Eramet Sa Unsp/Adr

everyone here in the room and for the ones who are listening to us elsewhere. It's a pleasure for me to be here today to present Eramet's annual results. It will be my last presentation of annual results as the CEO of this company. And while it has been a very difficult year in terms of macroeconomic environment, I think that we can see that these results show how much Eramet has changed over the past years and how much we are more capable of coping with the downturn of the cycle. So I want to begin acknowledging the challenges that have shaped this past year. We have faced a very difficult macroeconomic environment marked by a lot of volatility in the manganese markets, much lower nickel prices, and also permitting constraints in Indonesia. And these headwinds have put pressure on our financial performance, as they have for many of our competitors in this industry. Yet, despite these external challenges, Eramet has once again demonstrated its resilience. Thanks to the solid foundation that we have built over the past years, the portfolio repositioning, the financial discipline, the operational excellence, and our long-term strategic view, we have been able to navigate the downturn while continuing to deliver on our key priorities. Our intrinsic performance remained strong with higher productivity, optimized product mix, and improved efficiency, helping to offset part of the external pressure that we have faced. We have also made decisive progress on our strategic roadmap. And in lithium, we have regained the full ownership of our centenario deposit in Argentina. And it's a major step. And we have also successfully started our new plant. securing then our position as the first European company to produce battery-grade lithium carbonate at industrial scale. We have also, and it's also a major step, addressed the situation of SLN with its financial needs now fully covered by the French state, ensuring that SLN has no longer impact on our financials and our balance sheets. In this complex environment, we remained committed to our CSR roadmap and the CSR engagement. and also committed to developing the critical metals needed for the global economic development and for energy transition while maintaining the highest standards of operational and financial discipline. And this is what has helped us to weather difficult cycles and position ourselves for future opportunities. So now let's look at the details of our performance of last year. So in this challenging environment, characterized by low prices and high volatility, and thanks to our solid mining assets, we have delivered an adjusted EBITDA excluding SLN of 814 million euros, with a strong intrinsic performance of 135 million euros, mainly thanks to productivity gains, mix optimization, and this despite a very negative impact, again, of the external factors of 222 million, mainly due to low price primary in nickel, permitting issue in Ueda Bay, and difficult market condition in our manganese ore business. In such an environment in the past, we would probably have been obliged to stop all our development. But this year, and thanks to our transformation, this EBITDA has allowed us to generate a positive operating cash flow. And thanks to our high level of liquidity, we have managed to keep our critical growth capex namely finalize our lithium project in Argentina and consolidate our logistics in Gabon. And we have also, and it is absolutely key, seized the opportunity of this low point in the economic cycle to buy back the share of Tsingshan and regain the full ownership of our strategic lithium assets in Argentina at good price. The consequence of this acquisition is that our net debt has increased significantly to 1.4 billion at the end of last year, with an adjusted leverage reaching 1.8. This acquisition, which was again key in terms of strategy, does not change our target to maintain a rigorous capital allocation policy over the cycle, and we will focus in the coming months on deleveraging. And to reflect our commitment to our shareholders and our confidence in the future, we will propose a dividend of 1.5 euros per share in line with the one that we observed in 2023. Let's have a look at our lithium project. I already mentioned it. So in October, we have acquired the shareholding of Sinchan in Santonario. It has been a major strategic move done at the right time and at the right price. We paid 663 million euros for this 50%. It allows us to have now the full benefits of the development of the potential of this salar, which is one of the most promising in the world. You know that we have a long-term potential of at least 75,000 tons of lithium carbonate of production on this salar. And we will continue to develop the expansion step by step. We have also in December finalized our plant and started our lithium carbonate production. We are now focused on the ramp-up of the plant that should take around 12 months. And again, these major steps are coming in the context of demand of lithium, which continues to double every five years over the next 20 years. And last but not least, we continue on and launch and continue on our CSR journey. And we launch a new and very ambitious CSR roadmap called Act for Positive Mining. And we had very encouraging results for the first year. A few examples, when it comes to safety, and you know that safety remains our key priority for the group, we continue to be in the top three of the best mining companies in the world in terms of accident frequency. But these excellent results, unfortunately, this year have been overshadowed by the deaths of four subcontractors in remote areas in our exploration activities, which shows that in terms of safety, nothing can ever be taken as granted, and that we need to continue to focus day to day on this priority. I would like to mention also the establishment of a common social protection for all our employees in the world called Eramet Global Care. We are the first mining company in the world having done that. We have launched also our first industrial-scale bioreductant test to decarbonize our manganese alloys production. And we have been recognized for the quality of our commitment for biodiversity by renowned international associations such as Act for Nature International and Business for Nature. We are also continuing to roll out our IRMA certification in all our mining sites with the first audit report to be released at our ground code operation in 2025 in Senegal. These are the most advanced. But all our minds have already done their self-assessment. They are progressing on their corrective action plan, and most of them should be audited in 2026. It's a transformative journey. as it is the highest standard for responsible mining in the world. But we think that it's the way we should operate in this industry. So now I would like to hand over to Nicolas, who will present our financial and then operational performance.

Thank you, Christelle. Good morning, everyone. So, indeed, I will detail a bit more the numbers that Christelle has been mentioning in our introduction, first starting with our financial performance for 2024. So the key items, and here I think it's important to highlight what Christelle was mentioning in her introduction concerning SLM, the fact that it is now fully financed by the French state enables us to remove it from our financial numbers because we want to provide a a more economic view for our financial performance, as by the way it is done by the rating agencies which are following us, and it has been the case since the beginning of 2024. So with this precision, first I wanted to highlight the fact that we have indeed an adjusted EBITDA amounting to 814 million euros, Lower than previous year, lower than 23, knowing that it's primarily driven by external factors, and I will come back to that in a minute. Second topic is the fact that thanks to the stability and the robustness that Christelle was reminding at the beginning, we have been able, despite very challenging external factors, to deliver a positive net income at 144 million euros. I think it's really important to highlight that despite the very challenging context in which we are in, and it was the case also in 23, we are able to deliver a positive net income, which is also a strong signal of what the group has become in the last couple of years. In terms of net debt, clearly the evolution has been to the increase, and it was the outcome of the investment we have done to regain the full ownership of our asset in Argentina of lithium. That's why it was reaching, from an accounting standpoint, 1.3 billion euros. Being precise, and I will come to that later on as well, that it's including a portion of cash that SLN has. That's why it's also important to show that without this cash, our net debt would have been at 1.438, 3.5 billion euros, which means that in terms of adjusted leverage, We are at 1.8 times the adjusted EBITDA, which is an increase, but again, which is coming from the significant investment we have done for the future of the group. And last, the gearing has been at a still sound level at 61%. As I mentioned, clearly the external factors have played a big role into our financial performance in 2024 again, for the second year in a row. Altogether, the external factors are amounting to €222 million. It's different drivers leading to that. The first one is negative selling prices. As you can see in the comments, it's actually a mix between positive news, especially on the Morganese side. Even if there has been pretty challenging market conditions, I will come back to it later on during the year. But overall, if we compare to 23, the selling prices for manganese has been positive. But it has been more than offset, and as you can see, pretty significantly, by negative price evolution for nickel, especially the nickel price of the ore we are selling in Indonesia, and also on the mineral sands business to a lower extent. On top of this selling price event, we have a couple of other things negatively impacting us in 24. The first one, and again, we'll come back to it in more details later on, is the closure of the Chinese market for Morganese during the summer, leading overall to a loss of sales and related margin for 75 million euros. And for the same amount, this is the next topic, is the lower permitting we have obtained in Indonesia for our mining activity at Wedabe. So leading to this minus 75 million euros. So this is a reduction of volume we couldn't sell despite the fact that it was expected. The same, I will come back to it in more details later on. So all of that is leading to this minus 222. Fortunately, we have had some better evolution of input cost, but it's only very partially compensating the overall negative impact. Fortunately, what we have been able to deliver once again is a solid positive internal performance on the different topics. And Christelle was mentioning in our introduction a few ones, but I will detail a bit more. We have been able to generate significant positive mix variants at Fueda Bay. thanks to the fact that we were focusing on the high-grade saprolyte primarily with the constraints we had on the volume side. That's the first topic. Second topic is the fact that we have been able to operate in better grade areas for the mineral sense activity in Senegal, GCO. That's for 45 million euros. And this is really important to highlight between the last two positive items which are on this variance analysis, on this waterfall, you can see that we have generated more than 40 million euros of productivity and cost reduction. which is a start and that's clearly a focus we have been having in the second semester given this challenging context I was reminding to start with. And it's a start because we are really focusing on that and we'll come back to it also later in the presentation for 2025 given the maintained overall macroeconomic context. So I won't enter into the details of these numbers because I've mentioned the most important ones already. One important precision in terms of evolution of our net income is, as you can see, our financial results was significantly lower versus 2023. And it's a bit artificial because 2023, if you remind, was positively impacted by the restatement of the investment in Argentina linked to hyperinflation, leading to a positive 120 million euros, close to that, in 2023, which was a pure one-off, which didn't occur again in 2024 by definition. I think it's really important to have that in mind when we look at the evolution of our net income versus the previous year, because part of it is the lower EBITDA because of the external factors I was just describing, and the other piece is this one-off, which was positively impacting 2023. Moving to cash items now, and always very important to highlight also, and Christelle was saying it in her introduction, and I think it's really important to keep in mind that we, with the repositioning we have been delivering in the last years, have been able to keep investing for the future of the company despite the challenging environment we are facing currently. And this is focusing still on a few items, is to invest on the Morganese ore logistic chain. Here, to be very clear, when we say that we have had 87 million euros of Morganese ore investment considered to be gross capex, this relates to investing into rolling stocks for this activity. as well as further improving the port capacity at Libreville or at Oando, which is where we are delivering the ore in Gabon. So this is really what is the focus of this 87 million euros. We will keep investing on that in 2025 to a lower extent, but that's something which is important to highlight because we have now, and it's been the case for the last couple of years, We have now the capacity in production. The gross capex has been done until 2023. Now the last piece is to make sure that we have the right transportation and overall logistics chain capacity, and that's where we invest. And that's the second piece also you can see on this slide. which is the continuity of the regeneration program of the Trans-Gabonese in Gabon for 78 million euros. Last piece which is there is the MineralSense business on which we invest on our plans to be able to further generate growth in this business and as you have seen, it has generated solid performance and we'll see that in more details later on. So that's why we believe that it is important to further invest in this activity. Of course, This number of capex in 24 also includes the finalization of our first plant of lithium in Argentina. And the number you can see here has been partially financed till at the beginning of the year by our partner Tsing Shan before we actually repurchased the portion, their share in 2024. Last comment I wanted to make there, which is also important to show our focus to ensure a low, as much as possible, low level of debt and maintain focus on cash. is the fact that on what we call the sustainable or current capex, it's been significantly lower versus 2023. It's been lower by 60 million euros at Sample Rematter because the 2023 number was including ETIs that we have divested last year. So this is 60 million euros lower than the previous year, which shows that we are clearly focusing on maintaining as much as possible our operating cash flow, as Christelle was describing earlier, which was positive for 40 million euros in 2024. This is a very heavy slide, so don't worry, I won't comment all the numbers. It's just highlighting how our net debt was moving from the end of last year to the end of 23 to the end of 24. A key item just to describe, the first thing is the net debt at the end of 23 was including close to 300 million euros related to SLN debt to the French state, which has been converted into this subordinated bonds in 24, and which is now not anymore part of our consolidated net debt because it is considered to be equity. So that's the first piece. Second piece, when we look at the free cash flow which is reported, the 669 million euros, it is including the negative free cash flow of SLN. That's why it is important to look at what we call the adjusted free cash flow, which remains negative for 300 million euros, and I will come back to that. because we removed from there this negative cash flow consumption of SLN, and as you can see, which was again fully financed by the French state, for 257 million euros. The second piece we are also removing from there is the capital injection from Tingshan into our assets in Argentina, again at the beginning of the year, for 104 million euros. So, again, why is it negative by €308 million? It's because, at the same time, we are investing in gross capex, part of it in lithium, the other piece in manganese, and in mineral sense, as I was saying. So this is how we get from this minus €308 million to the plus 40, which was described earlier. Last piece I want to highlight here is the fact that at the end of the year, there has been an additional financing from the French state to SLN, which explains why SLN had a pretty significant level of cash for €138 million at the end of the year. And this is why it's important to look at the number without this cash, because we cannot remove the negative items on our financial performance while keeping the positive one related to cash. So the real number, if we remove the cash of SLN at the end of the year, is 1.4 billion euros net debt, which is described on this slide. I've mentioned most of it here, so I won't spend too much time. I was explaining again what happened with the financing of SLN by the French state, explaining why... Thanks to that, we are now considering that SLN doesn't have anymore any financial impact to the performance of the company, of the group. That's why we are now looking at all numbers without the SLN performance, and again, including the net debt. And I explained it earlier, the adjusted leverage we are disclosing at 1.8 times is based on the 1.4 billion euros, not on the 1.3. Important also to note that, and we have already mentioned it in July when we are disclosing our H-1 numbers, with all the activity we have had on the financing front and issuing a new bond in May again this year, we have been able to further extend our debt maturity, which was, if you remember, around 2%. two years ago. Now it is at 3.2%, which is a significant improvement. And you can see on the left-hand side the maturity of our debt overall year by year. And as you can see, it's pretty limited for the coming three years. So overall, an increase versus also the end of 2023. And that's the overall debt we have. When we look at the liquidity side, which is the right-hand side of the slide, we can see that we have a very solid liquidity even after the acquisition of the shares of SingShang at the end of last year because altogether we have 2.2 billion euros out of which 900 million euros is real cash and 1.2 billion euros is additional facilities which are undrawn at the end of last year. The big part of it being our RCF, which amounts to 935 million euros. And the second piece being the facility we have agreed with Glencore on prepayment for our lithium activity in 23, which amounted altogether to $400 million. 80 was drawn in 24, and the remaining 320 was actually drawn in February of this year. So this is what leads to this overall 2.2 billion liquidity, which is again very important to have in mind when we talk about the robustness of our balance sheet, which is very important and very, I would say, pretty new for the group. After all these exciting financial indicators, I would like to provide you a bit more information about the operational performance, starting with overall market information. So we've said it already a few times, but it's always important to remind it that we have faced a very challenging market environment in 2024 overall, and an overall context of a down cycle with prices which are reaching historical lows at the end of 2024. Manganese has been very volatile, and I will come back to that in a minute, so no need to spend more time at this stage. Clearly, as said, the main negative impact when we compare 24 to 23 has been on the nickel market, where we have overall lost 20%, or we have seen a negative evolution of prices by around 20% for all kinds of products. It's been also negative for mineral sands by 7%. And even if we are not really playing from an operational and selling standpoint in 2024, but it will be the case in 2025, we have also seen a sharp decline of the lithium price. in 2024 versus 2023, which was already, as you can see on the slide, and as we have already said in the past, showing a very significant decline versus a top in 2022, which was reaching a record high above $80,000. So currently the lithium price is at a bit more than $10,000 per ton, but that's something on which we have positive expectations, and we'll mention that later on. In terms of overall operational performance, clearly challenging in most of the areas, especially manganese and nickel, for different reasons, some of them being external, as I was already mentioning. For manganese ore, one of the drivers was the closure of the market in China in Q3, and I will again explain a bit more the drivers very quickly. We have also seen a pretty stable overall performance in manganese alloys on which we have had one plant which was under relining, refurbishing in 24. So our expectations are more positive for 25 because this plant is now back and running. The nickel activity at Ouedabe has been strong in terms of operational performance, but, and it's a big but, we have been limited by the permitting we obtained at the end of last year in October. We have already disclosed that, unfortunately, which was not enabling us to deliver the expected growth. You may remember that our initial target was above 40 million tons for 2024. We would have been able to deliver it. We had actually the permitting, the environmental permit, and the feasibility study to deliver it. Unfortunately, we are not able to do it. So that's why the overall external sales have been lower than last year by 9%. And very important, once again, even if it's not showing yet in the numbers for 2024, but very important to highlight the fact that we have started our lithium production just before Christmas. So this was our Christmas Eve present for Eramet. We started December 24th. Very important also, and to end on a positive note, when I say that GCO has been a solid business in terms of margin, it has also delivered very significant growth in 2024, plus 41% versus 2023, back to very good areas of grade as it was anticipated. and also having an overall operating performance which was much significantly improving versus the previous year. Business by business. Now is the painful moment. So trying to explain what happened on our margin is all business in 24, which has been some kind of a roller coaster because we started the year pretty low. Then having a very strong Q2 after the announcement of Jemco being stopped because of a cyclone in March, leading to a significant increase in terms of prices. And overall, a demand which was still solid for Q2. But, and that's where it started to be a real rollercoaster, Q3, and it's pretty well reflected in this slide, was showing two events. The first one was a significant drop of the production of steel in China. by minus 12% versus the previous quarter. And it was not because of the usual seasonality, because as you can see, it was also minus 9% versus the previous year. So it was really a significant drop, which was not expected at all. And at the same time, as you can see, there has been a significant increase of volumes coming out of South Africa of what we call semi-carbonated ore, leading to a situation of totally unbalanced supply and demand. So it was, as you can see, Q1-Q2 deficit. Q3, significant surplus, and at a time where clearly there was a lot of anxiety on the market given the situation of steel. So due to that, we have seen, unfortunately, a closure of the market, and that's where we started to have real significant issues. As you can see, Q4 was actually a positive evolution, at least for the balance of the market, In terms of supply, leading to the fact that we have seen much more stable market situation at the end of the year, helping us also to enter into 2025 with a much more positive trend. But overall, so again, very challenging year, especially in Q3. So this is also showing how it was reflecting in the price. Having this first deficit situation, significant increase of the price as we mentioned in H1. but then followed by a sharp drop of the price also at a time that unfortunately we are not able to sell high-grade ore because there was just no demand for that kind of ore given the significant availability of semi-carbonated ore on the other side. So due to that, we have had to take clear and solid measures to protect also our cash and not to produce or to overproduce at a time we are not able to sell. So that's why we have had to shut down our production in October. So it was the third week of October. We shut it down for three weeks until mid-November. to adjust to this situation I was just describing. So this is the reason why overall, and even if we have had the capacity, as it was demonstrated, by the way, in H1, where we've seen a very sharp increase versus the previous year, we have had to adjust and we have seen this overall reduction year over year of minus 8%. Safe situation, of course, in terms of transportation. So, as I said, solid performance in H1, but unfortunately compensated, and more than that, by the situation we have had in H2. So overall, now if we talk about the cash cost, we have seen the negative impact of this lower volumes on our cash cost by definition. So this is a 15 cents because we have been able to adjust part of the cost thanks to this reduction and this stoppage of production impact. in Q3, but we could not compensate everything. So that's why we have the negative volume impact of 15 cents. And we have had also to face, due to this permanent adjustment of production, slightly lower productivity by 5 cents, which explains the overall evolution of our cash cost to $2.24 per DMT. The Morganis performance overall remains solid, and that's a key message. So we have still generated an EBITDA which was above half a billion euros in 2024, actually increasing versus 2023, thanks overall to the positive price impact, thanks to this period of Q2, early Q3, linked to the stoppage of Jemco. And it was only partially compensated by the negative volume impact and the negative productivity I was just describing. Again, this volume and productivity was really driven by one of the events related to the market closure that we are confident to have set in 2025. And by the way, I was mentioning the fact that we have an effort of productivity later on at the end of last year. This is something which is showing also starting to show effect at the end of 24 for this business and for which we have higher ambitions and opportunities for 25. In terms of free cash flow, it was also leading to a pretty solid positive cash flow, close to €100 million overall for the Morganisor activity. For Morganis alloys, also positive evolution thanks to a few things. We have had a slightly higher selling price impact, especially at the same time that Morganisor was increasing. And we have also had low input costs, and we have generated at the same time procurement savings, which is part of productivity and cost reduction efforts I was mentioning before. So overall, a pretty solid financial performance for Morganis Alloys in 2024, and again with a key and increasing focus in terms of productivity and fixed cost reduction. Clearly, the Manganese ore business environment is something we need to keep focusing on, given the importance it still represents for the group. The item I was mentioning before, we are back since the end of last year to a more normalized situation in terms of market, in terms of supply. So that's why we are actually seeing a positive evolution of the index once again. It was down to below $4 at the end of last year. It's been up in the past few weeks, the index up above 4.7. We believe that it will remain pretty solid in the coming weeks before JEMCO is coming back, which is expected as far as their latest announcements in Q2 of this year, so in the coming couple of months. So at that time, clearly we expect the HGO supply to normalize To be in the situation, sorry, not to see anymore the strong supply we have seen in 2024 of semi-carbonated. So our expectation in terms of selling price for 2025 is pretty close. to what we would expect given the cash cost curve you can see on the screen, which is around $4.5 to $4.7 per DMTU in average for the year. So I was already describing the manganese alloys overall, so I won't spend too much time on that. And again, as I said, it's very important to highlight the fact that one plant was off in 2024, and that's why we are expecting a positive evolution overall in 2025. Moving to nickel, so clearly significant deterioration of the market environment, of the pricing in 24 versus 23. And at the same time, the challenges of the permitting I was already describing, so I won't spend more time here. It's also important, and I want to remind it always, When we talk about the volumes, we have to differentiate two things. The overall volume, which is 32 million tons, and the ones which are sold to other plants, because part of this volume is dedicated to the plant we are having within Ouedabe, which corresponds to 3 million tons. And we have the rest, which is sold to all the other plants we have in this show park, which is 29 million tons. When I talk... about the industrial park, it's very, very important to keep in mind one thing. Already today, when I say today, it was the case in 24. the overall demand of this park is 80 million tons. 80, 80. So this means that with the 32 million tons for which we have currently the permitting, we can only deliver 40% of the need of this industrial park. What does this mean? This means that when... We have the same constraint currently, which is given for the permitting for 25 and also for 26. there is a clear opportunity to further increase and that's currently something on which we are focusing to be able to serve the customers which are already producing. Currently, the fact that they cannot get more ore from our mine means that they have to supply either from other mines in Indonesia but also out of the Philippines which explains why we have seen a significant increase of premium in 24. When I say significant, this means that at some point in time it was exceeding $20 per ton, $20 per wet metric ton. So this explains that we have been able, thanks to this premium, to offset more or less the decline of volume and to also a certain extent the decline of grade. But it's not a sustainable situation. So that's why currently there is a strong push that we are having with our partner in Indonesia to be able to get additional volumes. And really very important to keep two figures in mind, 80 million tons of overall demand of the industrial park and overall 40% that we are currently able to supply with our current permitting. So even if we have been constrained by this volume situation and also by the fact that naturally the grade is declining, still this operation has been delivering very strong financial performance. Our share of EBITDA, this means the 38.7% we get, is leading to still 270 million euros. So it's very significant. And it was generating for us close to 100 million euros of dividends once again. So that remains a very solid performance. Moving to mineral sands, so negative evolution of the market, fortunately to a lower extent than nickel, but still negative, as I already mentioned. At the same time, and what is very important, very sharp increase of production, thanks to the better grade and also to the improved productivity, as I've already said. So this was leading overall to also a solid performance in terms of EBITDA. This operation was generating once again more than 100 million euros of EBITDA in 2024, increasing versus 2023. thanks to the better grade for 45 million euros, thanks to productivity gains overall for 45 million euros as well, and knowing that it was partially compensated by the lower pricing and also by the mix of products we are selling. But overall, we have been able to much more than offset the negative driver of the market in this activity. The reason why the free cash flow was remaining limited in 2024 at 40 million euros is because, as I mentioned earlier, we are investing for the growth of this business to ensure the continuity of the growth on what remains a very profitable business for Eramet. And that's why... We believe that it is important to further the bottleneck and on which we still have some further investment scheduled for 2025. With all of this, I will hand it over again to Christelle for the update on the strategic roadmap and on our conclusion. Thank you.

Thank you, Nicolas. So quickly on our strategic roadmap update. So our strategy, you know it, it remains unchanged. We have two strategic axes that are well aligned with the macro trends and confirm the relevance of our development plan in lithium and more globally in metals for energy transition. Due to the macroeconomic context, our 2025 priority will be to focus on operational performance to unlock the value of our existing asset ramp-up of our lithium business. So clearly our main area of development in this strategic roadmap remains lithium. As we have already said, in 2025, We will focus on ramping up our plant, Centenario plant, with nominal capacity of 24,000 tons of lithium carbonate. It should take around 12 months, leading to a production average this year between 10,000 and 13,000 tons. We are working in parallel on the next steps of the development of the salarie, As you know, the long-term potential of this salar is exceeding 75,000 tons of carbonate. And following the takeover of Xin Shan, we are currently re-evaluating the scope and the optimal calendar of the future expansion phases. And we are also reviewing other opportunities we may have to leverage our DLE technology on other projects in the region and also elsewhere in the world. as we are really convinced that lithium long-term dynamics remain very strong. As you can see on these charts, there is a strong global demand driven by the electric vehicle expansion, and even if we have a prisma in Europe that EV growth has decreased, overall in the world, The EV sales have increased by 25% in 2024, driven by China, where the EV sales have increased close to 40%. And overall, the global demand for lithium in 2024 has been plus 23%. And we expect this growth to continue over the next years. At the same pace, we expect about more than 20% per year over the next five years. So almost a doubling of the demand every five years. So, yes, the prices today are quite low. It's linked to a temporary market oversupply. That is a pressure in price. But we believe that there are long-term solid perspectives with a price consensus, and it's not our vision, but we share it, a price consensus between $15,000 and $20,000 per ton of lithium carbonate. So higher than it is today. So with our centenario plant first quartile cost positioning, we should be very well positioned to deliver good profit and ensure resilience across the cycle of the lithium business. Our target cash cost at full capacity should be around $5,000 per ton of carbonates. which means that with the price consensus of today of between $15,000 and $20,000 per ton, we should expect an annual EBITDA for this business between $200 million and $300 million at full capacity. So even at the price of today, and the price consensus for 2025 is around $11,000 per ton, $10,900 exactly for the consensus, even at this price, we see that we should be at full capacity, significantly cash-positive. So beyond Santonario, we continue to build a gross pipeline in energy transition metals, mainly in lithium, but also in nickel for batteries. So we continue to secure lithium resources in Chile. We have contracted several partnerships in Chile to get exploration and exploitation rights. And we are progressing in our discussion with a state-owned company in Chile for the development of the concession that, you know, we acquired in Atacama late 2023. And we should see the development mid of this year. We have also this geothermal lithium project in France. The studies are ongoing to make sure that we have a robust business case, and we don't expect an investment decision before, let's say, about three years. Post-BSF project withdrawal in Indonesia on the Ashbal project, we are still exploring new option to participate in the battery value chain in Indonesia, but without exposing too much our balance sheet. So we should not expect a big investment in that area in the coming months. And as you know, we have announced the suspension of the battery recycling project that we had in France due to the uncertainties in the growth of the battery value chain in Europe. But we are convinced that circular economy will play a very big role in critical metals, and especially the recycling of battery. And we continue to follow the market fundamentals in order to make such a project competitive in the future. So, conclusion. Clearly, The market will remain very uncertain and very volatile in 2025, especially regarding the potential recovery in China, but also with all the global trade tension that will create further challenges, but also potentially opportunities that we should be able to grasp. We expect a weak demand across all our underlying markets with prices, as you can see here, at stable or even lower level than in 2024, waiting for a rebound in China. We expect some announcement from the Chinese authority in March. We will see if there is a new stimulus coming in China that could boost our markets there. So we expect the manganese ore price to be around $4.5 per DMTU. This is the consensus of the market that we take. So it's minus 20% almost versus 2024. LME is expected to be stable, and the lithium carbonate for the battery grade, as I said, around $11,000 per ton, so lower than the average of 2024. Nickel ore price in Indonesia should be around stable. Also, manganese is selling price lower in line with the manganese ore price, and the freight cost, fortunately, should be lower as well. So in that context, of course, we need to adjust to market signal, and our focus will be to create value not from significant additional volumes, but through improving operational performance, focusing on efficiency in all our operations and productivity gains. above the level achieved in 2024, and we have reinforced all our operational excellence approaches that is starting to deliver good results in all our operations. Of course, we will continue to focus on strict control of our capex and have a rigorous focus on cash. And as I said before, our other key target will be, of course, to ramp up our lithium plant production to achieve the full capacity within 12 months. And we will also continue to work with the Indonesian authorities to increase the Uedabe mine capacity to 60 million tons in accordance with the environmental and mining permits that had been validated by the Indonesian authorities in 2024. So we have restarted discussion with them, and we will see if we can have additional volumes in the coming months. So... If we look at our 2025 guidance, it's volume and cash cost guidance. So for manganese ore, we expect production of transported manganese ore of 6.7 to 7.2 million tons in 2025, with a cash cost between $2 and $2.2 per DMTU, which is lower than the one of 2024. In terms of marketable nickel ore at Ouedabé, 29 million, so slightly below the one we achieved in 2024. It's fully in line with the permitting that we got in October. And for lithium, as I said before, we expect a production between 10,000 and 13,000 tons in 2025 due to the progressive ramp-up of the plants to full capacity towards the end of the year. Our capex should be between 400 and 450 million euros, with current capex between 150 and 200 million, and growth capex around 250 million. And in this growth capex, there is nothing new. It's the end of the production capacity and strengthening of the transport also capacity in Gabon, the logistics. So this is the end of all the program that was done to secure higher capacity in Gabon. It should be the last year we have this end of de-bottlenecking of this new opening of the Yokuma Plateau. We have an investment of de-bottlenecking that we started last year in Senegal for 50 million, and we have the end of the capex for the plant of San Tonario. The plant was finished end of last year, but we still have some capex to pay at the beginning of this year. So this is what we have as guidance. So just as we close this presentation, I would like to reiterate the key takeaways. We clearly have achieved a lot over the last eight years. We have repositioned Eramet as a pure mining and metal player. We have opened two major deposits, Wedabe in 2019 and the huge lithium deposit in 2024. We have significantly increased the production in our other mines, especially doubling the capacity of the mine in Gamon, de-bottlenecking the one in Senegal, so we have unlocked the value of these assets through organic growth. We have placed CSR at the heart of the model of Eramet, and it's positioning us as a leader of the responsible mining in the world. And we have significantly transformed the group to ensure efficiency, consistency, and compliance, making Eramet a much stronger group from that point of view. We expect 2025 to remain challenging, and we have demonstrated that in 2024, this transformation has had a lot of benefits and has allowed us to go through the cycle without too many difficulties. So in 2025, as we said, the market environment continues to be volatile, and we continue to have regulatory constraints, including the permitting challenge that we have in Indonesia, and all this requires careful navigation. And in such an environment, volume growth can not be the only foundation of our value creation, and operational performance must be our primary focus, which means a relentless discipline in cost and efficiency, maximizing our asset value and ensuring that every ton produced delivers the best possible return. At the same time, we see opportunities in the horizon, and the long-term outlook for battery metals remains strong, mainly in lithium, and our position in lithium will be a key driver of our future growth. Our manganese, nickel, and mineral sun business continue to show resilience, and we remain well positioned to seize any market rebounds. And so most importantly, we have the financial and strategic flexibility to adapt to changing conditions, ensuring that we will continue to create sustainable value for our shareholders. So I want to take this opportunity to warmly thank our team across the world for their dedication and also thank our shareholders for their continued trust. And now I look forward with Nicolas to answering your question and discuss the road ahead. Thank you.

So if we could move to the next slide for the Q&A and we will start with the questions from the room and then move on to the questions from the chat box of the webcast. First question. Maxime.

Yes, so good morning. Maxime Koch from Odo BHF. So first question is on lithium. So after a few months of running the Centenario plant, can you give us your key takeaways? What has been performing in line with your expectation? What has been more difficult? That would be my first question, yeah.

uh so far so good uh no we we are fully in line with our expectation uh for sure uh starting such a plant the complex plant in a complex location we have others but that's we're expecting and so far we are fully in line with the different milestones that we had set in order to ramp up this plant. So for the time being, no major issue. It's quite a good start for the time being. And honestly, I want here also to thank all the teams because compared to our competitors, when we look at all the projects that have started in the region, and we listed all of them that were late at least 12 months, if not 18 or more. We have had some delays, a few months delay, but honestly we have started on time, almost on budget, and the ramp-up so far is going well.

The second one is on manganese ore. So we see better trends in the start of the year thanks to higher steel demand in China, tighter supply as a result of the cutbacks of various players, including yourself. But what is striking to see is that the premium of high-grade ore versus low-grade ore has not moved up so much. It remains very low. does it reflect the fact that somehow smelters have been able to structurally transform the process and blend higher quantities of or do you think your product with a premium still deserve a premium that will be seen over time?

It's a very good question, Maxime. And you see that over time the spread between high-grade ore and low-grade ore has been evolved a lot. And at times and it was the case in 2024 because of the very low demand for steel, so very low operating rates of the manganese alloy smelters in China, the productivity was not their priority. So it's much more productive for them to have a high share of high-grade ore in their mix, But when there is low demand anyway and they are not operating at full capacity, at the end, having a higher productivity is not their highest priority. So if they can find low-grade ore at a much lower price, they will do it because what will be then the key is the price of the ore more than the productivity in the furnace. It's typically what is happening in China. We don't see that happening in other places in the world. And by the way, we sell at much higher prices today in India or in other places of the world, and we sell as much as we can in those regions because they don't have the same behaviors. But in China, it's typically what has happened. And today, the reference on the market, the one you see, the index, are the Chinese one. And for sure, the spread at that time between high-grade ore and low-grade ore is quite small. And we have seen the reverse. I mean, at times where there is a need for capacity, it's much more productive for them to buy high-grade ore, and they put a premium. They are ready at that time to pay a much higher premium on it. So that's true that today the premium between both is limited because of the low demand.

Okay, and just the last one is on Indonesia. There have been contradictory reports over whether Indonesia would increase or conversely reduce the quotas for 2025 versus 2024. So I know that Weta Bay structurally needs and justifies higher quotas. quotas, but on a nationwide level, what is your view there? Do you think that they will prioritize increasing quotas to reduce dependence on the Philippines or rather decrease them out of concern for the environment or for fear of reserve depletion?

I don't think it's so much for environmental reasons, to be honest. It was a surprise for quite a lot of people and what happened at the end of last year. And honestly, a big disappointment. for all the people, Chinese first, but also others, who have invested a lot of capacity, so downstream capacity in Indonesia to benefit from this. That is a ban for exports. And it was in the presentation that there was one slide shown by Nicola showing that the park that is at the bottom of the Ouedabe mine consumed more than 80 million tons. And in terms of capacity, it's more than 100 million tons. It has consumed 80 million tons last year. And they went here. They are built here because of the huge potential of the Ouedabe mine. And then they are told that we will be limited in what we can produce, so they have to import from other islands, other Indonesian islands, or Philippines. And they have imported quite a lot from Philippines last year. So it's a pity, and there is a concern, so not only from us, but from the other players in Indonesia. So there are a lot of people pushing right now, Indonesian authorities pushing to increase the quotas at least where they have built industrial parks because it doesn't make sense to have potential here just above the industrial park and have to import at high logistic cost or from elsewhere. So now, will it change or not? It's very difficult to predict because it does not make a lot of sense in terms of logic to attract investment, but it is the decisions that they have made. So you have to ask them. I can't see the room, so Sandrine, is there another question in the room? Okay, so we take question from the web.

We have a question in the webcast, but your first priority, so are you sure? Nobody else? Okay, so Laurent.

Yes, good morning. We have first question regarding the dioxide titanium market. Can you explain why exports are increasing towards China and And it seems that European Union has excluded those products from agro-products. Is there any other risk that this product could be excluded from cosmetic or pharmaceutical products?

We are not any longer in that market.

So I'm going to try to give... As good an answer as I can. So on the first question, so when we talk about challenging fundamentals, I would say depressed fundamentals, is because overall, when we talk about China, there is an overall decline of the real estate production, which means that... Overall, the local demand is lower, but they have installed in the past years additional capacities and China has been able to develop export to other countries. And it's been indeed a pretty unbalanced evolution between the local demand, which was lower, and the exports, which has been significantly increasing. So that's why they have been able to export is to address new markets and areas of the world which were not addressed by other producers and compensating when they were not able to deliver locally due to the evolution of the real estate market. Honestly, on the second piece, I cannot really say if there are additional risks at this stage. I don't know if Christelle, this is something on which you would like to comment, but genuinely, we don't have a real immediate concern on this area.

Regarding the lithium market, you explained the demand will continue to grow, and you are very confident. But what regarding capacity, do you think the market will remain correctly balanced?

We think that we'll continue to have some oversupply of the market in 2025, and that's why the consensus for the price remains low for 2025. We expect today the market to rebalance in 2026. And going forward, the good thing, I would say, of the low price of 23, 24 and 25 is that it has limited the number of projects that were not very competitive. but that had popped up in 2022 when the prices were crazy. And a lot of projects that were not very competitive had emerged at that time. Those projects have been stopped. For most of them, some mines have even reduced or stopped their production because they were high cost. It's the case in Africa, for example. It's the case in China. So we expect the market to rebalance. And we think that at the consensus level between $15,000 and $20,000 per ton, we will have a rather balanced market in the future starting in 2026 with a significant growth of the demand as I have shown in my presentation.

We have a question on capital allocation. Your dividend is stable despite the fact that EBITDA is decreasing and free cash flow is negative. Can you elaborate a bit more about your capital allocation policy going forward?

Nicolas?

Thank you for the question, which is indeed an important one. So first, indeed, as you noted in the question, so this is stable, so it's not an increase, and it's stable at 1.5, which means if we consider the net income, and again, I want to insist without SLN, which is the right one to look at in terms of economic performance, it's 30% payout, 30%. So which cannot be or should not be considered as high. And I think it's really important to also highlight that if we look at the past, when we were with very solid, strong financial performance in 21, in 22, the dividend was remaining pretty reasonable because we were talking at that time about payout of respectively 25% for 21 and 14% for 22, 14, 1, 4. So that's to show that we try indeed to be consistent with the capital allocation policy we defined three years ago to make sure that we remain very robust in terms of balance sheet. We also want to reward our shareholders on a permanent basis. And when I say we remain focused on our balance sheet, of course, we have increased our leverage. That's clear. In 2024, due to the investment, we have decided to regain the full ownership of our lithium project in Argentina, which is to ensure the future growth of the group. knowing that we have said that we are aiming to be below one on average through the cycle and we keep this objective. So it's not because it's been an increase for, again, very explainable and strategic reasons in 24 that we are not having and keeping the same objective.

Thank you. To follow on this topic, could you share us your CAPEX plan for 2026? Do you fear also regarding your assets? If the market remains difficult, do you fear any impairment of assets? And could you update on your most recent discussion with rating agencies?

So it's a bit too early to talk about 26 capex. You may have seen one topic is that on the further development for lithium, we are not including in 25 any number, which means that we are clearly taking the time to assess lithium the right scope and also the right sequencing of this investment, which is likely to come more in 26 now, but cannot give you yet the number. You have seen also that for the current capex, we are focusing on maintaining a pretty low level in 25, as we have done in 24, and we'll more than likely keep a very similar objective for 26, ensuring that we focus on the areas in which it's very critical to make maintenance and, of course, to also invest on some items for further productivity, which is a key motto for our operations, is to focus on productivity, and accordingly, it could require some quick payback, additional investments. So that's about capex 26. So there will be likely an increase for the further lithium development. Difficult to say at which extent. One thing I meant to mention, the other, what we consider gross capex, For Manganese ore, so as I said before, the last piece for the logistic and transportation capacity in Gabon is coming in 2025, so nothing at this stage to expect for 2026 in this area. We'll continue, though, to invest on the railway for CETRAG, which is requiring, it's been the case for the past years, an overall upgrade, so on which we will keep investing in 26. So the impairment on that one, we don't really have any worry. As you can imagine, this is something which is carefully looked at both by management and also by our external auditors. And I can tell you that the headroom we have on all our assets is very significant at the end of 24. So even if we are in down-of-the-cycle pricing, there is no question mark. And it's the case for all our businesses, including, by the way, Morganis Alloys. So clearly, no impairment to expect there. As a reminder, the last one we have had to face were on SLN. So first, it's been fully written off. And second, I will repeat myself, we have actually excluded the SLN financial performance or the performance of SLN out of our key financial criterias for the reasons of financing, which is not fully assured by the French state. And the last piece, the update on the discussions with the rating agencies. So you have seen that there has been evolution at the end of last year. Clearly, they were focusing on the evolution of our leverage. And again, for reasons we have expressed and on which we are really confident is the right thing to do for the future of the company. The last discussion I have had, and it was actually this week, is that they were actually taking positively the results we are disclosing because in line, if not better, with what was anticipated because they are seeing, and what we have tried to show in this presentation, the start of all the productivity initiatives we are implementing, improving the overall financial performance.

Maybe an additional comment on the capex for 2026. I've said earlier for lithium that we are re-evaluating the scope and the calendar for the extension phase of Centenario. We should not expect any capex before 2026. We will continue to, of course, increase the capacity on this really very promising salar. But as we have already increased our production, taking over the Sinchan share, we have rescheduled and re-evaluated the extension phase, and we should expect CapEx to start only in 2026.

Now moving to Ueda Bay, we understand that you will be stepping up your lobby for new licenses in Ueda Bay. What hope do you have in the face of the lobby of local producer who don't want you to expand your production?

Again, I think it's difficult to give any probability. I can just repeat what I've said before. The small miners around us cannot provide the quantity of ore, and especially of limonite, that is required by the plants and the asphalt that have been built and are being built right now in the industrial park at the bottom of Oued Abbé. So there will be a lack of limonite. Why I'm mentioning limonite? It's because it's easier or cheaper relatively to transport saprolytes because they are higher grade. So the transportation can be justified on limonite, which is lower grade. Honestly, the transportation costs... start to be an issue for the plants so they are pushing a lot to be able to buy extra limonite from Ouedabe so again we are not the only one pushing for extra volumes especially volumes of limonite but we will see what will be the position of the government, and I cannot make any bet on that. That's why we have been cautious in our guidance for volume, limiting it to what we have as a permitting as of today. But we are still hoping to have more, hopefully already in 2025.

In mineral science, we have seen negative publication in press regarding environmental impact of the operation on the desert. Do you see any political risk in this operation, given that you are making major investment in this operation?

First, I would like to reiterate that Eramet Grand Court in Senegal is fully compliant with not only the local legal requirement, but also our very high CSR standards. and all what has been said regarding the water especially is not true. We are pumping in the very deep aquifer at 450 meters, which is totally disconnected from the one in which the population lives. is pumping water, so there is no link between both and we are not affecting the quality of the water for the population. We know that there are political tensions today and some people are playing with that in Senegal. We are working in close relationship with the authorities And I can tell you that the local government, the local authorities are supporting Eramet Grand Cote in what they are doing in terms of CSR and how they are moving ahead and compensating the population for the relocation that we have to do.

Going back to lithium, you have a very good technology there. Are you thinking of licensing your technology or participating in projects through equity participation?

It's a very good question, especially as you may have noticed that China has announced a few weeks ago that they may ban exports of lithium technologies. And yesterday, one company, the first one, has started to inform their customers, Chinese companies, that they will stop exporting the sorbent. They produce sorbent and the technology package for lithium refining, extraction and refining. And they have informed their customers that they will stop exporting this technology. So even if the official ban from China on these technologies has not been formalized yet, officialized yet, some companies are starting to implement it. So it will open potentially opportunities for Eramed. We are considering potentially using our technologies and our patents to to be able to enter into new projects, providing the technology, but also participating into equity, exactly as you asked for. And this ban, potential ban on Chinese technology, of course, will position us as one of the few Western companies with an industrial demonstration that our technology is working. So I think we will have other opportunities to do that in the future. Of course, we will be in an even better position once we have ramped up fully the plant, because at that time we will be even more credible in selling our technology and leveraging this technology to get equity in new projects.

You mentioned the cash available at SLN. Do you think it corresponds to the cash need for the full year, or do you think the French government will need to push more cash before the end of the year?

So I will take that nice question. So two things just to answer as much as I can on that one. You may have noted in the course of the presentation that the cash consumption of SLN in 24 was in the range of 250 million euros. Given the overall context in Caledonia on the nickel pricing, etc., which genuinely is not supposed to improve dramatically. assuming that the gas consumption of 725 will be in the same range is actually reasonable. So all that to say that even if indeed it's a pretty solid situation to start with the year for that entity with around 140 million euros, cash available, it's unlikely it will be sufficient. So that's to say that there should be indeed likely an additional requirement before the end of the year.

If the market continues to be very difficult, do you have other lever to continue to deliver and to improve your efficiency?

Yes, we continue to focus, as we said, on productivity, operational performance, et cetera. Depending on what will happen on the market, we can also, not on the mining side, but on in our metallurgical plants, we can also reduce the production or shut down furnaces if really the market collapses and if it's necessary. We don't foresee that, and we have not mentioned the trade tariffs yet. that everybody is speaking of and commenting right now. It may open some opportunities for our manganese alloys business, potential challenges, but also opportunities. It will depend how Europe reacts to these tariffs. And we have a plant, for example, in the U.S. The price of our product will significantly increase because of the tariffs in the U.S., so we will benefit from that. And if Europe reacts also raising the tariffs on this kind of product, we could be protected from some imports that, for example, over the last two years have increased significantly coming from India. So all this will depend on how, I mean, things will evolve. And again, we don't see only challenges going forward, but we'll see also opportunities and we will adapt as we have done in the past.

And we have a final question regarding governance. Can you give more color on the process that led the nomination committee and board to select Paolo Castellari as the new CEO?

Yes, I can give, and I think we have communicated largely on this. As you know, I have decided to step down from my executive function. It's a personal decision that I have taken some time ago and discussed and shared with my board. We had a long selection and careful selection process. Paolo has a very deep and strong mining experience. in metal similar to ours, in a very international background, in companies with high standards. He has been exposed to different businesses, different kind of markets and type of shareholding. So I think he has a large experience. And it also shows what I have repeated several times here in front of you, that we have become... a mining and international company. When I joined this company, we were very French and very involved in metallurgy. We are now very international and very much involved in mining. And I think Paolo is bringing both international and mining experience. And I think also he shares the same value as we have, strongly believing that CSR should continue to be at the heart of the model of Eramet. So I think he's the right person to take this position in the future, and I'm sure we will work very well together.

Thank you very much.

So no more questions in the webcast, so from the room?

So I think we are coming at the end of this meeting. Thank you very much again. And so looking forward, having you continue supporting Eramet for a bright future. Thank you.