Thank you very much for standing by and, on behalf of PMET Resources, a very warm welcome to this investor teleconference and webcast. Thanks for joining us at short notice. Today's call follows the release of the CV5 lithium-only feasibility study for PMET Shaakichiuwaanaan Project in Quebec, Canada, a key milestone for the company. My name is Nicholas Reid from Reid Corporate, and it's my great pleasure to introduce PMET 's CEO and President, Ken Brinsden, who will be leading today's call. Also joining Ken and to assist with questions, I'm very pleased to introduce PMET 's Chief Operating Officer, Frédéric Mercier-Langevin, and the company's Head of Investor Relations, Olivier Caza-Lapointe. Welcome, everyone.
All participants are in a listen-only mode, and the format for this call is as follows: Ken will run through a detailed investor presentation on the feasibility study results before opening up for a question and answer session, first for teleconference participants, followed by online questions from webcast participants. For those who have joined us on the teleconference, if you wish to ask a question, you'll need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. For webcast participants, if you wish to ask a question, please type this in using the live Q&A tab on the right-hand side of your screen. With all of those instructions in place, I'd now like to hand over to Ken Brinsden to lead this morning's call. Good morning, Ken. Welcome, and please take us through the feasibility study results.
Thank you very much, Nicholas, and good evening. Good evening, good morning, good day, ladies and gentlemen. It's a pleasure to be with you and really pleased to be able to share approximately the next hour with you as we lay out our Shaakichiuwaanaan Project and the lithium-only feasibility study outcomes. During the course of today's call, I'm keen to touch on our development strategy because it explains a lot about the progress of the project and the work that we're continuing to do to motivate our overall project right through to construction and production. Obviously, a summary of the feasibility results and, in particular, why Shaakichiuwaanaan is the compelling project in the lithium raw materials development pipeline, especially in North America. We're going to outline next steps for the progress of the project, in particular those things that we're working on to continue to optimize the project.
It's a fantastic piece of geology at Shaakichiuwaanaan, and it's not even just about lithium. Obviously, we've made some really compelling discoveries there, most recently in the form of caesium, but also the backstop in tantalum as another important co-product that we expect to be able to realize over time. On the assumption that we have enough time on the call, we'd love to touch base on the current market conditions. In the end, while we think that the lithium story itself is nowhere near complete, there's going to be a lot more lithium raw materials required for all the demand equations that emerge, especially leading into the end of the decade. It's my pleasure to also have Fréd , Frédéric Mercier-Langevin, our Chief Operating Officer and Chief Development Officer, and also Olivia available during the Q&A session. The materials are available online.
I would point you in the direction of our forward-looking statements and the statements of the competent persons. Please note that they're available online for your perusal. I think we've made it pretty clear, and for most people, they would accept that Shaakichiuwaanaan is a pretty amazing piece of geology. You have the confluence of all those things that are important in the LCT pegmatite world: lithium, caesium, and tantalum. What we've now proven is that Shaakichiuwaanaan is an incredible host of each, both a combination of scale but also grade, and subsets of which are incredibly high grade. It really points to just how good the geology is, and we're pleased to show that even if you just think about lithium, it's already a compelling project. Our expectation is that we will create more co-products over time.
As a function of publishing the feasibility study, of course, we're allowed to announce our maiden reserve, and it's a big one. Already over 84 million tons and, importantly, underwriting so far approximately 20 years in mine life. When you think about it, 20 years in mine life, it's no mean feat. Our expectation is if you keep drilling, you're inevitably going to turn up more resource, and we would suggest likely more reserve over time. It's that multi-decade perspective and the scale that's available at our Shaakichiuwaanaan Project that makes the project so compelling. One of the reasons why we've been able to attract really important partners to our project, of course, that all started approximately this time last year with the introduction of Volkswagen as a key shareholder and PowerCo, their 100% subsidiary battery manufacturer, as the first of our offtake partners.
A great project attracts great partners, and we would argue we've got more of that to come. I'm really proud to be working with a fantastic team, each of them with their own unique set of skills that are so important to the progress of a project like ours. Each has got many, many decades of experience typically behind them and have already demonstrated a pretty serious track record in the development of projects like ours. Of course, you have Fréd o n the call this evening, and then more recently we've had the commencement of Grace Barrasso in the public affairs area. Especially in light of the direction that we're taking with our final round of mine authorizations, Grace is another important addition to our team. On our development strategy, it all starts and centers around our massive lithium resource and now very large lithium reserve.
That helps underwrite a large-scale lithium project. I can assure you 800,000 tons per annum of spodumene concentrate, which is what we'd expect to develop at Shaakichiuwaanaan over the coming years, is a big mine. Our expectation is, and again as per our materials online, it will likely be one of the top five largest hard rock lithium mines globally. That's a really important position to facilitate underwriting the future Western supply chains that we expect to unfold in respect of the growth that's required in our industry. Despite some rhetoric, we don't think that growth is going away, and our project is going to be an important linchpin in helping underwrite the future of those Western supply chains. It doesn't stop with lithium. Lithium's incredibly important, and it gets us off the ground.
There is much more value to be added with the future co-products that we envisage in the form of pollucite being the concentrate for caesium and tantalite being the concentrate for tantalum. We expect to be able to unfold the economic opportunity with more test work, more engineering, and more economic analysis that ultimately ensures those co-products, their co-products because they're coming out at exactly the same time as the lithium raw materials are coming out, we can generate those co-product credits that are ultimately going to make for a more valuable operation at Shaakichiuwaanaan. We'll just briefly touch on the future of lithium chemicals. It's another important addition that sits down the pipeline for the Shaakichiuwaanaan Project, both in the form of the partnerships that might yet develop as we think about underwriting this very, very large-scale mine for future chemical facilities.
We'd also like people to envisage a world where part of our production, if not potentially a significant portion of our production, ultimately makes its way into midstream products. A value-added product, for example, lithium sulfate or even potentially lithium carbonate, as a future value add to the Shaakichiuwaanaan Project. These are all important elements in the future of what is a multi-decade asset, in the first instance underwritten by lithium, but over time taking advantage of those additional co-product opportunities. Moving on to the project. Within the project, actually not much has changed. The feasibility study envisages something very similar to what was proposed in the former PEA. We have obviously a large-scale development in lithium. It's staged in operation.
As per the scope in this feasibility study, the first step is envisaged at 400,000 tons per annum of spodumene concentrate, and then very quickly thereafter growing to 800,000 tons per annum of spodumene concentrate. It's really competitive in cost, sub $600 a ton, all-in sustaining costs for a lithium-only operation. We consider that to be very competitive in a global context and a good chance that it becomes even more competitive as we bolt on the co-product opportunities. It's there for a long time based on a very large reserve. We've underwritten the first 20 years of the mine life. That's important for the investments that people might consider downstream. It's a combination of open-pit mining and underground mining. Open-pit mining is low strip ratio. In fact, actually probably very low again when you view global operations at about 3.2 to 1.
You have the higher grade mining operation underground, especially within the Nova Zone. That's an opportunity I'll come back to later on. It's DMS-only operations. That's another important element, a coarse product, so a product that's larger in size, making for easier calcination downstream. That's also important to the chemical conversion industry. That's the background to the project. What have we done? We've done the feasibility study, and it's published to facilitate the progress of our final mine authorization in the James Bay region of Quebec under the COMEX/COMEV process. You require a combination of the feasibility study and your final ESIA documentation. The Environment and Social Impact Assessment matched in scope with your feasibility study once for 800,000 tons per annum to facilitate the final mine authorization. Whilst we've published the feasibility study, it's not for the purpose of final investment decision.
It really is to match the ESIA scope such that we can achieve the final mine authorization. In the intervening period, whilst the mine authorization is underway, we will continue to work hard on additional optimization initiatives. I'll come back to these in more detail because they're very important to the future value of the Shaakichiuwaanaan Project. In any case, with the large-scale mine authorization, we then have the opportunity to backfill this scope for delivery and the staging, even to a certain extent, the sequence with which we see the operation unfold within those larger authorization envelopes. This allows us much more optionality and flexibility, and we expect to exercise that over the course of the next 18 - 24 months as we undertake the final mine authorization in the COMEX and COMEV process. I hope that makes sense.
In summary, a 20-year mine life, a very valuable project, all-in sustaining costs that are globally competitive, a large-scale operation. Net CapEx after the credits we receive both provincially and federally in Canada, approximately CAD 1.5 billion for the large-scale project. I'll draw some comparisons shortly to help explain how the CapEx unfolds. A really compelling project with a pretty modest price input. We would suggest relatively conservative input pricing, approximately $1,320 per ton for an SC6 product, or in our case, adjusted on a pro-rata basis to SC5.5, long-run pricing of $1,221 per ton. Whilst that's not today's price, it's what we would consider to be a relatively conservative view of long-run pricing in the hard rock lithium or the spodumene concentrate world. What's happened in CapEx? Yes, it's fair to say there has been some growth in CapEx, approximately 30% across the board. Why is that so?
There's a combination of factors that are contributing. Firstly, in power supply. Compared to the PEA, we've grown the available power supply at site, and we've made the decision for the purpose of the feasibility study scope to build that upfront. It affords more opportunity downstream as you continue to expand the operation, including potentially for some of the value-added products that I've also described. The power supply has gone up. There's a reflection on the mining equipment, in this case, the outright purchase of mining equipment that wasn't originally considered in the PEA. Lastly, there are two important elements in the form of inflationary pressure, which I'm sure most of you can appreciate is not something to be sneezed at over the course of the last couple of years, and also just the level of study.
As you contribute more engineering and more engineering assessment of the project deliverables, then inevitably you find more work that's required to continue to build your project profile. The combination of those being level of study, engineering inputs and the like, and inflationary pressure has added to the cost base. In any case, we would argue a very competitive project globally for the scale that's being constructed. Moving on to what was envisaged in this version of the scope for stage one, again, higher cost, but in this case, elements that are already pre-invested. The two key ones there are the power that I mentioned earlier. In effect, stage two power is going in in stage one.
We're buying the equipment outright, and then you also have the effect of the level of study as you build in more engineering and the background or the backdrop, which represents inflationary pressure, moving from 2023 pricing inputs to 2025 pricing inputs. With respect to the production costs, whether you're looking at the equivalent of C1 production costs or you're looking at all-in sustaining costs, they're both very, very competitive. We provided some more detail both within this presentation but also in the news release lodged online to describe where the costs come from. What you have helicopter view across the entire project is to say a very, very competitive cost of spodumene concentrate on the ground at Shaakichiuwaanaan. Then you have the effect of haulage as you head downstream to the south of Quebec and ultimately the Gulf of St.
Lawrence introducing potentially a slightly new term to people, FOB Grand Anse. Grand Anse is the port of or port at Saguenay, which is on the Gulf of St. Lawrence Seaway. In total, a competitive cost base, but one that we would fully expect to be further optimized as we continue with the optimization initiatives that are an important part of the future of the Shaakichiuwaanaan Project. I'll come back to them shortly. Onto sensitivity analysis, there's plenty of that inside our news release and in the materials lodged online, but a couple of key ones to call out. At what we consider to be a relatively conservative long-run pricing input, you have a pretty compelling project, one that's going to underwrite a 20-year mine life, and we are sure attracts the interests of key supply chain participants to help underwrite investments downstream.
It's even the case that the project can tolerate lower pricing inputs and still be accretive for the purpose of the investment. Moving to the bottom right, estimate of average EBITDA nominal cash flow with sensitivity for pricing inputs. The key points to be made here, there is significant leverage to the upside in a circumstance where you see price appreciating, and that's principally motivated by a very competitive cost base, but also, of course, larger volumes from a very big project. Lastly, if the price goes the other way, the reality is it would be one of the few projects globally that would continue to make cash flow, even in a circumstance where pricing approximates roughly where it is today. This is a very important element for a long-lived and defensive project. What do we do to optimize from here?
There are lots of things to contribute, none the least of which is the co-products. Again, making the point, the pollucite that hosts the caesium and the tantalite that hosts the tantalum, they are in essence in the same pegmatite. In most circumstances, they're going to be mined at the same time. They represent a fantastic opportunity to valorize the additional key elements and, in fact, important critical minerals for the future of the Shaakichiuwaanaan Project. Clearly, they're a focus. In terms of constructing the project, there's schedule optimization, there's the potential for modularization, especially in the DMS plant. These are all important elements to add further value. Last but not least, a big one over time would be the addition of our CV13 discoveries, and they are discoveries in total. They're multiple: high-grade lithium, high-grade caesium, and high-grade tantalum all exist at CV13.
It represents an important opportunity for the future of the Shaakichiuwaanaan Project. In a little bit more detail, the Nova Zone. Numbers quoted here come from our reserve calculations. They are already taking into account the delivery, that is, the dilutionary effect or even the ore losses that might exist in your mining operation as assessed for the purpose of the reserve. What you have at the Nova Zone is a very high-grade cigar within a cigar. In our diagram here, it's represented by the green leading up to the pink. You can start to get a picture for the scale in the Nova Zone within our underground operation. The grade there is pretty incredible: 12.1 million tons at 2% as mined from those identified stopes. Within that, some of it's even higher grade with the top 10 stopes listed on the right-hand side of our slide.
There are just very few, if any, mines that can offer such a high grade over the scale in tons available in the Nova Zone. Clearly, that's a very important target. We have tantalum as a co-product. Tantalum, in reality, is expected to be a relatively simple bolt-on to our existing DMS plant. You would typically use physical processes to offer that recovery in the form of spirals, shaking tables, and maybe magnets. In the end, a relatively simple addition to the DMS plant to valorize what would otherwise be a tailings stream to create a valuable concentrate. It's a similar story with caesium. Caesium is a little bit more defined within the resource, we believe, at CV5, but also as defined in our most recent resource update for CV13. It's domained, a bit more tightly domained for the purpose of being caesium recovery.
As per recent announcements in respect of the test work, caesium is recovered using relatively simple ore sorting techniques. In fact, in our most recent announcement, we achieved something approaching the high 80% in recovery using ore sorting for the purpose of pollucite recovery, to a 10% concentrate. We believe that would be readily marketable and, with more work, becomes an important co-product to the future of our operation at the Shaakichiuwaanaan . We're also focused on the potential in a bulk sample. The company has recently made the first of the application processes to facilitate a future bulk sample at CV5. Our bulk sample is intended to further de-risk the operation, especially the underground operation, by accessing each of the three commodities I've described. Of course, spodumene concentrate, and in particular in the Nova Zone, but also assessing, whilst we're there, tantalum and caesium in CV5.
We know there are high-grade intercepts in CV5 for caesium, and our intention in the application of a future bulk sample would be to test those zones. This is an important project for the purpose of de-risking the future of the entire operation, especially the underground operation, and an important tool as we consider our integration with downstream industry participants. The last of our important opportunities is the industry engagement that's underway in each of those key commodities: lithium, caesium, and tantalum. We believe that the Shaakichiuwaanaan is widely viewed as one of the more important projects in each of these categories: lithium, caesium, and tantalum, by key participants in the industry.
We continue to engage with them with a view to building a presence in the industry, growing relationships, and ultimately leading to the potential in future partnerships with key industry participants like that we've done in the last 12 months with VW and PowerCo. The team has worked incredibly hard to maintain momentum inside the project, and I want to give them credit. I'm very proud of what they've been able to achieve. Making our way through the full-form feasibility for a very large project like ours is no mean feat. It's a fantastic achievement of the team, but it's just another one of many that preceded it. You cannot underestimate how far Shaakichiuwaanaan is now down the development pipeline.
The team originally under Blair Way, from almost day one when they knew they were onto a material discovery, got stuck into all the environmental background and the environmental baseline studies that are required to underwrite things like, of course, our now feasibility study and the upcoming ESIA documentation. We expect the ESIA documentation to be lodged over approximately the next three to four months. There are two. There's one that exists at a provincial level, but also another that exists at a federal level. That's what underwrites the timeline through to commissioning during the second half of 2029 and commercial production in the first half of 2030. As to FID, we would estimate approximately two years from now, and it's within that window of mine authorization leading into FID that we're updating all of the economic opportunities that are arising through these optimizations I've described.
A combination of co-products, the methodology for construction, even taking into account the benefit of things like the bulk sample, they all become very important for the purpose of our final economic model that is the subject of the future investment decision, within which we, of course, would expect to be progressing as we grow our partnerships in the industry. A lot of momentum, and it should not be underestimated how advanced the project is amongst North American projects, but especially those with scale. We've worked really hard on our community relations. We've developed what we believe is a strong and mutual relationship with the Cree, who are a solid counterparty and an important partner in the future of our Shaakichiuwaanaan Project. What does that mean? It means we're working really hard, and the team has done a fantastic job to ensure high levels of employment at site.
We're typically targeting about 20% employment of the Cree, but especially if we can secure them from the local community, the local community to our project being Chisasibi, adjacent to James Bay. In addition, working hard with Cree business. Year to date, that's not insubstantial. 33% of our spend year to date has been amongst Cree business. The combination of those two things, including training, a third, I guess, economic development in the form of business and business spend, employment, and training, they're all key initiatives for us as we grow our relationship with the Cree. Lastly, the market. Rumors of lithium's demise, of death, are greatly exaggerated, I would say. What's changing in our industry, one of the key drivers is the cost of the cells themselves. They are now incredibly cheap.
In fact, when I think about when I started in the industry 10 or 11 years ago, $100 a kilowatt-hour was the, you know, the holy grail, really, for the cost of the cells. Here we are now approaching, you know, sub $60 a kilowatt-hour, probably $50 a kilowatt-hour within not too much time from here. That's important because that's what grows the addressable market. Basically, cheaper cells making their way into lower-cost EVs, growing adoption, of course, stationary energy storage. Energy storage is the big sleeper in the world of energy and energy demand. We're all going to be talking a lot more about energy storage and the role of lithium-ion batteries in energy storage through global power networks. That's a phenomenon, and it's only going to get bigger. What does that mean? A lot more lithium raw materials to support more lithium battery capacity.
Then you have other effects that I think inevitably lead to growth surprises. We've just selected another one here. There's many of them, but another one is medium and large format commercials. Think buses, trucks. The cells are now so cheap that it's economically compelling to buy the electric version of your rubbish truck, of your city transport, of your bus. For those of you that travel around the world, I'm sure you're starting to see this phenomenon unfold, the number of electric buses that are doing circuits at airports in the city of London. Of course, China is, as always, leading the charge. A headline from Reuters there, half of China's heavy trucks could be EVs by 2028. 2028 is less than three years away, and half their trucks will be EVs. It's pretty incredible how quickly the world is moving.
Whilst China's at the leading edge, you can safely say that the Europeans are also making similar moves, with just the U.S. being the laggard, I would suggest. What does it all mean? From a demand point of view, we don't have anything to fear other than probably outsized demand and surprises to the upside for the reasons I've described. It just so happens that through that growth paradigm, being surprised by energy storage, being surprised by EV adoption, being surprised by electrification of heavy commercials, being surprised by, who knows, humanoid robots and e-mobility more generally, what does it mean? It means probably the world switches on more cell-making capacity than most people can currently estimate today. There's a good chance it falls right when our project is heading into production later this decade.
That's where I'm going to close, Nicholas, and welcome the chance to launch into some questions. Amy, I think it's over to you.
To ask a question on your telephone, please press star then one and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star then two. I believe Nicholas will give instructions on asking webcast questions.
Yes, sorry, Amy. To ask a question on the webcast, please use the browser to log your question, and we'll deal with those questions as soon as we've worked through the telephone queue. Amy, over to you for the... I see we've got about four questions lined up ready to go. Five questions now on the teleconference, so please go ahead.
The first question comes from Max Yerrill at BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Hey, Ken, and team, thanks for taking my question. I was just wondering if you could touch a little bit more on the potential bulk sampling program. How many tons are you thinking there, and how much of that CapEx from the initial ramp decline do you think you could pull forward into the plan? Thanks.
Excellent. Yeah, thanks very much for the question. Okay. What the bulk sample envisages is up to 50,000 tons of ore extracted from the underground operation. Our application includes two mining areas in addition to the development to get there. You've quite rightly pointed that out. Approximately 25,000 tons from what we consider to be a mid-grade zone and 25,000 tons from what we consider to be a high-grade zone. Within that, we will be accessing both tantalite or tantalum, as known through our existing resource, but also development that's adjacent to what we believe are caesium zones in CV5. This affords an opportunity to consider future drilling around those areas or the potential in samples within the 50,000 tons of our application. A bit of a sort of broad brush description there as to where the sample tons come from.
As to the development, it takes us approximately 250 m below surface. Fréd, I might even throw to you if you'd like to add a few more comments about the development sequence in the bulk sample. Thanks, mate.
Yep, absolutely. The first part basically is developing the portal itself and the ramp from surface down to that first level that Ken talked about that sits at 125 m from surface and establishing as well the ventilation to get there. There's a raise there as well that will help development. We get into the ore for about 375 m that equates to the 25,000 tons that Ken alluded to. The second phase of the bulk sample would actually be developing further down. Prior to that, we need to establish more ventilation. All of that infrastructure basically is the infrastructure that is designed in the FS. It's not new infrastructure. It's not additional. It really is concurrent with what the FS is envisioning. That second phase gets us to 250 m depth.
A second phase of development, again, 375 m of development into the mineralized zone, especially targeting those high-grade caesium, lithium, and tantalum intercepts.
Thanks, Fréd.
I think the second part to your question is, you know, ultimately, how does that get supported, if you like? How is it developed? How is it funded? Our view would be that this particular aspect of the project ultimately is supported by industry itself. For those that we are engaging with in the supply chain, those that are interested in our project, they are ultimately the counterparties that support the de-risking event that the bulk sample represents for the project. That's the primary we would consider.
Thanks, guys. I appreciate the color there. I'll turn it back to the queue.
Next question is from Adam Baker at Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Morning, Ken, and team. Congrats on getting the feasibility study out. Lots of work gone into this, I'm sure. Just one on the capital requirements. You know, a CAD 1.5 billion, the requirements are sizable. Just wondering if you've given any consideration to bringing in a partner at the project level.
Yeah, thanks for the question, Adam. It's sort of a logical question to ask too. I concur with your line of thinking. A project of our scale, especially in an environment where we're considering the development of a multi-decade project that has the potential to underwrite new supply chains, I think lends itself to a partnership model, Adam. That doesn't necessarily mean exactly as you've described, but it could do. Our view has always been that we should consider engagement with industry downstream. The most obvious example is the deal that we've done with VW and PowerCo because a project of our scale will have motivated interest from within the supply chain. As a result, we consider working with key partners to make our project real.
I think the answer is yes, but the spectrum could span from, yeah, I agree, it could span from investment at the mine level, but equally through to funding support for the benefit of offtake, you know, downstream, if you like. Any one of those, in our view, seems possible. That's the way we think about engaging with key partners, in part taking into account their feedback.
That's clear and makes sense. Maybe secondly, on the offtake, you've mentioned you've got around 700 KT of spodumene concentrate available. When do these additional offtake discussions really kick into gear? You know, when, I guess, could we potentially expect news flow coming from this? What maybe if you could touch on what sort of partners you're looking for.
Yeah, we've made no secret of our engagement with the industry downstream, and we feel like the team as a whole has developed a good reputation, a credible project, a credible team, and it leads to credible engagement in the supply chain. That's probably the best way to sum it up. Our focus has typically been on participants in the supply chain downstream. In particular now, and in fact, for that matter, consistent with our relationship with VW a nd PowerCo, is thinking about the gap in between us as a primary producer with key concentrates, and we hope high-value concentrates, to participants in the chemical conversion industry, the cathode industry, and of course, like VW , the cell-making industry or PowerCo in the cell-making industry.
We're looking to basically close the gap in between, and in particular, if it creates an environment where you've been able to further diversify the supply chain as compared to dealing with, say, the China-centric risk that the majority of the industry deals with today and the potential in localization of the supply chain. That's where we're focusing, Adam, mostly in the gap in between. VW and PowerCo are a very powerful partner. They're an end user. We're a primary producer, so we're looking to close the gap in between.
That's clear. I'll pass it on. Thank you.
The next question comes from Levi Spry at UBS.
Yeah, again, thanks for your time. Just might continue along the sort of funding CapEx lines. For the bulk sample, have you got a ballpark sort of number that that could require?
It depends on the extent with which we invest in stage one of the bulk sample or stage two. Fréd mentioned that there's an upper sample and a lower sample. I think if you were to think about a range between about CAD 60 million and let's say CAD 100 million , depending on the scale of the sample that you choose to take, I would simply make the point, Levi, that we're not going to do the sample without having industry support. If you think about the two, they're sort of inextricably linked, really, in many respects. We were looking for active participation from partners downstream.
They want to continue to see the mine de-risked, in which case they are a logical source of funding to match with the development of such a sample like that that's proposed in the bulk sample. I hope that makes sense, Levi.
Yes, it does. I think so. Yeah, thank you. Just sort of continuing along that line, can you just sort of step us through the tax credit pieces, how we should think about modeling those in time?
Yep. Yep. I'm the mining engineer, mate. You get the mining engineer's explanation, not the accountant's explanation. The way it works is you basically make the application for the spend that's aligned to the credit. The credit is only available on certain spend. Through the process of the feasibility study, we've identified each of the elements of our deliverables inside the project that attract the credit. The way the system works, it actually is similar at a provincial level. There are two levels of credit: there's a provincial credit and a federal credit. The year immediately after you've made the spend for the valid expenditure, you receive the credit. Depending on which credit it is, let's say approximately 40% of the spend under that applicable or line item for the deliverable in the project.
It's in effect an immediate sort of cash flow credit in the following year after you've made the valid spend.
Okay. All right. Thank you. Two more quick ones. Just in terms of the optimization sort of projects, can you just help us think about the... I know you've got the box on the Gantt chart there, but I guess timing and then size of the prize for... you know, which of those ones are you really excited about? Is it the caesium?
Yeah. No, good on you, Levi. Think of the tantalum as also a good opportunity because it's a broad brush sort of credit to the tons that you're mining because the tantalum is very widely spread through your resource. It's nowhere near as heavily domained as, for example, the caesium. It means that you're always pulling those tantalite tons. If I think back to my experience with Pilbara Minerals or even to a certain extent the way others, you know, peers think about that tantalum credit, you might argue it's sort of in the range of, let's say, $20 - $40, maybe $50 a ton in credit to the cost of your spodumene. The reality is we need to do more test work and the final plant design that ultimately gets attached to the DMS plant.
It's relatively simple, but it's going to be subject to more design so that we can plug it into our updated and optimized financial model. In the case of caesium, it's a slightly different take. In absolute terms, it's a higher value product, would be our view, but it's more domained. For example, one of the reasons why we would consider the bulk sample is so that we could target the areas that we think are localized with caesium enrichment at CV5, given that you're going to be developing CV5 anyway. In particular, first, then that represents the nearest term opportunity for the pollucite recovery. It's definitely a higher value product. You've just got to identify the domained locations in CV5. The next big prize is CV13, Levi, but CV13 is behind the baseline approval studies compared to CV5.
It's going to take us a bit longer to get access to CV13, but the good news is, relatively speaking, it's a lesser material or lesser timeline in approvals as compared to the original CV5 lithium-only approval. Perhaps an analogy that might work for the Australians is to think of the opportunities in co-products and even to a certain extent CV13 as the equivalent of a... Oh, I've just forgotten the term in Western Australia where you... It's another mining approval, but it's not the same as your first round of approval. I've got a mental blank as to exactly what the term is for it, but it's not as hard as the first round of approvals, and that's a similar overlay in Quebec.
Yep, got it. Thanks. Maybe a bigger picture one, obviously, Prime Minister and President just met recently from here. Can you give us a bit of a feel? Obviously, that's probably a little bit more about [PMET Resources], just at this point in time, but can you give us a bit of a feel for potential direction or, I guess, potential tailwinds that might provide your project in time?
Yeah, there's a lot more discussion about the critical mineral sphere amongst government circles. Our observation is that that's equally true here in Canada. There is an intense level of focus now on realizing the opportunity, or actually another way to put it would be to fix the problem that critical minerals represent now in the Western world. Our experience is that we're getting credit for that in Canada in the sense that the political rhetoric around trying to ensure that projects progress in reasonable order and, for that matter, that funding is available is a very real phenomenon in Canada now. I'm no expert in the federal world of approvals here in Canada, I can assure you, but the team here at PMET.
has described a completely different level of response from the people undertaking our assessment as we progress through the federal sphere, even to the point where in the recently published guidelines for our project, I just said, yes, we're going to match the provincial approval, and that was unheard of historically. There's just one example of how the machine in Canada is starting to respond to the issues that are emerging, you know, or the rhetoric that's emerging at a federal level in any case. I think it's a real phenomenon, Levi, and there are examples now where they are opening the checkbook as well. Of course, in the U.S., you've seen them, but to a certain extent, something similar is unfolding with key pools of capital being made available in Canada to get the right projects off the ground.
We'd like to think that we are one of those projects. We're not there yet, but we're definitely getting a good hearing.
Excellent. Yeah, thanks for your time, Ken. Thank you.
Thanks, Levi.
The next question is from Reg Spencer at Canaccord. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good, I suppose it's evening, Ken. Thanks for the presentation and the chance to ask a question. Congrats on the completion of the study. I think most of the other guys have covered off on most of my other questions. The last one that I'd like your comments on is the product marketing strategy for the caesium. I know you've got it included in your project timeline there, given that it's a high-value product, as you pointed out. You know, are there any project financing opportunities that might be attached to that caesium subject to the outcomes of your test work?
Yeah, we've been really pleased with the engagement in the caesium world, Reg. You might argue it's a bit of a quirky little commodity, but at the same time, it's been the subject of intense focus. The minute that we announced the original discovery, before we'd even published our resource, we'd received contact from industry because people are intensely interested in what's in the ground. I want to say the backdrop has been really positive for engagement with the industry downstream. That includes both the primary producers, but equally the participants in the industry that exist downstream, the two or three big ones being, you know, the oil and gas industry, the optoelectrical industry, and then maybe you throw in there the emerging solar industry. They've all been useful points of contact.
To your point about marketing strategy, I would look at it from the perspective that we're going to be thinking about all our projects in, or sorry, all our products, including those co-products, from the perspective of what's their value in use. That's ultimately what we're going to be trying to realize in either the product value itself, what you sell the product for, but opportunities to consider financing for the purpose of the mines' development and de-risking the mines' development. I want to say yes, we have a lot more work to do, Reg, but you're right, there are opportunities there.
That's great. Thanks, Ken. I suppose at the very least, you could, any offtake or similar style financing could be used to fund the capital associated with the caesium and/or the tantalum for that matter. If it's anything over and above that, that could be also used for the spodumene.
You're right. One thing that hasn't changed in the lithium world is that there are still people in industry who are motivated by the combination of we can finance for the purpose of securing your offtake. Of course, the very live example we've shared is the one with VW and PowerCo. Similar models, I think, exist in the co-product opportunities. Last thing I'd add there, Reg, is to say even then, they're not the only pools of capital. The other new phenomenon, sort of a little bit similar to Levi's previous question, was there are now pools of government money that are also interested in solving, to a certain extent anyway, solving the same problem that industry is now facing, and that's the pressure on supply chains in critical minerals.
Those pools of capital, you know, they're new as compared to, say, lithium like you and I experienced 10 years ago. Nonetheless, they're pretty significant these days because people have quite significant problems to solve for in establishing these new supply chains, and you need raw materials to do it, Reg.
Indeed, you do. Thanks very much, Ken. Appreciate it. Thank you.
Thanks, mate.
The next question comes from Hayden Bairstow at Argonaut. Please go ahead.
Thanks, Ken. Just a couple for me. Just firstly on CV13, I mean, how do you bring this into the base case without impacting any of the timelines and approvals? Is that something that needs a completely separate approval, or would you integrate it into what you're doing with the CV5 base case?
No, really good thread to follow there, Hayden. I'd like to be really clear. It's lithium only, and it's CV5 for the purpose of the first round of approvals. That's for the purpose of a couple of things. Firstly, clarity. If nothing else, you want as simple a defined process as is possible. The reality is we also have more work to do. For co-product opportunities, what you bolt on in the form of tantalite recovery or even pollucite recovery, we still have more test work and engineering to undertake to realize the economic opportunity. We do expect to do that in pretty good order, let's say over approximately the next 12 months in the case. From an approvals point of view, you've still got to go through the hoops post the presentation of your first rounds of mine authorization. You have, in effect, an adjustment to your approval.
As per earlier comments, the adjustment is typically lesser work than the first rounds of approval to get the lithium-only operation approved. The same logic applies to CV13. CV13 still requires more baseline work. The team has been progressing that, by the way, pretty much since discovery. We definitely have more work to do there to facilitate that round of approval. The logic is the same. It's an adjustment to your original lithium-only approval to facilitate mining at CV13. It should not necessarily take as long as the original approval.
On the reserve, Ken, I noticed in there, as with all 43-101 stuff, you've zeroed all the inferred stuff. If we jawed this thing, how much inferred material is actually in the pit?
I might throw that one to Fréd. He's probably closer to the pit design and optimizations than I'll ever be.
We're not allowed to add any inferred in our reserve. All of it is indicated, and even any inferred that would have made itself into the mine plan is zeroed out in terms of grade.
Yeah, what's the volume of that?
Oh boy, that's a good question. I don't have the answer to that.
Yeah, okay. Thanks, guys.
There is some, Hayden. As to exactly what it is, I'm not sure.
The next question comes from Mohamed Sidibé at National Bank Capital Markets.
Thanks, Ken, and team, for taking my questions. I think most of my questions have been answered already, but just maybe a question related to the underground opportunity and the ability to potentially bring that forward, the ability to prove the PEA. You were potentially looking at that as well. What are some of the key items that you will be working on over the next 12 - 24 months to see if that's a possibility? If I recall well, at lower lithium prices, maybe an underground-only option was a possibility you were looking at. Thank you.
Thanks for the question, Mohamed. Yeah, they do. They fall into different categories. I'd give you there is to say modularization of the DMS plant. That's the most likely target for modularization, which is useful in our part of the world. In northern Quebec or northern central Quebec, that would be a very logical way to build out our DMS capacity. We might yet make some changes in scope in respect of the power strategy. There are other things that we can optimize as we think about future development and staging techniques. Of course, there are the co-product opportunities. We believe they are going to be valuable to the project, and we're intensely focused on realizing their economic opportunity. You hit on the benefit in the bulk sample.
The bulk sample is justified based on the premise that it's a really important de-risking event by providing significant sample for those people that want to invest in our supply chain, whether that's at the mine or in chemical initiatives downstream. Having materially larger samples is of benefit to those players. The added benefit that the bulk sample would bring is to also realize the opportunity in the co-products, but especially the caesium at CV5. In the process of developing the bulk sample, you get some development in the mine. As to ultimately what that achieves, we'll have to see as to how you unfold this subsequent development strategy at the mine. The primary objective is to de-risk the product flow and use that as a key tool to engage with the industry downstream. I hope that makes sense, Mohamed.
Yeah, no, that's helpful. Thanks a lot for that. Most of my other questions have been answered. Congrats on completing the study.
Thanks, mate.
I would now like to turn the conference back over to Nicholas Reid for webcast questions.
Thanks, Amy. Ken, we do have a number of webcast questions here, so let's get into it. Just a reminder to everyone, if you wish to ask a webcast question, use the live Q&A tab on the right-hand side of your screen. For those on the teleconference, if you do have a follow-up, we can jump back to you. We haven't forgotten about you. For those on the teleconference, it's Star and the number one. The first question here, Ken, comes from JC Evensen from Eucalyptus Resources. Informally and illustratively, how would caesium and tantalum recovery impact the flow sheet if ever incorporated in the future?
Okay, good question, JC. In fact, it's good news on both fronts because both tantalite recovery for tantalum and pollucite recovery for caesium are physical processes. They don't use, basically, think of it as though they don't use any chemicals to concentrate the mineral species that host the key critical mineral thereafter. Tantalite uses very simple spirals, gravity tables, and under certain circumstances, magnets to facilitate the tantalite recovery. That is a relatively simple bolt-on process widely deployed in Australia and other operations globally that have a tantalite credit. Tantalite credit at Shaakichiuwaanaan is strong. It's 165 parts per million with subsets of that that are actually much higher grade, CV13 being a good example. It feels like it's going to be a strong credit. That's why we're focused on realizing that as a co-product opportunity. Pollucite for caesium is recovered using ore sorting technology.
Ore sorting is a physical process that assesses the concentration of caesium basically on a conveyor belt and then quite literally separates the material. Because the volumes are very small, the cost of separation using ore sorting and, in fact, the scale in the machinery is relatively small. Again, another simple process. In both cases, they require more test work, they require more engineering, and ultimately, they'll be built into our economic model, but we see them as strong value adds. Think of them as being, we think, a very strong credit to the cost of your spodumene operations. We're already competitive with all-in sustaining costs less than $600 a ton, but we think that by the time we finish the work on these co-product opportunities, you're going to see a very competitive mine on a spodumene basis or cost basis.
Thanks, Ken. The next question here is, would the completion of Route 167 extension north allow better transportation costs?
Yeah, that's a logical question. The route being referred to there is the so-called Renard Road extension from the former Renard Diamond Mine through to the Trans-Taiga Highway. It has the effect of closing the loop through the north and the James Bay region to the Trans-Taiga. It's the subject of more work by Plan Nord in Quebec to be considered for future development under the auspices of joint development with the Cree Nation. We are, in effect, kind of interested in that road and active participants in its discussion.
and the potential future of that road. It would have a benefit to our haulage. I think from memory, reducing the truck haulage component by approximately 200 km. Definitely a net benefit to the project, but not required. In respect of our development proposal and as envisaged in the feasibility study, our haulage route is the other way. It's via the Trans-Tyger Highway to the Billy Diamond Highway to Mattagny. That route is well identified in our news release materials and in the upcoming 43-101. It's already existing. From our point of view, no specific need for the Radar Diamond Mine extension, but we're an interested counterparty in thinking about the future of that road and whether it doesn't ultimately add value to our project.
Excellent. Thanks, Ken. A quick question here. A shareholder asked how is the relationship with Albemarle going and are they still on the register?
Yes. We are enjoying the relationship with Albemarle, and broadly speaking, we'd say they still have an interest in our part of the world and our project. We believe they are still a shareholder in the same way that they were back in 2023. Yeah, good relationship with Albemarle, and of course, they're another important player in the industry. We welcome that ongoing relationship with them.
Thanks, Ken. There's a question here about the 15,000-m drill program that was announced last spring to drill around CV13 and the gap between CV13 and CV5. The question is, will we see an update on that now that the feasibility study has been filed?
Yeah, it's a really good, a really good question. I can assure you, and I'm sure all interested shareholders are thinking about what's going on with our exploration programs. The team has still done some exploration. It's just that the majority of our drilling had focused on the feasibility outcomes. That's mainly infill and also other drilling, for example, geotechnical holes, sterilization holes, stuff that's kind of boring, but in the scheme of things has to be done for the progress of your feasibility. The good news is the guys have squeezed some exploration in there, and our expectation is that we'll have those results out in the coming month or months.
Fantastic. Thanks, Ken. There's a question here about gallium. The question is that companies previously referred to the potential for gallium. The U.S.-Australia Minerals Agreement will establish a gallium refinery. Will PMET look into gallium and how would that impact the flow sheet?
Yeah. No, I completely understand the gallium question because clearly it's attracting some interest. We are a significant host of gallium in resource. That's identified and part of our resource profile. Where gallium requires further work is that from an extraction point of view, it's only accessed in the next step beyond spodumene concentrate. Yes, the resource hosts gallium and you'll end up with a level of concentration as you continue to process at a site level, but you cannot extract it until you've undertaken a chemical process. Broadly speaking, we have not forgotten about gallium. It just requires more work from our point of view as we engage in the work that's required downstream through chemical conversion. It's not as simple a project pathway as, for example, caesium and tantalum are because their physical process is undertaken for direct concentrate extraction at a site level.
In contrast, gallium requires the chemical process downstream to realize the opportunity, and that's why it requires more work.
Thanks very much, Ken. We can't let you go without a good market question. There's one here. There's a two-part question. Is the lithium price predicted to be more stable going forward, or given China's position in the market and supply from lepidolite, do you still see it being relatively volatile? The second part is, in the feasibility, would the majority of production be sold to U.S. EV manufacturers, and how much would be sold on the spot market? I guess the question there is, fixed-term contracts versus keeping some up your sleeve for spot?
Okay. I understand the inquiry. In respect of the market development, it's fair to say that it's not unreasonable to assume that the lithium market follows more broadly what happens in other markets as the base of consumption grows, that some of the volatility comes out of the market. I've just got to qualify that by saying that doesn't mean that all the volatility is going out of it. It just may not be quite as volatile as historically it has been. Pretty exceptional period. The combination of down cycles, you know, 2021 up cycles, 2022, 2023, and now, of course, down cycles again. That peak in 2021 and 2022 was pretty extraordinary. With a bigger consumer base, more players in the market, more trade, more active buyers, more active sellers, you would expect that some of that volatility gets washed out of the system.
It's definitely not going away in total. That's because it's a market with lots of leverage. There are very few markets that can say that they're growing, as they are this year, for example, growing at between 25% and 30% per annum. That sort of growth rate in any mineral is always going to create some chaos, if you like, in both directions. I guess my view would be as the market grows and it becomes a bigger market, then some of that chaos maybe gets reduced. Is there going to be opportunity? If the second part of that question, if I imagine it, is there going to be opportunity because of supply-demand imbalance in the future? I think yes, almost certainly.
We'd like to think that we're pretty well positioned to take advantage of that, especially leading into the end of the decade when we believe the market is underestimating the demand.
Thanks very much, Ken. Anything else you'd like to add just on the question about offtake versus spot?
Sorry. The second part to that question was, you think about what's required to build a big project like ours, and you inevitably have to have a decent pool of offtake to, you know, hopefully with really strong counterparties like, for example, that we've already generated with VW and PowerCo. We'd like to think that we can do more of that, and that helps underwrite the project, but at the same time, have enough flexibility that we haven't, you know, sort of locked ourselves in to the extent that we don't have any more flexibility. In that respect, it's a bit of a compromise.
You have to do enough to facilitate the development of what we believe is a very large project and, for that matter, of interest to key parties that want to grow off the back of it, but at the same time, leaving enough room for shareholders to take advantage of, you know, what we imagine is some upside to come and certainly as compared to today's market.
Fantastic, Ken. Thanks very much. I think we've cleared both of those question queues well and truly. I'm going to just hand back to you for a couple of closing comments, and we'll close out the call.
Yes. Thank you, Nicholas. Thanks for hosting. Very much appreciated, as always. Ladies and gentlemen, a pleasure to be with you. We're really pleased with our ability to have made this next important step, the completion of the Shaakichiuwaanaan feasibility study. We look forward to demonstrating just how good this project is in the months and years to come. Thanks very much for joining us. Olivia, Fréd, thanks for your participation in the call, and we'll look forward to engaging with you all soon. Thanks for having us, and bye-bye.