Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Largo First Quarter 2022 Webcast and Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Alex Guthrie, Senior Manager, External Relations. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining our first quarter earnings conference call. On the call today is Paulo Misk, our President and CEO, Ernest Cleave, our CFO, Paul Vollant, our VP of Commercial, and Stephen Prince, the President of our Clean Energy Division. To accompany the call today, we've uploaded a supplemental webcast presentation, which is also available at our website at largoinc.com. Our Q1 financial statements related to MD&A and most recent AIF are also available on the website, on SEDAR and on EDGAR. Before continuing the call today, I would like to remind you that some of the information you'll hear during today's call will consist of forward-looking statements, including without limitation, those regarding future business outlook.
In addition, non-GAAP financial measures and ratios such as cash operating costs, cash operating costs excluding royalties per pound, and revenues per pound sold will also be discussed during this conference call. These have no standard meaning under IFRS and may not be comparable to similar financial measures disclosed by other issuers. Actual results discussed during today's call could differ materially from those anticipated, and risk factors that could affect results are detailed in the company's latest AIF and other public filings, which are also available on SEDAR, EDGAR, and on the company's website. Further information regarding Largo's use of non-GAAP measures and ratios are also available in our most recent earnings press release in the company's latest MD&A, which are all available on our website, SEDAR, and EDGAR.
Lastly, market and industry data contained and incorporated by reference during this call concerning economic and industry trends is based upon good faith estimates of our management or derived from information provided by industry sources. We believe that such market and industry data is accurate and the sources from which it has been obtained are reliable. However, we cannot guarantee the accuracy of such information, and we have not independently verified the assumptions upon which projections of future trends are based. The agenda for our call this morning is as follows. Paulo will provide an update on the company's first quarter progress. Ernest will follow with an overview of our Q1 financial results. Paul will provide an update on the company's sales and trading, the vanadium market, and on Largo Physical Vanadium. Stephen will close with a progress update from our clean energy division.
Finally, we'll then open the call for questions. We kindly ask that you restrict your questions to two and then re-queue if you have any additional questions to allow the others the opportunity to participate. With that, I'll hand it over to Paulo.
Thank you, Alex, and good morning to everyone who has been able to join us on the call and online. We'd like to continue to structure our earnings call to focus our two pillar business strategy as it relates to our first quarter progress. It's important to note that we strongly believe significant value creation exists within our core and profitable vanadium business, with substantial upside opportunity through adding titanium products to our portfolio and our emerging clean energy business. Before we jump in, there are really four key points to take away from this call. First, we've had to make adjustments on our full year 2022 guidance upon factoring in the weaker first quarter, as well as continued global inflationary pressures and the strengthening of the Brazilian real against the U.S. dollar.
However, we are confident in our ability to reach these updated targets and are very focused on making additional improvements on its sales and production rates going forward. Our updated annual cash operating costs, excluding royalties guidance, is now in the range of $3.90-$4.30 per pound sold. Unfortunately, the inflationary environment is here, and it's something we are focused on mitigating the effects of the best of our ability. Our V2O5 equivalent production guidance is now 11,600 tons-12,400 tons, and our total V2O5 equivalent sales guidance is now 11,000 tons-12,000 tons, which includes sales of up to 1,000 tons of third-party products eventually in order to face any logistics problem.
In our positive note, despite navigating unprecedented global supply chains and logistical constraints, our sales team continued to perform well under the circumstances in the first quarter, and in April sold approximately 1,250 tons of V2O5 equivalent. As we noted in the press release issued yesterday evening, we expect to perform a catch-up in the sales during the second half of the year, following the improvements of logistical and supply chain constraints. Secondly, we continue to expect a bullish vanadium market for the remainder of the year, which we are focused capitalizing on, particularly as we remain a relatively low-cost producer in the commodity. Paul will provide a more detailed overview of what's happening in the market.
As we have alluded in our previous calls, the elevated price environment is quite advantageous for us. Especially as we increase sales of our produced products in the second half of the year. Ernest will provide an update cash forecast for the year ahead later in the call as well. I am encouraged to say that we will end the year on a positive note. I also would like to highlight that after attending the annual Vanitec Vanadium Producers Association conference last month, I am energized by the additional vanadium demand that is expected from VRFBs going forward. We view our emerging clean energy business as a significant source of future value for the company, and we are excited by its potential given the ventures of Largo Physical Vanadium or LPV. Something Paul will touch on a bit later.
Thirdly, the notable progress we've made on the strategic value-added project the company has undertaken, namely the commencement of phase one of our titanium project and certain advancements made to LPV. In April, we began construction of the company's ilmenite concentration plant as part of our previously announced titanium project. This is a very exciting moment for the company as we begin to execute on this project and reap our future benefits. It's important to understand that the ilmenite content will be sourced from the existing vanadium ore created from the company's ongoing operations in Brazil. It doesn't require any new efforts on the mining side. We believe this project will be quite accretive for the company and will contribute to the company's two-pillar business strategy as a low-cost vanadium supplier with an emerging vanadium batteries business.
On LPV, we announced an updated and previously announced proposed qualifying transaction.
Please direct your question to the operator. One moment while we reconnect the speaker.
Yeah, I think we've lost Paulo, but, you know, want to just pick up, Ernest?
We thank you all again for your patience.
Yeah, no problem. As Paulo mentioned, on LPV, we announced an update to the previously announced proposed qualifying transaction, and that included the raise of approximately CAD 30 million. On completion of this qualifying transaction and applicable regulatory and stock exchange approvals, we believe LPV will offer potential investors direct exposure to the attractive opportunity presented by the long-term fundamentals of vanadium, the key transition metal for greener steel, strategic and energy storage industries in an environment of tightening supply and increasing demand. It's important to note that under the strategy, vanadium used in our flow batteries will remain under full ownership of LPV and will not be part of the upfront installation capital taken on by our customers, dramatically reducing the cost of our batteries. The fourth and final takeaway is that we continue to focus our commitment to sustainability practices at Largo.
We are all proud of our team and would like to note some of the progress made today, which is reflected in improved ratings and scores received for 2021, such as MSCI improved from BBB to A, and our EcoVadis score, which improved from 44 out of 100 to 60 out of 100, which awarded Largo a silver sustainability rating. We also began our journey towards net zero by identifying the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions and reporting on scope one and scope two, and we continue to explore opportunities for further reduction. You can expect our 2021 sustainability report to be released in late June or early July. I would like to stress that our main focus is improving production rates and selling as much material as we can to capitalize on the strong vanadium market fundamentals.
We are aware of what a strong vanadium price translates into for Largo, as we've been in this position before, and we want to deliver those type of results for our shareholders again. As it stands currently, our valuation remains significantly undervalued in comparison to our latest technical report, and it is important to note that this report used an average vanadium price of approximately $8.50 a lb. We are excited about the year ahead and look forward to delivering on our strategic value add projects over the coming quarters. I will now transition to some of the financial statement updates. The financial results in the quarter reflect the impacts of both temporary maintenance and global logistical constraints which negatively impacted most financial metrics and the company's liquidity.
The exception to such impacts was the increase in revenues per pound sold in Q1, which was 34% higher than Q1 last year due to higher vanadium prices achieved during the quarter. We generated approximately $43 million in revenues from the sale of 2,232 tons of V2O5 equivalent in Q1. That's $8.67 per lb sold. Looking at last year, we sold 2,783 tons of V2O5 equivalent, and that generated revenues of approximately $40 million, or revenues per pound sold of $6.49. This really underscores our leverage to increases in vanadium prices and is why we remain enthused about the current vanadium market fundamentals. Moving on to cost, like most other companies today, we are also navigating global inflationary pressures within our business.
As mentioned, we have increased our annual cost guidance from $3.90 to $4.30 per lb to reflect these impacts, along with impacts from a recently strengthening Brazilian real and lower overall production for fiscal 2022. We acknowledge these pressures, and we remain focused on them, but we do give credit to our operating team who have been actively managing these impacts to the best of their ability. Even with these cost pressures, we are poised to end the year on a positive note. This is a good segue to discuss our cash position and future cash outlook. The first quarter is expected to be our low point of cash for the year, and while we ended the quarter with cash of approximately $78 million, we anticipate increasing our cash position from Q2 onwards.
Given the uncertainties around global geopolitics and where vanadium prices will ultimately trend, I can provide a rough sense of year-end cash within the bounds of two different vanadium prices. At vanadium prices of $9 per lb for the May to December 2022 timeframe, we anticipate exiting the year with cash of approximately $104 million, and that represents free cash flows of $20 million for fiscal 2022. At vanadium prices of $12 per lb for the same period, we would anticipate exiting the year with cash of approximately $125 million, and that represents free cash flows of $41 million for 2022.
Very importantly, such estimates of course take into account current cost guidance with sales of produced materials within our guidance range of 11,000 tons-12,000 tons, inclusive of sales of purchased product of 1,000 tons, and a Brazilian real to U.S. dollar exchange rate that averages approximately 5-1 for fiscal 2022. Before I hand it over to Paul, we discussed the strategy of capital allocation during our last earnings call. We've just announced that the board has approved its intentions to commence a normal course issuer bid as we believe that the current share price does not adequately reflect the underlying value of the company or our future projects, as we previously touched on. We will look to provide additional updates as matters progress in the coming weeks. With that, I will now pass the call over to Paul.
Thanks, Ernest, and let's jump right into it. We sold approximately 2,300 tons of V2O5 in Q1. In April, vanadium sales were 1,246 tons of V2O5 equivalent, of which 121 tons were purchased material. As mentioned before, we anticipate a sale catch-up for the remainder of the year following the expected improvement in production and stabilization of supply chain constraints. Regarding demand, all the company's key markets remained strong in Q1, which was reflected in a sharp price increase over the period. The average benchmark price per pound of V2O5 in Europe was $11.50 as of May 6th, up approximately 31% since the start of 2022.
Over the past quarter, the average Metal Bulletin price per pound of V2O5 in Europe was $10.72 versus an average of $8.30 in Q1 2021. The average price for ferrovanadium in Europe was $46.17 per kgV, a 50% increase from the average of $30.87 in Q1 2021. We do not provide future pricing outlook, but I think it's safe to say that we expect prices to remain elevated in the medium term. According to Vanitec, there was a supply deficit of more than 8,000 tons of V2O5 equivalent in 2021. The current global geopolitical and logistical situations have the potential to exacerbate these tensions. Our focus remains on delivering positive sales results going forward, taking advantage of these high prices.
Before I hand it over to Stephen, I would like to mention that we are very pleased with the recent progress made on LPV as we announced a CAD 30 million financing. We are proud to be the initial strategic investor and support this venture as we're confident it will bring significant long-term value to Largo's two-pillar strategy, LPV investors and our entire industry. Stephen, over to you.
Thanks, Paul. We continue to progress at our Clean Energy Division during the first quarter, which I'd like to highlight today. Our Clean Energy headquarters configuration, including our VRFB product development and stack manufacturing center in the state of Massachusetts in the United States, is nearing completion, and we expect the formal completion of this configuration this month. We are very excited to announce that we began producing stacks and purifying electrolyte in this new facility in the first quarter, and we welcome supplier and prospective customer visits this month. On the certification side, we proceeded with the CE certification of our VCHARGE product and ISO 9001 certification of our quality management system with audits scheduled later this month.
Before we open the call to questions, we'd like to note that our clean energy division initiated a comprehensive review of costing and pricing practices, which began in March 2022. This process is expected to quantify the current cost estimates of our VRFB product offerings, a future cost outlook and quantification of associated cost savings initiatives, as well as a comprehensive review of our competitiveness in the long-duration energy storage solutions marketplace. This is anticipated to take no longer than three months, which is expected to ensure our team puts forth a proposition that accurately reflects our capabilities and commitments. To close out, we remain diligently focused on advancing our clean energy division as we believe we have the most advanced VRFB technology and the muscle to back it up from our profitable vanadium business. Complemented by the expected advancement of LPV or Largo Physical Vanadium.
This, of course, is compounded by the significant pull in the market for long-duration energy storage needs as described by the Long Duration Energy Storage Council and McKinsey. With that, I'll turn the call over to the operator for any questions from those on the line. Thank you.
Thank you. 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 that your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Once again, that is star one if you would like to ask a question. We'll take our first question from Carlos de Alba with Morgan Stanley.
Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. First question, if I may, Stephen, could you maybe provide a bit more color as to how the visits of prospective customers went in May? How many of those customers showed up? And yeah, what feedback were you hearing? That'll be quite interesting to hear. Paul, I just have a question. You mentioned that the market last year was in an important deficit. Why do you think then that vanadium prices didn't go up that much in 2021?
Yeah, let me start by answering your question. Jane, George and Nancy have all visited us. We continue to invite and host suppliers, prospects and partners to our facilities within the Wilmington, Massachusetts facility. We are not in a position to disclose the names of our prospects, or the customers that visit our facility on this call. Thank you.
Maybe Stephen, can you comment as to what were the key topics that you guys discussed, what are the main concerns that they expressed, if any?
Sure. The interest that we receive from prospects on these visits, and we've discussed what Largo Clean Energy is offering in the marketplace, really center around a couple of differentiators. One is our stack. The stack that we have patents and trade secrets surrounding. It gets a lot of attention because it has five times the power density of traditional VRFB stack. There's always a lot of conversation and interest in that particular component of our battery energy storage solution. That's one of the focal areas. I think the other thing is there's a lot of discussion about electrolyte, supply of electrolyte and how can a VRFB battery company ensure that the quality of the electrolyte will result in performance. Because we have a unique purification approach, we have a tendency to discuss that.
We're in a position to reassure customers that we can provide a high power stack in a very cost-effective manner and provide electrolyte that's adequately purified both on an economic and quality basis, so the battery will perform according to its standards and expectations. That's where a lot of these conversations go. The last thing I would say is there's always discussion around specific opportunities on a tactical basis, and that's why I'm being a little evasive with respect to more detail. Thank you for asking the question.
Thank you very much, Steve.
Yeah, Carlos, to your second question. Yes, there was a big supply deficit in 2021. I think, you know, every year we see that there's a bit of downward pressure at the end of the year as, you know, companies try to finish the year with low stocks and, you know, prices did not translate really at the end of 2021, but as you saw, prices rose sharply in the beginning of 2022. That's really a reflection of that supply deficit. By the way, it started to rise before the situation in Eastern Europe. I think that you're seeing the consequence of that deficit already in 2022.
Understood. Maybe could you elaborate a bit more on what you have seen in the last few weeks because of vanadium prices in China kind of started to come down. I mean, everything is sort of coming down, but anything to highlight on the Chinese market given the performance of the vanadium prices in the last few weeks?
Yes. No, you're correct. I mean, vanadium prices came up over the past few weeks, but you know, it's more of a general you know sell-off in the market and you know no metals have really been immune to that. You know, there are worries globally you know about the COVID situation in China about you know potential disruption because of energy in Europe. But overall, metal prices have stabilized this week, and I think we still are on pretty firm ground and well above historical average prices. Yeah.
Thank you, Paul.
Sure.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Andrew Wong with RBC Capital Markets.
Hi, good morning. I just wanna ask about the operations. It looks like sales and production have gotten back on track in April after just a few challenging quarters. Can you just talk about some of the steps that Largo has taken to make sure we get steadier operations going forward on both production and sales? Thanks.
Thank you, Andy. We have solved all the problems facing the rainy season by the end of last year. Also the maintenance is now free. We have some problems we faced in February that's been solved. We have produced in a range of 1,000 tons in March and April. We expect going forward, including May, that we're gonna produce in a range of 1,025 tons and 1,100 tons, which is our main plant capacity. We are really very optimistic with the progress that we have all this, you know, this recent month, and really confident that we'll keep producing as much as we are forecasting, and we'll keep generating a very good results going forward.
Okay. Maybe I'll just ask about the NCIB. Is there anything you can provide in terms of magnitude of a potential repurchase, and timing, obviously with the shares just broadly weaker along with the market? It seems like a opportunistic time to be doing that. Also, are the repurchases mainly going to be coming from cash?
Yeah. I will before passing to Ernest. He can give more details about it. I think it shows that we are very confident in our future, in our results that we'll generate this year as well. Let's have Ernest explain more details about this process.
Sorry, Andrew, could you just repeat the question, please?
Yeah, just around the NCIB, like, is there anything you guys can provide about potential magnitude of a repurchase and timing? And will the repurchase be mostly coming from cash?
Yeah. Look, you know, we're constrained, you know, as was put out in the press release, you know, just above 3 million shares there. So at today's prices, you could not do much more than $37 million. We're not obviously committing to do that. I think the purchases would be in the initial period. So, you know, the first couple of months you would see it and, you know, we'd like to believe that Largo share price would improve over time, yeah. It would be from cash, so we would be purchasing from cash. What part of the question did I not answer there?
No, that's okay. I was just wondering like the magnitude. I mean, obviously you can have NCIB, but if that's completed, you can always issue another one. I was just wondering like
Yeah.
The appetite from the board and the management team for like how much are we talking about for potential repurchase?
Yeah. Look, we just wanna be candidly, just wanna be opportunistic here. To the extent that there's dichotomy of the actual share price and where we think the valuation persists, we would like to go into the market and purchase. There are the market limitations. As I said, you know, we would not be able to do more than $37 million worth. The answer is somewhere between zero and $37 million. I don't mean to be facetious when I say that.
No, that's okay.
We would look to sort of stay candid that as we go, and try and be opportunistic.
Okay. No, that's fair. Maybe just last one on LCE, the strategic review. I was kinda curious, like how much of that strategic review is also part of just looking at the competitive offerings, primarily lithium? Eye on alternatives and seeing the prices moving up on that side of the energy business. Like, is that also factoring into the strategic review on pricing and things like that for LCE?
Yes, absolutely. You know, as I mentioned earlier on the call, I think there's an inward look at what we're doing currently, where we can improve our costs and our scalability around the VRFB solution, our specific solution. We're also looking at the market and looking at competitors and seeing how we compare to those competitors and what we need to do to be able to capture greater market share. We've made substantial progress understanding our costs and differentiators as we enter the marketplace. With the launch of LPV, we anticipate being even more competitive and therefore foresee commercial success in the current year.
I think you can take that to say progress has been good, comparisons to competitors has been encouraging, and the addition of LPV, we believe provides additional differentiation and a lot of positive feelings about the business and how it will progress in the current year and going forward.
Okay, cool. Thanks.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Leon Cooperman with Omega Family Office.
Yes, thank you. I have to admit, I apologize if I ask you some questions that were addressed in the press release, but I've had so many conference calls already this morning that I haven't read everything. You know, you're waiting till June 1st, I assume, because you have to get regulatory approval. There is nothing else to be read into that. Secondly, and more importantly, you have a 43% shareholder in Arias. Has he agreed to tender pro rata, or are you running the risk of increasing his ownership? I have some other questions as well. I'll take that one.
Sure. You're correct, Lee, on the first part. The June first is just pure regulatory approval and getting everything set up, the bureaucracy around it. We just estimate three weeks. As to the ownership of our most significant shareholder, there are certain mechanisms under NCIB where you could sell blocks from such an entity. There are certain prerequisites. The intention is not to increase that ownership. But, you know, Arias Resource Capital will make their own decisions based on, you know, what they believe is the right thing to do. But even, you know, within the parameters of this NCIB, it's not going to, even if they did not participate, it would not increase the shareholding significantly overall.
Well, you're looking to buy back, what, 5% or 10% of the company.
Yeah.
And-
We're limited to 10% of the float. We would like-
Yeah, that takes it up from 43% to 48% if he doesn't tender.
Correct. You know, that is still not a level of control, you know, above the fifties. We're not obviously concerned about it, but well, we're not, but again, you know, Arias Resource Capital makes their decisions, you know, according to, you know, their own fundamentals. You know, I wouldn't speak to them.
Well, I would recommend you have an agreement with him to tend to pro rata, because I don't think his presence has been a particularly positive thing for us. Not negative, but not positive either. Secondly.
Yeah.
You mentioned your free cash flow for the year and what your cash position is.
Sure.
Did you account for the 10% buyback or in the 40%.
No.
In the $41 million of free cash flow? Or that would basically-
No, that's.
Put you into a negative free cash flow.
That's a great question. All those numbers assume nothing for the NCIB. You know, we don't know where it's gonna land. That's a very astute question. No.
Okay. Most importantly, what is the projected profitability of the titanium dioxide business you're entering?
Right. You know, I'll invite Paulo to weigh in on this as well. If you look at year four onwards, the projected EBITDAs in that business are in the high 200s, so sort of $280 million-$290 million, depending. It becomes a very, very significant contributor to Largo's EBITDA. I think it's not a well-understood contributor to our future success, but it's very significant. Paulo, do you wanna elaborate a little bit more on that?
Yes, good morning, Leon.
Good morning.
The titanium profitability fundamentals is we produce the feedstock, the ilmenite, in a very low cost, $37 per ton. Just the current price of the ilmenite is $400. We consider 210 in our technical report. When you look at the cost that we are expecting to produce pigment around $1,500 per ton, the price that we consider in the long run in our tech report is $3,800 per ton. So it give us how good margin we will generate in this business. We are very optimistic that this has been very profitable.
Right. Can you, Ernest, at $9 and at $12, what is the EBITDA the basic business expected to earn this year and next year?
Yeah. If you just look at.
In terms of EBITDA.
This year, at $9 you're looking at about $80 million. At $12 you're looking at just over $100 million, so like $101 million. To get to the cash flow, you deduct CapEx and taxes, about $60 million, which takes you back down to the 20 and 41 free cash flow.
What you're saying is in three years time you'd expect this company to be having in excess of $4 million of EBITDA. If you have 2.8 or 2.9 in titanium dioxide-
Yeah.
You have $101 million at $12, and I assume that's gonna grow over time, that this is an enterprise that would have about $4 million.
Yeah.
Of EBITDA. Okay. Last question. You know, I think your credibility has been hurt by this big battery day we had, and so far we've not announced any new battery orders. What's going on there? I don't know. I'm not asking you who, but do you expect to have new battery orders in the current year or you have no idea?
I'm gonna hand that difficult question to Stephen.
Yeah, Lee, I understand the question. I would anticipate that we'll sign a couple commercial transactions in the current year, involving our batteries. I think you will see commercial transacting in the current year, with our battery offering.
Okay. Thank you. Appreciate the response.
We-we-
Good luck everybody, and stay safe, stay healthy.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Leon.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Heiko Ihle with H.C. Wainwright.
Hey there. Thanks for taking my questions. With all the inflationary pressures that we're seeing, can you maybe walk us through biggest cost impact? I mean, you're taking guidance from $3.2 to $3.4 to $3.9 to $4.3. Is there any way you can break that out into the raw material costs, the currency? And also maybe, you know, like what are you seeing with fuel costs or, you know, other input costs?
Let me start. Before I get into the vagaries of the different increases in consumable costs, you know, which Paulo can briefly allude to. I just want to give a breakdown of going from the $3.3 to the $3.9 to understand, you know, where some of that movement is coming from. Broadly speaking, the biggest impact was actually foreign exchange. There's about a $0.34 movement that contributes to that delta. Then the next largest is increases in consumable costs, you know, which increases our production cost. That's about $0.25. Then you're looking at the impact of lower sales because again our COGS are recognized on sales. It's about $0.11 there. That takes you to the $3.9.
To go from the $3.9 up to the upper end of our guidance. That contemplates if we were to, for instance, you know, experience, you know, very, very low sales up to the lowest end of our guidance, you would be adding another $0.39, and there would be a foreign exchange difference that'd be factored in as well. If BRL, for instance, was to trend down to a $4.8 average for the year, which is potentially feasible because it has been very volatile bouncing around all over the place. That would be another $0.11. But that's the sort of worst case scenario for us. That gives you the bounds of how we got to the different prices.
I'll hand it over to Paulo to pick up on some of the items that give rise to consumable cost increases.
Yeah. Thank you, Ernest. We just want to have an overview about our raw material costs. It represents 53% of total costs that we have in Maracás. I will comment just for the main ones. Sodium carbonate, which represents 43% of the raw materials. The price increased 66% from last year to this year. When you look at all the HFO, diesel and all those oil derivatives, have been increased almost double from last year. If we look from the end of last year, I mean, it's a very short period, it's basically 50%. Those costs it's very difficult to mitigate. We have another cost which represents 20% of our total raw material. It's ammonium sulfate.
It increased about 44% from November last year. It shows that how difficult has been dealing with all those inflation. Free cash as well, it's the same amount because it's related to the ammonium sulfate as well. In the short term, we are ensuring the supply of all those raw materials. We are doing some actions to mitigate the situation. You know, we do see costs in any other area, but it's impossible to mitigate 100%. Just to have an idea on the raw material. The FX, our budget was considered BRL 5.50. Recently, the real, the FX rate is BRL 4.60.
Now it's in a range of five, but it shows how unstable is the market today. We hope we can normalize in the future, but we cannot consider that this year will be different until the end of the year.
Fair. I mean, Brazil's inflation came in at 12.1% earlier today. What are you seeing with labor costs?
Labor is not the big cost we have. Just to, I will give a reference. Labor represents about 13% of our total cost. It's not the big one. I mean, sorry. It's about 11%, 12%. Another cost that everyone think it's really material, power. It's not, because most of our energy come from the HFO. Power is about 6% only. The main cost driven is the raw materials.
Got it. Okay. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Jim Young with Midwest Investments.
Yeah, hi. I've got a couple of questions here for you. You mentioned that you sold 1,200 tons in April, but at what price did those sales take place at, please? In your first quarter, you said that you did 857 tons.
Yes, Jim. If you give me a couple of seconds, I can give you the exact number, but I remember it was over $10.5.
I have the number. Yeah, I have the number for you, Paul. Yeah, it's actually $10.98. $10.982.
Yeah. $10.98. That was the average per pound of V2O5 for our sales in April. One thing, Jim, that maybe would help to understand is the vast majority of our sales are done on long-term contracts, right? Long-term contracts are structured in a way where the quotation period, so the benchmark price that we use for a delivery is most of the time based on the prior month's price, right? Average price. What I mean here is that when prices are increasing fast, we are trailing behind, right? Over the long run everything gets, you know, it equilibrates, right? It doesn't matter over time.
If you look at it from a specific point of view in a fast, you know, increasing market, you're trailing because you are pricing your material from the month's prior average.
I see. Okay. Thank you. I would assume then that the sales in the first couple of weeks of May were at even higher prices than what you sold in April.
Yes. Yes. Because April price for.
Yeah.
You know, for most of them were higher. Yes, that's correct.
Okay, good. Thank you. Secondly, what was the global recovery rate for the month of April? In your first quarter of 2022, it was 77.5%. Could you just give a sense as to how is the recoveries proceeding in April, please?
Paulo, did you wanna take the question on recovery?
Yeah. Sorry. Jim, recovery, it's really related to the stability of the kiln and the stability of the whole operation, in fact. We could improve in February. It reduced March, April, due to a little bit high content of silica in the concentrate. It's just a matter of getting stable operation from now on, run steadily, and the recovery will go in the range of 80%, you know, for the remainder of the year. There is no problem that not to achieve those numbers.
Did I hear that you said that the recovery rate should trend towards 80% for the remainder of 2022?
Yeah. Going forward in the range of 80%.
Okay. All right, great. Well, those are the two primary questions I have for you right now. Thank you. Well, actually.
Thank you, Jim.
If I, Paulo, if I could have one more question then. Regarding the LCE business. Can you help us understand what's your capacity for the electrolyte in liters, please?
I will pass the answer to Stephen.
Yeah. Right now we're ramping the electrolyte production around the delivery of the Enel project. This is the first battery that Largo Clean Energy will have built since the acquisition of the assets from VionX. I don't know the exact liter rate, but I, you know, would have to say that the capacity will meet those project demands between now and December. We are definitely investigating, and we have a supplier network to fulfill that, including leveraging our own team in that process. We're in the process of investigating supply chain and means to increase that capacity significantly. We've discovered that it needs to be done regionally to be competitive because of the logistical impacts and shipping costs.
It's less about our capacity within Largo Clean Energy and the need for us to stand up an ecosystem that can reach the capacities we require in the regions that we're gonna sell our transactions. We're in the middle of that process. It's early days in that process. We do have the capacity to fulfill Enel, and we're investigating means to increase that capacity beyond Enel based on a regional strategy.
Okay. I've got several more questions on the LCE business, but if I could follow up offline, Stephen, that would be great. Thank you.
Always willing to have that call.
Yep. Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, that's star one if you'd like to ask a question. We'll take a call from Leon Cooperman with Omega Family Office.
Yeah. I'm just gonna ask you a simple, foolish question. Not foolish. Have you guys you know, any schmuck could buy back stock. The question is to buy it back when it's cheap. Are you guys highly confident that this normal course issuer bid makes the most sense for the company, given its size, et cetera? That you've done all your homework and you feel very, very comfortable that you're making the right decision?
Yeah. Let me make a couple of quick comments there, Leon. It seems clear to us that, you know, excluding even the going back to our discussions around the EBITDAs for the titanium business, but just for the vanadium business alone on a standalone basis, we think a very reasonable valuation is probably in excess of $20 just for that business alone per share. To the extent that we're a massive discount to such a, you know, a number that excludes even our titanium business, we think that it makes sense to do so. Our plan is really to, and I'm belaboring this point, but to stick handle it as we go. But certainly at the current prices, it seems somewhat of a no-brainer.
We will rather focus on being opportunistic if that persists, if this dichotomy persists.
Just to help you out a little bit, and then I'm not. I apologize if I sound like I'm lecturing, which I'm not. I think you're doing the right thing, by the way. You know, I've always said it's four considerations in stock repurchase. Consideration number one is most companies, and definitely yours, have two values: so-called public market value, which is the price you and I pay for 100 shares or 1,000 shares, and so-called private market value, the price a strategic or financial investor would pay for the entire company. You have a better understanding of that than I do, but it seems to me if you picked up the phone and decided to sell the company, what would the company fetch either to a strategic investor or to a financial investor?
If that number is not at least 20% above the market, you're not doing yourself a favor by buying back stock. The second consideration is you put your five-year budget to a dividend discount model with reasonable assumptions and expect a value of X. I gotta believe if there's a $4 million EBITDA number out in our future in the next three years, the stock is very cheap, so that test probably would be in favor of the repurchase. Third, which is a no-brainer, is what does the buyback do to your earnings per share, dividend potential per share, you know, cash flow per share? Given where interest rates are and where multiples are, that's a no-brainer. The fourth thing is, let's make no mistake about it, buying back stock weakens a company.
You have less cash, more debt relative to the equity, and don't buy back so much stock as to radically change the risk profile of the corporation unless you're going all the way and taking it private. I think you're doing the right thing, but I wanna make sure you're thinking it through because, you know, a lot of companies have made mistakes about repurchases.
Yes.
But, uh-
Yeah.
It would seem that we have a lot of latitude here. The one thing I would try to understand is your largest shareholder, what he's gonna do, because you don't wanna make his opportunity any greater than it already is in terms of, you know, doing anything that would not be in our interest.
Right. I agree with all four.
Thank you for listening. Thank you.
The board.
All the best.
Yeah. Thank you.
All the best. Thank you.
All right. Thanks, Lee. Thanks. Bye.
Thank you. That does conclude the question and answer session in Largo's quarterly investor conference call. Have a great day, everyone.
Thank you. Thank you.