Please stand by. We're about to begin. Good day, and welcome to the Ivanhoe Mines Q1 2022 financial results conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to the manager of investor relations, Matthew Keevil. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone. My name is Matthew Keevil, and I'm the Manager of Investor Relations for Ivanhoe Mines, dialing from sunny Cape Town, South Africa. It is my pleasure to welcome you to Ivanhoe Mines Q1 2022 financial results conference call. We will finish today's event with a question-and-answer session. You can submit a question using the Q&A box on the webcast page, as well as through the conference operator via your phone line. Given our time constraints, we will likely be unable to answer every question. Our apologies if we run low on time. Please follow up with our IR team with further questions.
Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that today's event will contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements.
Details of the forward-looking statements are contained in our May tenth press release, as well as via SEDAR and our website at www.ivanhoemines.com. It is now my pleasure to present our Founder and Executive Co-Chairman, Robert Friedland, for some opening remarks. Robert.
Thank you very much to all of our listeners. Most of your management is sitting in Cape Town, South Africa, given the large Indaba conference where I'm going to be speaking tomorrow morning. We're very happy to present our Q1 2022 financial results. A lot of the numbers speak for themselves, but I'd like to offer a few comments. The best numbers associated with the copper production of Ivanhoe Mines are associated with the fact that we produce less global warming gas per unit of copper produced than our competitors. That's the same reason why our cash costs are actually dropping, which is not a ruse. It is simply that when you have those big yellow trucks, and you're moving larger and larger volumes of rock, and those big yellow trucks are addicted to hydrocarbon.
When the hydrocarbon goes up due to war or any other eventuality, there's no way around it, your costs have to go up. Kamoa-Kakula is a mine powered essentially by hydroelectricity. Within two years, with an all-electric fleet, there'll be no exposure to hydrocarbon at all. We have a very, very good business at $4 a pound copper, lower than we're trading today. We have an extremely good business even at $3 copper, occupying the bottom of the world's cost curve. We believe as our production continues to grow dramatically, we'll be amortizing an ever larger productive base against fixed overheads. When our green smelter comes in production late in 2024, cash costs will drop even further. I wanna thank the thousands of people that have worked so hard to make this a sustainable and different mining operation.
Given exogenous circumstances having nothing to do with us, there's a sale on now with artichokes five for $1 at Safeway. We're gonna present our management team and our numbers. We'll flip this over to questions. I'm Robert@ivanhoe.net if anybody would like to email me directly. With that, let's go on to the next stage of the call. Thank you.
Thank you, Robert. Good afternoon and good morning, everyone from Cape Town here at the Mining Indaba. If we can move to the next slide. We are very pleased to announce another excellent quarter in our trajectory to become one of the largest copper producers in the world. Kamoa-Kakula never fails to impress. In April this year, our Phase II plant achieved commercial production, again, ahead of the original schedule and even more seamless than anticipated. The combined annualized production from the first and second plant will be 450,000 tons after the completion of our debottlenecking project, which we announced earlier this year. We anticipate to complete this in the Q3 of 2023. We are firmly on track to reach the upper end of our 2022 guidance of 340,000 tons of copper and concentrate.
Our Phase III expansion will further increase copper production to 600,000 tons of copper, with the addition of a 5 million ton per annum plant adjacent to the two new mines, which we will develop at Kamoa 1 and Kamoa 2. This expansion will be funded from cash flows from Phase III, our plant, the mines, and smelter, and that's anticipated to be completed by the Q4 of 2024. I will now go to the next slide. Before we go through our financial results, let's just pause for a minute and reflect on our ESG credentials. On the second of May this year, we published our fifth annual sustainability report, highlighting the significant work we do from an environmental, social, and governance perspective. As I mentioned in our previous earnings call, we are firm believers in stakeholder capitalism.
To date, our group has created and distributed more than $1.1 billion in national value. From 2020, as our activities ramped up at Kamoa-Kakula, this national value has increased with 43%, and it will continue to do so as we develop and expand our tier one assets. We currently employ over 12,000 people, of which 97% is local. We actively set our targets to increase that percentage even further and employ more women across our operations. We have held in excess of 10,000 stakeholder meetings in the 2021 financial year, keeping our communities and host governments informed and addressing queries they may have. As a company, we strive to be a net zero carbon emitter, and at Kamoa-Kakula, our high-grade underground hydro-powered mine is well placed to be an industry leader.
I will now hand over to our CFO, David van Heerden, to take you through our quarterly financial results.
Thank you, Marna, and good day to everyone joining the call. As Robert and Marna mentioned, the Q1 of 2022 was another quarter of exceptional operational performance at Kamoa-Kakula. With commercial production of Phase II concentrate achieved on April 7 and the debottlenecking well underway, we are confident that the impressive trend will continue going forward. For now, I'm happy to summarize the financial results for the quarter. This call is, of course, just a high-level summary of our quarterly results, and the presentation should be viewed in conjunction with our quarterly financial statements and MD&A for the period ended March 31, 2022.
Kamoa-Kakula sold almost 52,000 tons of payable copper and concentrate during the quarter, leading to a record quarterly revenue of $520 million, up from $489 million in the last quarter of 2021. Higher average prices in the Q1 and a remeasurement of contract receivables as at March 31 resulted in the increased revenue for the quarter. C1 cash costs continued its downward trend and was $21 per pound of payable copper delivered to China for the Q1 of 2022. More on cash costs on a later slide. Kamoa-Kakula's EBITDA for the Q1 was $399 million and increased by an impressive 12% when compared to Q4 2021, driven by the increase in revenue and the decrease in cost per pound.
If we move to the next slide, the slide illustrates how the just mentioned highlights combined for the Kamoa Holding joint venture's profit and how it'll ultimately translate into Ivanhoe's share of the profit attributable to the joint venture partners. The revenue of $520 million in Q1 2022 includes the remeasurement of contract receivables of $52 million, which represents the effective mark to market of provisional sales at the period ending copper price. Kamoa-Kakula's cost of sales for Q1 was $123 million in total, and $1.08 per pound of payable copper sold. While cash cost per pound of payable copper produced totaled $1.21 per pound. After deducting G&A, the operating profit for the Q1 of the year was $380 million.
Kamoa-Kakula's EBITDA, as I mentioned, $399 million. Kamoa Holding recorded finance costs of $55 million in the Q1 , which is principally the interest on the shareholder loans from Ivanhoe and Zijin, as well as interest on Kamoa-Kakula's equipment financing facilities. Of the $110 million tax expense, $105 million is deferred tax and does not represent a cash outflow due to the ability to offset exploration and certain development expenditure incurred from inception against taxable income over the first two years following commercial production. The remainder represents the minimum income taxes payable equal to 1% of revenue.
The non-controlling interest of $45 million represents the profit attributable to the DRC government's 20% interest in Kamoa-Kakula Copper Complex, leaving profit of $176 million attributable to the joint venture partners. Ivanhoe's share of which equal $87 million for Q1 2022. If we move to the next slide, which highlights Ivanhoe's consolidated Q1 financial highlights. The chart on the deck starts with a net loss, effectively showing Ivanhoe's share profit from the Kamoa Holding joint venture of $87 million. Additionally, Ivanhoe earned interest income of $28 million from Kamoa Holding in the Q1 from shareholder loans at the joint venture.
During the quarter, the company spent $9 million on the Kipushi project, $4 million on Western Foreland exploration, and $6 million on general administrative expenditure. Costs incurred at the Platreef project are necessary to bring the project into commercial production and are therefore capitalized as development costs in property, plant, and equipment. Ivanhoe recognized finance costs of $7 million in the Q1 , relating mainly to interest on the convertible notes at the effective interest rate. The $66 million loss on the fair valuation of financial liability in the Q1 , which reflects the change in the deemed fair value of the conversion feature attached to the $575 million 2.5% convertible senior notes, which Ivanhoe closed in March 2021.
The conversion feature is an embedded derivative financial liability, and the fair value changes principally due to the fluctuations in our share price. The loss is therefore resulting from the increase in Ivanhoe share price from end December 2021 to the end of March 2022. The aforementioned items ultimately builds up to Ivanhoe's profit for the three months ending March 2022 of $23 million, with a total profit before the loss of the fair value on the financial liability being $88 million for the Q1 . The next slide just breaks down the cash costs of Kamoa-Kakula. The cash costs per pound of payable copper produced for delivery to China continued with its downward trend and was at $21 per pound for the Q1 .
That's down from $1.28 in Q4 2021 and $1.37 per pound in Q3 2021. The decrease mainly resulted from the monthly fixed operating costs being spread over increased production. It's extremely encouraging to see Kamoa-Kakula already at the bottom of our cash cost guidance for 2022 of between $1.20 and $1.40 per pound of payable copper produced. As Phase II is ramped up in the Q2 , we might see a cash cost slightly higher, but only slightly. That's expected. I'm excited to see what is achieved in Q3 onwards with the possibility of breaking below the bottom range of our cash cost for the year.
We remain optimistic, yeah, with what the year holds, because of the increased copper production from the Phase II concentrator, giving the possibility to decrease cash costs further. Cash costs is of course a non-GAAP measure, and the reconciliation from cash cost to cost of sales is provided on page 40 of our MD&A. Next slide, please. This slide just indicates where Kamoa-Kakula is on the cash cost curve to highlight how exceptional the project is. It's very encouraging to be comfortably first quartile while still having significant further improvements planned. Next slide, please, Matt. We have a strong balance sheet and are well-positioned for the further development of our projects, with $562 million in cash and cash equivalents on hand and consolidated raised capital of $615 million.
Of our liabilities of $922 million, $752 million relates to the 2.5% convertible notes, with these only due in 2026, with possible earlier redemption. Our forecast spend for 2022 is $286 million on Platreef, Kipushi, continued exploration and overheads, and all operating and capital expansion costs at Kamoa-Kakula are expected to be funded from copper sales and facilities in place as of now. We also expect to receive the second prepayment on Platreef streams later in the year, which will add $225 million to our cash position at that time. I now hand over to Alex Pickard, our Vice President of Corporate Development, and Marna to provide a brief update on the development of our projects.
Thanks a lot, David, and good day to everybody who is on the line. I will now take you through the key results, in terms of operations and projects at Kamoa-Kakula, and then I'll pass back to Marna to take you through Platreef and Kipushi and our closing remarks prior to the Q&A. Next slide, please. Looking first at Kamoa-Kakula Phase I, we achieved a record operating quarter during the Q1 , with 1.08 million tons milled at over 5.9% copper, which produced 55,600 tons of copper in concentrate. We also achieved a recovery of 87%, which beat 86% from the previous quarter, which is also our design recovery.
The Phase II concentrator was commissioned towards the end of the quarter, and it achieved commercial production on April 7, which is around 4 months ahead of the original schedule. Since then, the Phase II concentrator has been performing strongly, and we expect that before the end of this quarter, we will have the same performance level as Phase I consistently, which is 10%-15% above the design capacity in terms of throughput. What this early commissioning and ramp up means is that we are confident to point towards the upper end of our 2022 production guidance range of 340,000-390,000 tons of copper in concentrates.
Finally, as Marna mentioned, we are well underway with our $50 million debottlenecking campaign, which takes advantage of the strong performance at the front end of the plant and also the high growth that we're experiencing. It targets reaching an annualized production rate of 450,000 tons of copper by the Q2 of next year. Next slide, please. Now, we are firmly looking to the future with Phase III of the Kamoa-Kakula project underway. We recently announced that we will build an upsized concentrator of 5 million tons per annum, which will be located close to the existing Kamoa mine and the larger Kamoa mining footprint, which is just over 10 kilometers to the north of Kakula.
In order to supply this new concentrator, we are busy expanding our mining activities at Kansoko, as well as preparing a new box cut, which will open up the Kamoa 1 and Kamoa 2 ore bodies. We also placed contracts to break ground on the Kamoa-Kakula smelter, which will be the largest smelter in Africa, with a capacity of 500,000 tons of blister copper. In order to provide power for this Phase III expansion and the smelter, we recently signed an EPC contract with Voith Hydro, which is a leading German hydropower company, for the upgrading of turbine 5 at the Inga 2 dam, and works are now commencing, which should be ready in time for our Phase III target production by the end of 2024.
It's worth adding that all of this work will be documented in a new pre-feasibility study for Kamoa-Kakula, which will be published later on this year. Next slide, please. This slide really just puts the Phase I and Phase II debottlenecking program, as well as the Phase III expansion into context. We're targeting to ramp up Kamoa-Kakula from approximately 400,000 tons of copper annualized today to around 600,000 tons of copper production by the end of 2024. This will rank Kamoa-Kakula as the third-largest copper producer in the world, but our target is to ultimately become the second-largest producer through a Phase IV expansion. Next slide, please. Finally, moving next door to Kamoa-Kakula, we are advancing the work program at our vast 100% owned Western Foreland exploration grounds.
With the recent onset of the dry season in the DRC, we are recommencing in full our drill campaign to explore for high-priority drill targets identified during the last year. We have an initial budget for this year of $25 million, which includes over 90 kilometers of drilling across the license package, which will be 4-5 drill rigs in operation. I'll now hand back to Marna to take you through our other activities. Thank you.
Thanks, Alex. We also published an update on our efforts at Platreef yesterday, and you can read that press release on our website. We completed the equipping of shaft 1, and on 22 April, we initiated the first blast on the 950-meter level to commence lateral development toward the ore body. Shaft 1 will serve as Platreef's initial production shaft and is approximately 450 meters away from the first high-grade area of the ore body. Ivanplats also took delivery of its first battery electric mining fleet, and plans for an initial 5-MW solar plant is well underway. The remainder of the spend for 2022 is approximately $150 million, with groundbreaking for the initial 770,000-ton plant expected within the next month.
Phase 1 mine production is expected to commence in the Q3 of 2024. Over to our Kipushi project. The Kipushi project economics are extremely compelling at current zinc prices. Underground early works have commenced, and we are in the process of recruiting key personnel for the construction of the plant and the operation of the mine. Our financing and offtake discussions are advancing with a number of interested parties, and we are targeting an accelerated return to production within the next 18-24 months. Some concluding remarks. In summary, we are confident in our team's ability to bring you the world's next diversified major mining company. With our production success at Kamoa and our established track record in exploring for tier one assets, we are sure to continue our story of growth and discovery. That's our concluding remarks today.
I will now hand back to Matthew Keevil to facilitate the question and answer session for today. Thank you.
Thank you, Marna. We will now move on to the question and answer portion of the day. Operator, do we have any questions waiting on the line?
If you'd like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Once again, that's star one to ask a question. We'll pause for just a moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal for questions. We'll go first to Andrew Mikitchook with BMO Capital Markets.
Good morning, good afternoon, depending on time zones. Congratulations on a very strong start to the year and a good trajectory for Kamoa-Kakula. I wanted to look forward to Phase III. In your release, you're guiding for something just over $480 million of kind of a placeholder budget for Phase III for the balance of the year. I was wondering if we could get a few general comments on how that could possibly be spread out over the balance of the year and what the general components of that expenditure for this year are.
Thanks, Andrew. It's David here. I'll take that one. The first part of your comment is, I think, important that this is effectively just a provisional amount, a placeholder and budget for what is expected at this point in time to be spent during this year. That'll obviously be relooked at as the pre-feasibility study is completed, expected in the Q1 . The majority of that cash flow, we do expect to be to only flow in the latter part of the year. Some of the expenditure less than $100 million in Q2, with the remainder pretty weighted towards the end of 2022.
Those funds are effectively being made available to the project team to ensure they can drive the timelines of Phase III. A split between the smelter, continued work on Inga 2, but underground mining, but then also some allocations to general infrastructure and very early works on the concentrator.
Okay. I think that that's a fair answer. I guess we're gonna get a little bit more detail here going forward in Q3 or maybe a little later for the PFS. Just one last kind of conceptual question on Phase III. A lot of the improvements that you guys are working or debottlenecking or optimizing that you're working on for Phase I and Phase II, are those going to be directly reflected into the Phase III PFS? Or should there be some concept of ability to exceed the 5 million tons that was headlined recently for the Phase III capacity?
Maybe I'll take that one, Andrew. It's Alex here. So just in terms of what will be in the PFS, just to be clear, you'll see 9.2 million tons per year from Phase I and Phase II, so that will be at the fully debottlenecked rate. Then there will be an additional 5 million tons from Phase III, bringing the total to 14.2 million tons. In terms of maybe what you're asking about Phase III, and can you expect some additional performance on top of that 5 million tons? Look, it's a bit too soon to say.
I mean, there is the potential there because some of the front-end components of that 5 million ton mill will already be able to operate at double the rate to accommodate a later Phase IV expansion. There is the ability to really push the front end of the circuit and then figure out what else we need to do at the back end of the circuit to produce more copper. We obviously had a good experience on Phase I and Phase II. It's too soon to really give guidance on that.
Okay. Well, it's good to hear that you have all kinds of capacity and then that we'll wait to see what the team does. I'll step back and let others ask questions.
Once again, to ask a question, that's star one. We'll go next to Greg Barnes with TD Securities.
Yes, thank you. Alex, to jump ahead a little bit, I think you just said that you're gonna potentially build in enough infrastructure to double the capacity of Phase III. Is that what Phase IV is going to look like, 5 million tons a year at that location?
Hi. Hi, Greg. It's basically the same as what we did with Phase I and Phase II, where the crushing circuit, so the very front end is sized for 10 million tons per annum. That's the point at which it splits in two parallel circuits of ultimately 5 million tons each. That'll be Phase III and later on Phase IV. It does mean that when Phase III is operating, we have a greater capacity in terms of crushing.
Okay. Phase IV is going to effectively be mining from Kamoa then at a rate of 5 million tons a year. Will you be bringing ore from other locations to that new mill or that parallel mill at Kamoa?
It should be fed primarily from the different ore bodies that we're opening up at Kamoa. Just remembering there's Kansoko, where we're mining already, but then there will be 2 larger mines at Kamoa 1 and Kamoa 2, which are fed from the same twin decline system. Later on, we'll figure out where Kakula West fits into the mix. Because we do have some slightly higher grades at Kakula West. You'll have seen in the press release, there was a reference to the fact that later on we will start to develop declines into Kakula West to try and get a head start on that ore body as well. Kakula West material will probably more naturally report to the Kakula mill.
Just turning to inflation, we've heard a lot about that from other mining companies through this earnings season, and obviously you seem to be a bit insulated from that. Are you seeing cost pressures from various inputs, reagents, what have you, feeding through?
Do you want to take this one, David?
Thanks. I might as well. Thank you, Alex. No, I think if you look at our continued decrease in our cash costs, I think we are handling it well. But I mean, we're definitely not immune. Processes are being put in place just to limit the effect specifically on fuel, et cetera. I think one thing that has helped us as well is just the fact that our the hydropower the price of the hydropower is just fixed. I think that's just one additional benefit we do get from actually getting that power. Yeah, we're definitely not immune.
I think the performance has been pretty exciting and I think can look forward to good numbers for the remainder of the year. Okay. Grinding media, reagents, things like that. I don't know if you have stores on hand or you have long-term contracts at fixed prices, things like that are helping you insulate a little bit from cost inflation out there.
Yeah, exactly. It's a bit of a mix in having the right amount of inventory on board and then just de-risking possible future supply issues at certain prices has been helping us.
Okay, great. Thank you.
We'll go next to Dalton Baretto with Canaccord Genuity.
Thank you. Good day, everybody. Two questions from me. First question, given the recent flooding in Durban and it's obviously highlighted a lack of investment as a port, given the challenges there. As you guys go through the phased expansions at Kamoa-Kakula, how are you thinking about the egress part of the equation? Thank you.
Sorry, Dalton, I just missed the last part of your question there. How are you thinking about?
About egress, getting product out.
Okay. I'll pose the question and then perhaps others can chime in. I mean the first thing to say about the recent issues at Durban Port was that they didn't really have a material impact on our operations, and also remembering that our revenues are recognized when the material leaves the mine gate under the terms of our Phase I and now Phase II offtake agreement. What it does mean is that you might be paying a little bit more at the margin to have material in a warehouse somewhere waiting for shipment.
On that front we've also been doing a lot of work together with CITIC and Zijin and all of our logistics service provider partners in order to streamline the Kamoa-Kakula concentrate logistics operation as a whole. We're looking at things like warehousing capacity in Zambia and also trying to spread the load through different ports on the African continent. Longer term we are also still very keen supporters of the Western Line project to the Angolan port of Lobito, which will completely change the face of the whole logistics chain in the DRC, and it will really reduce the bottleneck there.
I think the other thing to bear in mind is that's also one of the key advantages of the smelter, of course, is that we instead of shipping 1.3 million tons of wet concentrate in bags, instead that becomes 500,000 tons of blister copper, which is obviously less than half the volume, but also much easier from a handling point of view.
Makes sense. The Angola option is still very much on the table, if I understand you correctly.
Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's not something where is going to happen in the next year, but it's definitely still ongoing in the background.
Okay, great. My second question is on Platreef. Just given the implications to PGM and nickel markets from the fall of the Russian and the Ukrainian situation, is there an opportunity for you guys to accelerate Shaft 2?
I mean, look, I think in terms of the engineering that we put out in our feasibility study, we were sort of pointing towards shaft two being a 2027 project, which then allows you to phase the expansions of the two concentrators to get up to 5.2 million tons thereafter. what I can say is the team on the ground, now that we've moved from that kind of feasibility stage into really the detailed nitty-gritty of the engineering. we're looking at everything we can in terms of whether we can accelerate that sinking, looking at different sinking methodologies, like raise boring instead of blind sinking. We have that optionality in terms of having the access from the bottom of shaft two and not just the top of shaft two.
It's it still takes time, and I don't think we're guiding that it's going to be any quicker, but we're really working hard at this.
Okay. It sounds like the constraint is an engineering problem, not a capital question.
You can move a certain amount of meters in a day when you're sinking a shaft. Regardless of how much capital you throw at it, that is one blast or two blasts a day.
Understood. Thank you very much. That's all.
At this time, there are no further questions.
Thank you, operator. We will step over and take a look at our webcast questions and pick a couple of the most popular inquiries and answer a few of those before we wrap up. First and foremost, I think we'll start off one of the more popular questions is about the drilling program at Western Foreland and in terms of timelines the number of drill rigs and when results can be expected. I'll turn that over to management. If anyone would like to pick up some details on the Western Foreland drilling, that would be great.
I'm happy to take that one, Matt. I mean, I can't add too much more beyond what we went through in the presentation. really, the Q1 , we weren't doing a whole lot in terms of drilling meters. It's always difficult to get out there during the wet season. We're also moving out to the sort of more remote parts of this huge land package, remembering that it's almost 170 km of strike along the entirety of the Western Foreland. Now that the wet season is over and we're firmly moving into the dry season, that's where we're really going to accelerate our drilling activities through the winter in the Southern Hemisphere.
As I mentioned, we're looking at 4-5 rigs as the sort of provisional budget. Obviously I think people are very familiar with our approach when it comes to exploration, that we won't fail to stretch that budget if we start to explore a trend that we become very interested in, and we'll certainly move in more rigs at the right point in time.
That's great. Thanks, Al.
Sorry, Matt. I don't hear you right now. You might be on mute.
Please stand by.
Sorry about that, guys. A little bit of an interruption in the call. This is more of a broader macro question maybe for Robert. Talking about building the next large diversified miner, it seems Ivanhoe has a large portfolio, but what about outside acquisitions and the potential of looking at new exploration opportunities?
Well, Ivanhoe Mines is already with the industry-leading exploration opportunities. We have literally hundreds of proposals coming to our attention monthly, and we keep our mind open about all manner of things. Certainly the door is wide open, and if anybody has any great ideas, I'm rob@ivanhoe.net. I'm the fourth stomach of the cow. If a great idea can get through the first three stomachs, I'll take a good look at it, and we'll see if our board is interested in finding anything that's better than what we already have. I rather doubt it, but we keep an open mind. Thank you.
Thank you, Robert. With that, we're wrapping up on the 45-minute mark. Operator, I think we'll wrap the call up for today. Thank you very much, everybody, for attending, and we look forward to talking to you soon.
This does conclude today's conference. We thank you for your participation.