy transition, but also aerospace. All of those markets are showing some quite considerable growth. But in terms of overall market, the base is getting larger, and it is harder and harder for supply to respond. Therefore, we have a pretty constructive view. I guess, what is the outside factor that could result in changes to the molybdenum price? That really depends on the Chinese supply response.
There are a number of projects out there that we keep a watchful eye on, Yulong Copper, Shapinggou. The timing on those, we obviously can't really comment on exactly when they will come on, but we really see a lot of strength till the end of the decade, and everything after that really becomes supply-side delivery to meet the strength in demand.
Perfect. What does a moly price above $30 mean for Centerra's U.S. Moly business, and can you accelerate construction to take advantage of the high commodity price environment?
Well, as I was saying, $30 is very constructive for our business, given that our restart study was done at $20. So, a significant additional margin opportunity. Just to stress the point, once the mine is built or restarted, that is the value engine of the business. So, it's really all about that margin generation at the mine. Langeloth's business model, as we were explaining before, it's really a processing margin capture, so it won't see that response in a higher price environment or a lower price environment. You can think about that margin being less sensitive to the price. So, like I said, it's all about the mine.
The one thing that is important to note, though, in regard to Langeloth is that as we see the price increase or stay high, that does demand a more significant working capital investment at Langeloth, just given the price of the pounds that we have in our pipeline. So that's something to note when thinking about the impact of a higher price. But overall, I think bringing this business on into this constructive environment, on track for that, we're not seeing any signs of the price slowing down heading into next year. So really, it's great timing to be launching our business.
Kind of along that same line here, how should investors think about the sensitivity of Centerra's moly assets to changes in molybdenum price?
Well, so actually, Lisa, let me back up for a second, because I skirted the question on the acceleration potential. I do not want to miss that one. I think, of course, we are doing everything that we can to bring the mine on even earlier than planned, or to bring the production on earlier than planned. But we are going to stay disciplined about it. We are not going to take any shortcuts, of course. We are going to do that safely. But we are looking for those opportunities, and of course, I think the more we can start commissioning through the balance of the year, the better position we will be for that. Sorry, come back to the second question.
Sorry. So, what should investors be thinking about in terms of the sensitivity of Centerra's moly assets to changes in moly price?
Well, I think that given what we see as far as the price in the near to medium term, we are not concerned about that. I think that, again, we are going to be well above the $20 that we had modeled in the restart decision. Feeling quite constructive there. I think, of course, the margins will be affected by the price, but I am not seeing any risk in the near term to the price relative to our cost structure at the mine.
Great. We're just about up at time here. I just want to thank everyone again for the engagement on the Q and A and for joining us today to talk about moly. Thanks again, and have a great day, everyone.
Thanks, everyone.
Thank you.
Bye.