BCI Minerals Limited

quarterly update webcast. All participants are in the listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you'll need to type your questions into the ask a question box below the webcast frame and click submit. I'd now like to hand the conference over to David Bossoff, Managing Director. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome. I'm David Bossoff, and with me is our CFO, Steve Fierstad. we're pleased to be joining you today for this June quarterly update. Before we get underway, I'd like to highlight that today's presentation should be read in conjunction with our June quarterly report, which is available on BCI's website. As we move through today's session, please feel free to add questions to the chat function and we'll respond to those at the end. It's been a strong quarter for BCI. We've progressed with filling the ponds, commissioned the first crystallizers and made solid progress across construction. Importantly, safety and our community remained at the forefront of everything we do. We are excited about the milestones that demonstrated the momentum we are carrying as we progress towards first revenue. This success is driven by our people and our contract partners who brings our values to life every day. The team has truly exemplified our value of winning as one team, delivering together. We are laser focused on delivering salt production by 2026 and proving up SOP. We're committed to do what we say. SALT is now in full operations and set to deliver $286 million on EBITDA every year. The SOP pilot plant work is also progressing well, targeting $99 million of EBITDA once in full operation. Cape Preston West Port also offers additional upside with potential third-party revenue from the spare capacity. Māori is already Australia's largest solar salt operation and the third largest globally. It is also the most significant salt and SOP development in this country in 30 years. Strategically located on an established solar salt region, Māori offers a difficult-to-replicate asset base with port advantages, access and approvals, as well as land tenure. We're targeting production of 5.3 million tonnes per annum, of high quality industrial salt. With its scale, coastal location and integrated port, Māori is exceptionally well positioned to meet rising demand across Asia. Now I'll take you through a quick update of our progress this quarter. In safety, we've continued to strengthen key fatality prevention controls, verified through over 250 critical control verifications. We also recorded over 500 field leadership interactions this quarter, and our total recordable injury frequency rate also reflects our ongoing safe operations, with a 12-month rolling average now at 2.3. Construction continues to run on schedule and within budget, with the overall completion now at 70%. I'll share more details on that later. This quarter marked our successful transition to full-scale operations and performance tracking to plans. We're now pumping seawater from both the primary and the secondary inward intake stations, achieving 77% surface inundation and moving over 146 gigalitres of seawater to the end of June. Importantly, we remain firmly on track for our first salt on ship in the December quarter of 2026. On the corporate front, we continue to strengthen our leadership team. Mari Cameron was appointed as General Manager for Operations based in Karratha, and Elizabeth Shaw has also been appointed as joint company secretary. During the quarter, we held an implementation committee meeting with the Wirrawandi Aboriginal Corporation. We extended our university scholarships with the Paul Brock Kimberley University Centre and continued our partnerships with Karratha Senior High School through the Positive Behaviour Support Programme. I'll now hand over to Steve to provide an update on our financials.

Yeah, thanks, David. financially, BCA remains in a strong position. We drew $115.4 million in the quarter from our syndicated debt facility, taking total cash drawn under that to $236.1 million. The next drawdown will involve all members of the syndicate. And now that we've commenced full-scale operations, which provides a clear pathway to revenue, we've implemented our treasury management strategy. We've now hedged around about half of the US dollars that we will receive from the sale of salt in 2027 and 2028 at rates between 64.2 cents and 65.7 cents, which is well below our targeted rate of 69 cents. I'd also like to share a little on our drawdown process with you. Our funding is for a 45 day period. and prior to each drawdown, we are required to undertake a project cost reconciliation and provide this together with an opinion from our lenders independent technical expert. Now, this opinion validates to lenders that BCI remains fully funded to be able to complete the construction of the project, as well as having sufficient working capital requirements to operate beyond that. Today, we've received approvals under this process to issue five drawdown notices. Now this test gives us confidence as we continue delivering on our project that BCI remains fully funded. It is also pleasing to see that our share price finished the quarter at $0.34. Now this is up 39% from $0.245 that we closed at March. And the catalyst for this rewriting was largely the approval to move into full operations. Now, we've since seen our market capitalisation move to a billion dollars, but that is still below the $1.1 billion we've invested to date. On the 1st of July, we also received $34.1 million from Polaris Minerals, a subsidiary of Mineral Resources, following the completion of the Iron Valley sale as was announced in June last year. David will now share more detail on the operations and construction progress at Marty.