IGO Limited

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the IGO March 2026 Quarterly Activities Report. All participants are in listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I will now hand the conference over to Mr. Ivan Bella, Managing Director and CEO. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Kayleigh. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Lots to cover today, and I want to get to your questions, so I'll try and keep my remarks as brief as possible. That said, I do want to provide some colour on the performance through the quarter. Let me start just quickly with a summary, and then we'll sort of dive in a bit more depth on each area. Firstly, on safety performance, so, look, you know, that's been a continual focus through my time with IGO, and I'm really pleased to see that continual improvement that you'll see reflected in our results. That is... The outcome from a lot of focus on it, strong leadership and I'm really proud of the way that the team's operating at Nova in particular, including our exploration team as well, the broader footprint, very strong focus on safe production and ultimately translating to great results. And that's clearly linked with Nova's operational performance as well. The two definitely go hand in hand and that's been exceptional this quarter. There's nothing else to say about it. It was just green lights everywhere we looked through the results. So again, I'm really proud of what the team's achieving and it's all the more impressive given we're at the final stages of that ore body where there's little room for error. They are managing a very complex period as we approach the end of mining later this year. There is no optionality. There's no room for error. The ore flow through. through the mill to our customers, it's all literally synchronised and they're doing a great job to keep that strong focus on safe operations and make sure there's a very proud finish to mining of this world-class ore body. Greenbushes is a tough quarter, we'll get into it, but equally You see the standout, even though we have some lag in the way our pricing works, still 75% EBITDA margin. It's just outstanding and shows the strength of this fantastic mine. There were a number of safety and operational challenges through the quarter, which we'll talk about, and the Greenbushes, the team there at Greenbushes, are working extremely hard on those. They have been, and we've talked about it quarter on quarter, and while this is obviously not A great quarter for the team. It shouldn't take away from the hard work and the good progress they are making driving both strategic improvement but also underlying productivity improvements. And then lastly, just a quick comment on our financials. You know, very positive and we're starting to see both the benefits of that positive shift in the lithium market flow through. That's only going to get stronger next quarter as those prices start to roll through. and also very strong production performance and cost discipline at NOVA. Overall, excellently done margin at Greenbushes, as I said, 75%, and then for IGO, standalone, underloan, free cash flow of $36 million, taking our cash balance to $327 million. Let me jump into safety and talk a bit more depth about that. As you know, Safety performance is fundamentally linked to operational performance and we see this at NOVA as we've worked hard to implement the programs and changes and work with the team to improve our safety performance and the way that we manage safety. We've seen that very much connected with productivity and the operating performance across the site. We're now, as of today, 115 days without recordable injury. We've gone six months without a serious potential incident. Probably from the records I can see, this is an all-time record for the business. So it's no surprise that we're also seeing record levels of productivity in the mine. Fantastic performance. The team just finished a shut on the plant. No injuries, no incidents. You know, just really, really strong, in control and well managed in their activities. Safety at Greenbushes was concerning. It deteriorated from the prior quarter and there were a number of serious incidents that the team are working through. While we don't ordinarily report on Greenbush's safety performance, I think it's important context in the broader operation and the challenge that Rob and the team are managing through there. And, you know, I'm so pleased we've got someone of Rob's calibre there, you know, managing the business through this shift and this change. He's got deep pedigree in operations and in safety and he's, as you'd expect, putting enormous focus on safety. I'll come more to that in due course. But he's got a structured plan he's working through around addressing these issues on safety and I'm confident just as Rob As we've seen that focus and improvement at NOVA, I think we'll be talking about that steady improvement with the work he's doing at Greenbushes in due course. Let me move on. I thought I'd start with NOVA as we get into the operations. It's a very good news story there. The mine is performing exceptionally well and I've said a few times it would be great to have another 10 years of war in front of us. It's probably the most frustrating part of part of the situation. They're really hitting their stride demonstrating fantastic levels of productivity, spatial compliance, the recoveries in the mill, everything is in hand and being well managed. As I said, it's at a time when there are limited options. We don't have the ability to blend and to do anything different if something changes. So the performance and that discipline and that execution against plant is absolutely critical. The plant reliability has been really solid. Recovery is strong. Nickel production increased 11% through the quarter and copper was increased up 7%. Naturally, this is on some lifting prices for nickel and we continue to see various bits of news that encourage that, and that's obviously favourable. And I guess the copper price, while it's been a bit volatile, still is giving us some positive by-product credits there. I also wanted to call out Barminco, who's our mining partner at NOVA, and just recognise the huge contribution they've had around improving safety and production performance through the year. You can imagine if you get to the end of life and they're planning... their role and what comes next in a place like WA where there's really hot demand for talent. Retention and maintaining stability in the workforce is tough and they've done a really great job at managing that and dealing with any change we have had to make sure we've got strong, stable leadership, we've got real focus on safety and production and we're getting the performance and productivity and As I say, when you translate that through, it's actually a lift in productivity, a lift in performance across the board and just fantastic safety results. In fact, for them, it's a real standout and I did want to just call out and thank their leadership for the close partnership and support as we bring NOVA to the end of its mining life. Overall, these results are a real highlight and the high levels of operational and technical capability that we see from our team and our mining partner, Barminkoa, translating for this performance. Very disciplined in the line management team. Very proud of what they've achieved through this quarter and it sets them up well to finish off later this year with the operations. On to green bushes. Let me talk a bit just to the results first and then we'll get into guidance and more of what's going on on the ground. First of all, production was pretty much flat at 351,000 tonnes, and that result is disappointing. You know, the team, they feel that. They had a plan above that. They didn't hit it. They've had various challenges and issues. But I don't want that to take away from the work that they're doing or reflect any broader concern. This is part of a large-scale change. Rob and the team dealing with a lot of systemic issues challenges through the business that he's working through to set us up for a really high-performance mining operation as we look forward into the future. What we did see was underperformance predominantly out of our two last months, CGV1 and 2. Equally, the tailings for treatment was also down from its usual performance and collectively these factors delivered that outcome Lower feed grades is a key contributor and while the team were expecting to be moving into a higher grade feed zone earlier, there has been some delay and that certainly flowed through to their production. That naturally affects recoveries but we've also seen further challenges around recoveries in the plants and that's linked with some increased downtime from maintenance shutdowns and some delays around that through the quarter. Talking about CGP3, while the production did move right from a schedule point of view, the ramp up is actually, well again, commissioning is progressing well and again, I want to give credit to the team. It's a big plant, a lot of complexity and when you mix that in amongst some of the other challenges that they've had, they've done well to maintain a disciplined commissioning and to really hit their milestones and performance both in recoveries and throughput. We had, you know, a bit of a pushback in January in terms of really getting the mesium, strong February, which we talked about at our half-year results, and then a mixed performance through March. But by the end of the quarter, we're pretty well where we expected to be and, you know, very confident with the way our plant's ramping up and its ability to leg into this lifting market for lithium spodumene as well. The unit cash costs have increased, no surprise. There's a part of that that's related to CTP3. Those operating costs are now rolled from February, rolled in once commercial production was declared. But naturally, the bulk of the cost, the unit cost change is a function of the lower overall production. I mentioned the safety incidents that we've seen through this quarter. And as you'd expect, Rob has and will always take decisive action. He's conducted two site-wide major safety stops where all production on the site has stopped and given the team a chance to stop, reflect, reset and refocus on our most important priority of safety. And while there is an impact to production, and that is clear, our priority around safety is unquestioned. The entire board and Rob and his whole leadership team don't blink, they will always lean into that and focus on that first and I think that strong commitment that Rob carries around safety is exactly what we want to see and I know that he will deliver a turnaround and we'll see that steady improvement with the programs that he's putting in place. Despite all of these challenges to safety, the various issues, we still saw a business I know my mining operation is delivering 75% EBITDA margin, and that's with a trailing price. I mean, it's just an extraordinary asset in that sense. And so plenty of upside in front of us. Tough quarter and tough to deliver that news, and I'm the one who's facing into it, of course, and had a lot of conversation with Rob about it. Naturally, he doesn't want to be in the space where we're not hitting expectations. They're working really hard, and I wanted to get into that further later. But first of all, let me talk about the guidance revision. We, as you know, in the last quarter, gave you directional guidance that was trending marginally below the bottom end of our guidance in that December quarterly update. And that has included assumptions around the ramp-up to CGP3. As I guess where we're standing today, CGP3 is performing. Commissioning is going to plan. We're not seeing major issues with the asset. There's nothing there that's, you know, a point issue that we're worried about, but, you know, some of that production slid right. At that point, when we were talking about it, I guess we still saw another half of the year of normal production in front of us, and we certainly had a view that the team would still be able to get there to the bottom end of guidance. At this stage now, with this quarter, we need to make that revision, and hence you see that update. in the materials that we've released this morning. There's a large-scale pushback, which I think I've talked about in a couple of quarterlies on the Western Wall, and that's well progressed now. That will allow the team to get back into that high-grade core of the ore body from this quarter on. Now, it's a bit later than expected, so there's a factor there, and I talked about the feed grade that they've had through the last couple of quarters. The... Once we access that, I mean, that lasts for some time as well. So this is not just a quarter-to-quarter thing. We'll see that translate throughout our business in FY27, and we'll come to that next quarter. I guess the broader challenge is that we don't see any real opportunity or likelihood of being able to recover a lot of additional tonnes in Q4, and hence why we wanted to make the guidance update and reflect where we think we'll land. Cost guidance is really a flow-through from that volume outlook and, you know, some fuel, but that's pretty well contained at this stage at least, and, you know, who knows where that ends up. It's also worth noting that we have reduced our CAPEX guidance quite materially, and that reflects two things. One is that continued discipline that Rob's applying with the team around CAPEX projects, where they're spending and how they're spending, and also the timing and scheduling of some projects. So, ultimately, that's quite a bit to flow through. Just digging into green bushes and giving a little bit more colour on what we've seen, As you know, I'm somewhat constrained by our arrangements, but I want to be as open and transparent as I can with the kind of challenges that the team are facing down there and how they're dealing with them. I'm absolutely convinced that they have the right focus and pathway forward. The changes that are taking place as part of the strategic options review and the broader productivity uplift are fundamental and systemic. Those results will not be immediate, and I've said that before. They also won't be linear. and while the production hasn't been planned this year, there is a lot of very good progress on the site delivering and offsetting some of these challenges and laying great foundations that will help this business to really hit its full potential. As the team makes more progress, we will see that positive impact start to flow through and the leverage it will give them in a broader productivity uplift. We're very committed to the process of improvements that Rob is leading with his team. I think they've got a good plan. They're making progress. They've had some setbacks and some challenges they're working through. But, you know, that's a quarter-to-quarter issue. It's not something that we believe is systemic or lasting. And I guess we'll get through some of the examples in a minute. Some of the positives that I think is worth really recognising is First is that very strong alignment and relationship between the JV partners and Taliesin and the strategic direction. It's complete alignment, obviously on safety and the conviction there, but also in the productivity and the focus to lift Greenbushes to really be the best it can be. Secondly is around the growth of Greenbushes, and there is a great plan out there. The approvals and the strategy around those approvals has been improved quite a lot in the last nine to 12 months. That continues to progress. There's a clear pathway on the key issues that we've identified and great engagement with the stakeholders that are a party to those approvals and that growth. So overall, tremendous progress and alignment in the background. It's not something that shows up in the production quarterly, but it's fundamental to the future of the business. So really pleased with that. Cash preservation or cash management and capital discipline is another key area that I'm really pleased the team are much more focused on their cost management. I think I've talked to this in prior quarterlies. They continue to drive that discipline and that cultural change right across the organisation and as I said, that focus on capital and the discipline around it plays into that. The fourth key point or positive I want to call out was CGP3. I've mentioned it already but in a recovery and product quality going well, the challenge of ramping up a plant of that size should not be underestimated, particularly the complexity in the scale of this broader business. It's a very significant operation, three major plants, the two other plants running in the background. in quite a congested footprint and managing all of that effectively, the commissioning, along with obviously where they've had some issues in GDP 1 and 2, they're doing a really great job bringing that online. The next positive I wanted to call out was truck productivity. This has been a work in progress for some time. Rob took early focus and interest in this when he started. And he's making great progress. I guess to give you an anecdote, haul trucks have reduced from 38 down to 23. And, you know, he's moving the tons. Yes, okay, our strip ratio will come down with some of the changes in the mine plan and the steeping of the walls, but ultimately they're getting more out of our assets and driving that performance on a continued basis. That's, you know, focusing on reducing cycle times, looking at congestion. the flow around the pit, better maintenance management and so on. There's obviously an added benefit around diesel consumption and that's particularly relevant at the moment. It does cushion some of the price impact from fuel. And look, they're far from done yet. There's still plenty more to do with the team as we think about overall mining productivity, but significant progress. Q1 mining costs on an annualised basis are around 10% below 2025 mining costs on an equivalent basis. So it's great to see that step-by-step improvement. Finally, the runtime and throughput improvements in CGP 1 and 2, that has offset some of the challenges of shutdowns, overruns on shuts and the impact of the lower grade this quarter. The March quarter feed grade was down about 16% on 2024 on a like-for-like basis. just to give you an idea, and yet production performance was only about 5% off. So while you're not seeing all of the detail in the background that Rob's working through, he's really managing to offset some of the headwinds that he had in this period. As I said, as we unlock that high-grade core again, or the main core of the business, the mine, that shifts, but he's got to process what he's faced with at any point in time. He's also not got the benefit or not drawing off large pit stockpiles where the team might have had that in years gone in the past. On to some of the challenges, there's been a number of areas where progress has been a challenge and there's been some stalling or issues they've had to deal with. It's not to question the approach and the work that they're doing or the plans. I think there's strong focus and commitment in the right areas but you know, we've got to face into the near-term issues. Firstly, safety. I've talked to that. Secondly, it was maintenance. They had a number of issues through this quarter. Shutdown planning execution, asset integrity, reliability and post-shutdown commission or recommissioning of the assets. So that's all work in progress. Grades, which we don't control the ore body and how it presents, but There is obviously work to do around mine planning, production drilling and reconciliation, blending strategies, geotechnical understanding, all areas in focus and all areas which will give us an uplift, both in improved planning and the management of the ore body, but also better execution. And the last one I guess I think is worth talking to is recoveries. On a great agnostic basis, they are below expectations and we've seen some variability. Rob and the team have got some external help in this space. Excellent, really, really top-class people in helping them. There is some work around a broader mine-to-mill optimisation that's underway as part of the SOR. And all of that will help them understand some of the issues in the variability and make sure they can implement sustainable solutions. What we've seen with CGP 1 and 2 is When they hit their stride, they can deliver very, very strong recoveries and what we need to do is get to a place where we can sustain that and, you know, there's no reason to think that we can't consistently sit above the standard grade recovery curves and the testing for each of these plants. But the variability is the key challenge here. It is naturally linked with plant stability as well and I think I've talked about that in the past. If you're having... periods of instability with throughput, plants up and down, issues with recommissioning, all of those things do flow through to recoveries as well. The last point I wanted to note around recoveries is also product strategy review that he's going through and looking closely at what makes the most sense for the business, that work has progressed well and that will also contribute to the way that he's operating the plants and the performance that he's delivering. So, look, some short-term impacts there. Clearly, you know, disappointing. We're fronting up to that. It's not where we want it to be. I know that Rob's working on the right things, and that will translate. But, you know, it's been a tough quarter for them on the back of, you know, two quarters which also weren't running above plan. Compounding all of this, and I mentioned the two site-wide safety stops, that's take the whole production across the entire operation down. And we're all very supportive of that action. We have to make sure that safety is number one and do whatever we need to do to make sure that we're in control there. But that has a flow-through impact, and of course, it's more than just a few hours of of lost production or the data's impacted given that you have to recommission or you have to restart plants and so on. There's also been some dust suppression measures focused or required through the quarter. It's a drier time of year and the winds were unfavourable through parts of this and so when the team are blasting higher up in the pit, as they've had to do for part of this quarter, they need to manage dust carefully and be very cognisant of our community around the mine. and that means by schedules have to move, movements are impacted, mine plans have to be adjusted, etc. They're near-term impacts, but they do flow through in our production results. Looking ahead, look, I'm seeing the progress they're making under the covers. I'm confident they've got the right work underway. I'm confident that we'll see the lift in productivity and ultimately we'll get this site to a place where it is hitting its full potential. A couple of words on lithium downstream, so Kornana, you know, a good production period relative. So, you know, it's the highest level of production in a quarter we've had in the three and a half to four years since it was started, and that's positive. We touched just over 50% of nameplate through that quarter. The conversion costs obviously improved with that higher production. though total production costs still remain well above realized prices. The team are working through a big shutdown at the moment and so that will impact volumes through the June quarter and I'll give you more next quarter. I'll call you an update on that. Our financial results, look I won't spend long because I want to get into the questions and I'm conscious you'll have lots. The group results were great with increased contributions from Nova and Greenbushes as I highlighted in my summary. Sales revenues increased 45% on the higher volumes and prices at Nova. EBITDA has benefited from Nova's performance, TLEA contribution due to Greenbushes and obviously the gain on the Forestania transaction. Our underlying EBITDA was $119 million and underlying free cash flow was $36 million. We ended the quarter with net cash of $327 million. So, you know, strong balance sheet, strong set of numbers there and, you know, obviously all ahead of us as Greenbushes both sees that price realisation flow through given we have a lag in our pricing but also in terms of their production. With that, I might stop there and dive into some questions.

Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your first question comes from Rahul Anand with Morgan Stanley.