Nickel Industries Limited

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the Nickel Industries Limited September quarter activities webcast. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. You'll need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad if you wish to ask a question. I'd now like to hand the conference over to Justin Werner, Managing Director. Please go ahead.

Thank you and could I please ask you to advance to the next slide. Welcome, everyone, to the Nickel Industries September quarterly activities results presentation. Kicking off with safety and sustainability, the company-wide 12-month lost-time injury frequency rate at the end of September was 0.12. There was one LTI during the quarter. That was against 4.6 million man-hours worked. And the company-wide TRIFR, or the portable injury frequency rate, as of the end of September, was 1.24. Very pleased to announce once again we were shortlisted for a green proper rating for the third consecutive year. Again, we were one of only two companies last year to receive a green proper rating. Having now received three consecutive ratings, and that assumes that we do receive a full green proper this year, we've already been shortlisted, that then makes us eligible for a gold rating, and we're targeting to be the first nickel mining company in Indonesia to achieve a gold rating. We also received an updated S&P Global ESG score of 37 in 2024. That's up from seven in 2021 and is significantly higher than the average score for metal and mining companies worldwide, which is 29. So our efforts and the work that is being done is being recognised by independent third parties in their audits and reviews. We also received formal endorsement to develop a 197 hectare biodiversity area. This is an area that we've been working on for a long period of time. It's involved a lot of work in terms of determining what flora and fauna species exist, mapping them, measuring them, monitoring them and this now creates an area where it can be used for protection education and further monitoring. So again, we're very pleased in the award and the hard work that's gone into identifying and now being able to manage this biodiversity area which is in close proximity to our mine. We also received the Nusantara CSR Awards, an award for our program which is aiming to improve the health and nutrition of local communities. And we're honoured with the Best Climate Reporting and Transparency Award at the 2024 GRID Awards, which are held on the 28th of October 2024. So a number of milestones across our ESG activities, and we continue to be the leader in Indonesia in terms of ESG. Could we move to the next slide, please? Nickel metal production of 30,663 tonnes on a 100% basis, slightly lower than the June quarter. That was due to predominantly eight days of scheduled maintenance at our RNIR KEF operations. And slightly lower output from our angel operations at IWIP as we continue to draw down on lower-grade oil as IWIP looks to increase its oil quota. OK, yes, EBITDA of $60 million US. It's 43% higher than the June quarter. EBITDA per tonne was US$1,919. which was 48% above June, which was 1,296. However, there were FX gains in that number across the quarter, and removing that FX gain actually brought the margin back to 1,144, so a slight reduction against the June quarter. That reduction in EBITDA per tonne has been mainly driven by increased oil costs, And this is where the Angiomine acts as a very strong hedge against that. So we're very pleased to report record oil sales from the mine of almost 3 million tonnes, and that delivered mine EBITDA of US$37.3 million, which was 51% higher than the June quarter. And we're also pleased to report our maiden dividend distribution back from the Angiomine. Given the impact that we're already seeing from oil shortages within Indonesia and the hedge that provides against these oil shortages and premium prices currently being placed. I'm very pleased to announce during the quarter the conditional acquisition of the world-class Sampala nickel project. It's in close proximity to INIP. It already has a very large JORC-compliant resource, which we believe will expand significantly, and I'll touch on a bit more detail in further slides on the Sandpala project. We moved to a 51% interest in the Siddawasi project, along with announcing the maiden JORC resource there of around half a million tonnes of contained nickel metal. It's a predominantly limonite resource, but it's a high-quality limonite resource very similar to the RAMU resource in the neighbouring island of Papua New Guinea, and it would make an excellent feed for HVAL, probably most likely any number of the HVAL IWIP. We also successfully syndicated out US$250 million loan facility, which is arranged by DBS and BNI. and also pleased to announce the arrival and installation of the first autoclave at our ENC HPAL project. So that marks a significant milestone as good progress continues to be made in the delivery of the ENC HPAL project. If we just move to the next slide, please. You can see the quarterly RKEF production here, as I mentioned, down slightly from the June quarter due to the scheduled maintenance on RNI. and lower than expected production from ANI. HNC continues to perform well and there was 2,125 tonnes of nickel as nickel in mixed hydroxide precipitate that was delivered from HNC as part of NIC's 10% interest in that HPL project. If we could just go to the next slide please. We are seeing continued recovery in NPI pricing. You can see here on a quarterly basis the average price received. So we are up from the low of $11,688 in the March quarter to $12,400 in the September quarter and we are continuing to see price increases across this quarter. But hopefully, again, bodes well for a strong second half to the year, probably similar to what we saw in 2023, where we certainly reported a much stronger second half to the year than we did in the first half. If we could just move to the next slide, please. E&C progressing very well. The first photo that you can see there, that is all of the earthwork, which is complete. You can already see the concrete foundations and footings are already in place. A lot of the key critical items that will sit atop all of those footings have already been either fabricated or procured and are now being progressively shipped to site for erection. I was pleased to be on site just last week to welcome the arrival of our first of three autoclubs. You can see it in the bottom right-hand side there. And that's a tremendous achievement. As I said, the auto club is really the heart of the HPAL operations. And the first one is now in place. And as I said, we look forward to continued arrival and installation of key parts of the ENC, not just the HPAL, but also the nickel cathode and nickel sulfate plant. So progress is being made. Progress is being made. We could just move to the next slide, please. The Hang Jaya mine, given that we've now moved into the dry season, you can see the significant improvement there in nickel ore mines, up from 3 million tonnes to 5.7 million tonnes, and also almost a million-tonne increase in nickel ore salts, to 2.97 tonnes. A million tons of nickel ore sold, so almost 3 million tons for the quarter, which is a new record in terms of ore sales. That helped to deliver the US 37.3 million US in EBITDA. And we're seeing continued strong performance from the mine across this quarter. And so we expect that to continue into Q4. A lot of work is being done on upgrading the haul road, including rebasing it, geotextiles. That is really where the focus of ensuring that when we come to the wet season around March to April of next year, that we look to significantly reduce the impact of any weather delays during the wet season. progress on that haul road upgrade is progressing very well. If we could just go to the next slide, please. The conditional acquisition of the Sampala project, we announced that we signed a conditional, also CSPAs, the three contiguous highly prospective advanced IUPs. The total area is 6,654 hectares. It already has a jaw-compliant resource of 2.3 million tonnes of contained nickel metal and 0.2 million tonnes of cobalt. This resource is within just 900 hectares with over 4,000 hectares of mapped prospective bladderite areas. So the potential for this to be somewhere near to 10 million tonnes of contained nickel metal is certainly realistic. And that would make it... amongst the top five known global nickel resources globally. It has excellent logistics. You can see from the map there how close it is to IMIP. And the project itself is actually already well advanced. We've submitted feasibility studies. We've submitted environmental studies. We already have RKAV, which is an activities license approved. Our target is to be able to shipping first ore from the Sampala project at the end of next year. And what this will do is it will allow our RKEF operations within IMRP to be fully self-suppression in terms of ore supply. And again, coming back to the premiums that are being paid and the ore shortages that are being experienced currently in Indonesia, this integrated mining and processing process operations being fully self-sufficient means that we'll have a natural hedge against any increases in ore prices or the risk of any ore shortages which may limit or impact production. It also has a very low acquisition price, $43 a tonne of contained nickel metal, significantly lower than the Indonesian average, past transactions, which has been over $140 US a tonne. And then if you look globally, numbers have been as high as $2,000 per tonne of contained nickel metal. So very favourable acquisition terms done in a staged way. So we have 18 months to prove up the resource before we're required to make payment. And in terms of CapEx, we've already estimated CapEx to bring this into operation of less than US$50 million. And when you look at the types of numbers that the Heng Jaya mine is producing, 30 to 40 million US EBITDA on a quarterly basis, it's a very fast payback off a very low capital base. In terms of the haul road, there is already, and if you look at the map there, the green is the new haul road that will need to be built. It's about 20 kilometres. And then the purple is an existing haul road of about 34 kilometres. So there's only really about 20 kilometres of new haul road that needs to be built. And again, to put this project into perspective, in comparison to our Hang Jaya mine, Hang Jaya has around 3.6 million tonnes of contained nickel metal, currently producing in excess of 10 million tonnes per annum. We have made an application to increase our RKAB to 22 million tonnes and we are hopeful of gaining that approval, if not at the end of this year, certainly early next year. So we expect to see another ramp up from our Hengjia mine. But given the financials and the performance you can see from Hengjia, we expect Sampala to be of a similar size and economics. So it's for us, a highly value accretive deal and provides all security. If we could just go to the next slide, please. On the corporate front, I mentioned we completed acquisition of a 51% interest in the Siddawasi project. We announced a maiden-jork resource of 52 million dry metric tons at 1.1% nickel, so around half a million tons that contain nickel metal. That's within an area of 1,614 hectares. There is an additional 1,374 hectares of prospective laterite area, which has yet to be tested. And we have an exploration target within that area of between 22 to 110 million wet metric tonnes. So there is the opportunity to potentially double that resource to somewhere around 1 million tonnes of contained nickel metal. These projects continue to put nickel mines in terms of resource ownership as one of the largest global nickel tonne owners globally and that has been the focus of us over the past two to three years to identify these projects that we can acquire on favourable commercial terms that will deliver significant contained nickel tonnes. and that can be brought into production as direct shipping operations off a very low capital base. So civil IC is progressing well. And just to refresh, we earned that 51% by only spending 5 million Australian dollars over a two-year period. We successfully syndicated a $250 million term loan facility, which was jointly provided by Bank Negara Indonesia, BNI, and this is our second loan with BNI, and we appreciate their support, and DBS Bank. It was successfully syndicated across a mix of banks from Asia, Europe, and the Middle East and India, so very strong broad-based support. And I think it's indicative of the company's growing reputation and established ESG credentials. And then finally, we're also happy to welcome Mr. Simon Miller as the ENC HPAL manager. Simon was most recently a director of Norfolk's raw materials division. So he has a very strong background and understanding of the global EV and battery supply chain as well as very strong relationships across this supply chain. And before being promoted to lead Norfolk's raw material division, he was also director of their cathode materials. So he will bring significant value to EMC, to the diverse product mix that it will produce, mix hydroxide precipitate, nickel cathode and nickel sulfate, and we welcome Simon to the Nickel Industries team. that into the presentation and with that I'll hand over to Q&A.

Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star then 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star 2 and if you are on a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before asking your question. Your first question today comes from Mitch Ryan at Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Morning, Justin and team. Thank you for taking my question. It's just quite a simple one. Obviously, you're a beneficiary of FX moves during the quarter, which is great. How do you think about that from a risk profile going forward? Would you look to put in place hedges and how are you considering FX moves going forward?

Thanks, Mitch. I'll hand over to Chris on this one.

Yeah, thanks for the question, Mitch. Look, the FX gains, we had losses last quarter. We've had gains this quarter, which are a mix across gains on the cash that we're holding in our Indonesian operations, net of the accounts receivable and accounts payable. As you're aware, we need to do all of our invoicing in Indonesian rupiah, and with the Indonesian rupiah strengthening against the dollar, we've had gains there. And it's also... the effect of gains in our receivables balance for VAT receivable from the government. That one's difficult to hedge but we are looking into the others and what's the most appropriate way to hedge these. Previously the numbers, the swings haven't been as large but whilst it's a gain this quarter that's lovely but we would rather seek to remove the volatility out of the earnings. So we are looking into it and we'll update the market in due course.

I really appreciate the call. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Mitch.

Thank you. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please register by pressing star then 1 on your phone. We are currently showing no further questions at this time, so I'll hand it back for closing remarks.

Thank you again, everyone, for attending. As mentioned, we're looking forward to delivering a strong second half, particularly continued strong performance from our Hangia mining operations. We will continue to work on the Sampala project and provide updates in terms of delivering first of all at the end of next year. EMC Construction progress continues to be very good. We look forward to providing continued updates as we look forward to commissioning and first product in the second half of next year. And with EMC coming on, that really provides a significant diversification. It puts us into... a place where we're seeing products that are experiencing significantly higher margins than what we're currently seeing in NPI. Although that said, we are seeing strengthening NPI pricing. And so as all shortages are dealt with, we believe that we will continue to see stronger NPI pricing, which should translate into stronger NPI margins across the region. across the industry as well. So thank you everyone again and I appreciate the time.

Thank you. That concludes our conference for today. You may now disconnect your lines.