Elevra Lithium Limited

Hello, and thank you for standing by. My name is Lacey, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Vra Lithium Limited Fiscal Year 26 Full Year Results Conference Calls. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star 1 again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO. Please go ahead.

Welcome, everyone. I'm Lucas Dow, Managing Director and CEO at Vra Lithium, and I'm pleased to present the Vra Lithium Financial Year 2026 full-year results. I'm joined today by Christian Cortez, Chief Financial Officer, Sylvain Collard, Chief Operating Officer and President of Canada, and Andrew Barber, Chief Development and Investor Relations Officer. Our agenda for today's call is described on slide two. Specifically, we will cover our operational and financial results, provide an update on our strategy and achievements during the year, provide a market update and conclude with our financial year 2027 guidance. I'd also like to mention that unless otherwise stated, all reference to dollar amounts today are in US dollars. We'll begin by providing an overview of the full year results for FY26, which can be found on slide 3. Our commercial performance and financial position improved with $2 million of revenue generated, which was an increase of 39% compared to FY25. We ended June with $255 million in cash, which provided us with the funds required to confidently commence execution of the NAL brownfield expansion, whilst maintaining the flexibility to advance other growth initiatives. We subsequently received a further $65 million Canadian in proceeds from the convertible bonds issued to Canada Growth Fund which were received in August. Operationally, we continue to enhance our safety programs and saw significant improvement with our total reported wind refrequency rate falling by 67%. Production of scodumene concentrate declined modestly with approximately 198,000 tonnes produced but there was a clear improvement in operating performance through the second half of the year when recoveries increased to 71% in the June quarter. FY26 represented a significant step forward for Elevra as we completed the merger between Sayona Mining and Piedmont Lithium. We also completed two scoping studies and determined the optimal path forward for the NAL groundfield expansion and secured the funding to move the project into execution. Now moving to slide 5 to provide more detail on our operational performance. The first area that I want to cover is safety. Whilst we'll still have work to do, the step change in safety performance led by Sylvain Collard and his team was a highlight in FY26. As I mentioned earlier, our total recordable injury frequency rate fell by 67% in continuation of the improvement seen in FY25. We also saw improvement across each of the reportable personal injury categories, with reductions in medical aid, modified duty and lost time injuries. Turning to NIL's operating performance as documented on slide 6. Fi26 production was approximately 198,000 tonnes of sodiumene concentrate, 3% below the prior year but within our initial guidance range. Temporary mining conditions in the first half of the year impacted all feed characteristics including higher iron content and lower lithium grades. However, our operating team implemented a number of initiatives to mitigate those impacts by increasing mining activity to allow for greater flexibility and ore blending, while maintaining a consistently high level of mill utilisation. And the result was a clear improvement through the second half. Recovery increased to 71% in quarter four, the highest level achieved during FY26, while mill utilisation remained high at 92%. So whilst FY26 included some temporary mining constraints, The trajectory through the second half was encouraging and provides further confidence in the foundation we have built at NAL for continued improvement and growth. Moving to slide 7. The other major operational development during FY26 was the improvement in aquifer performance. Average realised pricing increased by 57% from $694 per tonne in FY25 to $1,092 per tonne in FY26. That increase reflects both the stronger lithium market and the changes we have made to our legacy off-take agreements. The restructuring of those agreements has increased our leverage to lithium prices, allowing improvements in the market to flow more directly through to realised pricing. Following the completion of deliveries under our legacy off-take contract in the June quarter, we expect FY27 realised pricing to be more closely aligned with reported market prices. Importantly, realised pricing has now moved above NAL's unit operating cost on a tons sold basis and we have entered a future supply agreement with a floor price above FY26 unit operating costs. We see that as an important inflection point from both a margin and cash flow perspective that will only further improve as we deliver cost savings associated with the NAL expansion. That takes us to the next major part of the 11 story which is outlined on slide 8. Many of our accomplishments in FY26, operationally, commercially and strategically, set the foundation for the NAL groundfield expansion. The starting point was the increase in NAL's resource and reserve base announced in August 2025. Those increases confirmed the scale and longevity of NAL and created the optionality to explore increasing future production capacity. We evaluated different pathways for the expansion including a single stage and multi-stage approach. We ultimately determined that a multi-stage approach is the preferred pathway and the reason is straightforward. It allows us to increase production faster and reduce execution risk. The economics are also very compelling. The initial focus during the expansion will be de-bottlenecking the mill to allow NAL to operate at the upper end of the existing permitted milling rate of 4,500 tonnes per day. ultimately will expand the milling capacity to 6,500 tonnes per day, which will bring average annual spodumene concentrate production capacity from about 194,000 to approximately 338,000 tonnes of concentrate, while reducing the life of mine average C1 cost to $628 per tonne. So this is not just a volume growth project. It is designed to increase scale reduce unit costs and improve NAL's resilience across lithium price cycles. After completing a capital-raised focus on funding the expansion, I'm pleased to note that we broke ground on the expansion at the end of June and we will continue to provide updates on progress as we deliver against our near-term growth projects. Following the breakdown in trade negotiations between Canada and the US late last week and the subsequent introduction of retaliatory tariffs, we are reviewing what implications, if any, this will have an NAL sourcing strategy for the expansion. Given that the Brownfield expansion is based upon proven and existing technology and processes, our initial indications are that alternate sourcing solutions will be available should the introduction of tariffs create cost escalation for US-based sourcing. In addition, the Canadian government has announced a number of measures totaling $7.5 billion Canadian to address tariff-impacted industries and projects. I'll now hand over to Krishna to take you through our financial performance.

Thank you, Lucas, and good morning to all. There are a few items to highlight before I take you through the financial performance. The operational and financial results reported for FY26 include 10 months of legacy Piedmont and 12 months of Sayona following the completion of the merger at the end of August 2025. a lever elected to change its reporting currency from Australian dollars to US dollars during the first half of FY26. As such, prior corresponding period amounts have been restated to US dollars for comparative purposes. The amounts shown in the presentation have been rounded to the nearest million. Moving to slide 10 to expand on the year's operational and financial overview. As mentioned by Lucas, NAO produced approximately 188,000 dry metric tons in FY26, a 3% decrease compared to the prior year. The challenges experienced during the December quarter also carried a moderate impact in operating costs for the year. Sales of spodumene concentrate totaled approximately 181,000 dry metric tons, a 13% decrease compared to FY25, due to the timing of shipments and transition of port operations. As a result, we ended the year with approximately 41,000 dry metric tons of inventory, which were largely shipped to customers in July. Revenue of $202 million increased by 39%, despite the reduction in shipments driven by a 57% increase in average realized pricing to $1,092 FOB per ton sold. Unit operating cost per ton sold of $853 FOB per dry metric ton increased modestly by 2%. The increase in operating costs reflect elevated mining activity as we increase stripping activity to maintain access to ore and optimize our mill feed. At group level, delivered a $14 million underlying EBITDA profit compared to a prior period loss of $43 million. The significant improvement incorporates improved realized pricing, stable operating costs, and the benefit of synergies generated following the merger. The group used in operating activities of $44 million during the period which included 3 million of cash inflows generated by NL, largely offset by cash outflows of 25 million associated with combined merger transaction costs of a lever and legacy Piedmont. Cash balance at the end of the period increased to $255 million from $47 million at 30 June, 2025. mainly due to the receipt of proceeds from the strategic finance packages completed in May, 2026, partially offset by net cash outflows from operations and capital expenditure. An incremental 46 million of cash proceeds from the issuance of the first tranche of convertible notes to Cairo Growth Fund were received in August after the close of the 2026 financial year.