Lifezone Metals Limited

Welcome to the Lifeline Metals webcast to discuss the H1-2026 interim financial results and to provide an operational update. We'll finish today's event with a question and answer session. You can submit a question using the Q&A box at the top of the page. Please feel free to contact us directly for any questions not addressed in this webcast. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that today's event will contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that can cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Details of the forward-looking statements are contained in our July 29th news release on our website at www.lifesonmetals.com. Please see additional disclaimers which I'd encourage you to read in your own time. Joining me today is Life Zone Metals Chief Executive Officer Chris Showalter and Chief Financial Officer Ingo Hofmaier. Without any further to do, I would like to turn things over to Ingo for the presentation. Thank you.

Thank you, Catherine, and thank you everyone for joining us to our H1 interview today. Results news release. As in the last webcast, we would like to speak a little bit about the nickel market. The nickel market has undergone a noticeable fundamental reversal since late 2025. This fundamental shift is still intact with the new base case. The main reasons for the shift are, number one, primary cost drivers. Firstly, higher royalty rates, and secondly, in April this year, Indonesia adjusted the nickel ore benchmark price formula by including common byproducts. And secondly, the supply factors, and this is Indonesia restricting their RKAPs and flicking the ore supply output from a significant growth to like a year-on-year decline. On the price chart on the right, you also see that there was some uncertainty in the last couple of weeks about how big this reduction actually is, but it becomes increasingly clear that there is in fact a reduction in these org voters. All of this means that the market is shifting towards a potential 2026 deficit, so that's the new base case. Further near-term uncertainty is added by the war in the Middle East. Well, negotiations seem to progress constructively, at least at times. There's also risk of prolonged production traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, and even geographical expansion of hostilities combined with a total Chinese sulfuric acid ban, which is likely to last until the end of 2026, which is a risk to any nickel leaching operations in the Asia-Pac region. In the long run, China's sentiment in Indonesia has turned negative. which is likely a sign of peak China's investment in Indonesia being a thing of the past. Still we expect and we can see that consumers remain concerned about the increasing concentration of supply in Indonesia. Given that we still see more supply in Indonesia as non-Indonesian investments, that could mean an amnesia from, I believe, 65% number goes up to 75% of world supply by the end of 2030. And that, at the back door, was still very sound demand growth in the middle space from EV batteries as well as stainless steel. With this, I would like to hand over to Chris to give us one update on the strategic funding and framework agreement discussions.

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for attending. So importantly, I'll kick off here kind of updating our strategic initiatives and milestones. And I think if we kind of highlight where we've been focused, obviously, with the acquisition of BHP's stake last year, we have been engaged in a process. Really, we started by securing the bridge facility with Taurus. That was very important. So that $60 million we secured allowed us to commence with all the important pre-FID activities. We'll give an operational update on where that money is being deployed right now. But really important for us to keep momentum and show that the project is moving, marching forward. Now, importantly, regarding standard charter process, we have disclosed previously that we have had a very competitive process. We have had multiple binding offers that we have been evaluating and what I'd like to do importantly on this call today is really get some clarity as to where we are. So right now, as management, we have presented a recommendation to our board of directors and the company has selected a preferred partner and these discussions are in the final phase. Now, this investment will involve a strategic equity investment into the project, and that's going to be in parallel to the project finance process that's being run by SockJet. Now, this new equity investment is going to be a combination of both public and private, and we are at a point now as a company where we are very excited, and we expect to make an announcement in the very near term. So, as I said, this has been a very competitive process. It has taken time. but this is all running in parallel with negotiations with the government of Tanzania. I think if we go back to some of the social media we have put out over the past month, you would have seen meetings with President of Tanzania, President Hassan. It's important to read through that meeting because those meetings, those high-level engagements with the President are more of a courtesy call to inform the president of what we've agreed in terms of this investment consortium, the investment structure, and how that ties into all our final negotiations with the government. So all of these multiple discussions, meetings are all very much linked. So that is the announcement we're going to be making in the very near term. So very, very close. It's been a long process, but I think when the market sees the caliber of and the credentials of the investment group that we are going to be bringing in. I think everyone's going to be very impressed, so really looking forward to getting this news out there. Okay, next. Okay, so as I mentioned, the most important focus of the company right now outside of the strategic initiative of the funding is really deploying the capital from the tourist facility to maintain momentum and progress the project. Our Chief Operating Officer, Gerick Mouton, has been incredibly busy building out a really phenomenal owner's team. I think with his experience historically with Ivanhoe, he's been able to assemble a team of people that have tremendous experience in this part of the world. And so a lot of those new organizational readiness work streams and everything are fully underway. A big part of what we're doing right now is the expression of interest for all the work prep packages. That involves a lot of engagement with the mining commission, but approximately $850 million of work packages have been out for tender. And those are the core functions for the construction process that's going to be commencing. So really, you know, the bulk earthworks, ETCM, all those are in the market right now. A lot of the stuff on site, working very closely with Tenesco and the railway. The camp is being upgraded to accommodate all the construction personnel that are going to be on site. and then all the permitting activities and then all the geotechnical drilling as we prepare the box cuts. So a lot of activity on site and this is something we're going to want to get out a little bit more frequently so people can see the progress on site and we will be putting forward some investor visits so people can visit the site and we'll communicate that through our website. Okay, next. Okay, in terms of really our sustainability initiatives, I always emphasize the amount of time and effort we put in to engaging the local community. This is really paramount to how we conduct ourselves. The amount of time focused on the resettlement program, engaging with local community, and really demonstrating that we are, you know, that social contract with us and the local people is critically important. So a lot of this activity has been underway. The resettlement program, the important part to update there is we are pretty much 100% complete. for all the compensation payments. And we have brought in a new team led by Michelle Raptis, who has a lot of experience. We work with very few. So that work stream is underway. And then really this is an ongoing engagement with the community. But, you know, I can't emphasize how important this is. So a lot of time and effort has gone into this, and we'll continue to do so. Okay. Another highlight I want to emphasize, we announced earlier this year that we have engaged with the government of Burundi. This is something that was facilitated by the U.S. State Department, just given bilateral relationships between Burundi and the U.S. That's an important context because the bilateral relationships are really opening up Burundi to U.S. companies. You saw a signing ceremony with us and Cobalt Metals jointly engaging with commercial agreements with the Burundi government. The Musangaki deposit was discovered at the same time as Kabanga. So this is a very large laterite deposit in Burundi. And remember, we are right on the border of Burundi, essentially, with the Kabanga project. So we are looking at the opportunity to really scale up a long-term nickel region by linking Musangaki and Kabanga. We have... We've identified a number of synergies where the shared infrastructure between the two projects could unlock a larger project like Musangaki. And so right now we're working on technical studies. We're engaged with the government of Burundi and the mines minister there looking at work programs and studies that we're going to be commencing in the near term. So really a lot of Future Upside, Optionality, if we can demonstrate that we can link Mosangati and Tabanga through a synergistic proposal. This is just an additional blue sky for Lifestone to be able to unlock such a large nickel region. Okay, next. And then in parallel, we have our team working on the recycling project with Glencore. This, we've gotten through all the piloting, lock-cycle piloting and testing, and so where we are right now is going into the, you know, connecting towards FID. There is additional piloting work that's underway right now. There's also site identification, but this is, you know, I've emphasized this before, that this is a very, very exciting project for us. We have a very strong relationship with Glencore. We've worked with them to identify a site. We'll be announcing that in the near term. and this is something that really is going to be the core first demonstration of our hydrometallurgical technical capabilities. This does include our patented know-how in terms of the hydromet and this is something that is also very crucial to the U.S. government so we've been applying for DOE grants. to be able to beneficiate and refine Platinum Platinum Rodium domestically in the U.S. ticks a lot of boxes for the U.S. policy right now in the current administration. So this is something that is going to get a lot of support, you know, from the government. And it's something that we are progressing with Glancor. It fits very well in the Glancor strategy, specifically on recycling. And so this is, you know, again, a very exciting project that's commencing. Once we identify a site and finalize the next piloting, we're going to be progressing to FID with the goal of really building the first hydrant recycling facility for AutoCats in the United States. So a lot of progress on this front. Okay, I don't want to touch base on the stimulus group. A lot of what we focus on is the flagship project of Cabanga, but the stimulus group, and this is really the heart of the whole organization where a lot of projects are being studied. and I think we probably don't emphasize enough how much activity takes place at Simulus. I mean, there's about 30 different projects and contracts underway right now where when you look at the supply chain security initiatives of a lot of countries, there has to be a strong emphasis on the downstream. So a lot of the processing and refining is where a lot of these choke points exist. And so what we're doing with Simulus is really identifying and studying all sorts of alternative flow sheets, engineering to look at different ways we can provide solutions, not only to our projects, but to other projects. So again, there's a tremendous amount of work going on here right now. And the way we work with stimulus is, you know, we have the opportunity to really prioritize our projects. But the amount of projects we see produces a pipeline of additional projects that we can also look at. So we can decide to, you know, work with various clients if we have Thank you, Chris. In terms of our HedgeOne 2026 financial results, this year will be characterized by pre-FID activities around