Nickel Asia Corporation

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Nickel Asia Corporation's briefing for our operational results for the first quarter of 2026. My name is Miriam Cueto, Nickel Asia Corporation Senior Manager for Investor Relations. Joining me today are our Group President and CEO, Mr. Dennis Lamorg, our VP for Finance and Deputy CFO, Mr. Andrew Yee, Director of our Geothermal Business, Mr. Joseph Nukoch, and President of Cordillera Exploration Company Inc., or SEXI, Dr. Drew Newmore. I'd like to remind everyone to kindly keep your microphones off during the duration of the presentation. This session will be recorded, and the presentation materials will be available on our website after the briefing. There will be a Q&A portion after the formal presentation where we will first address questions submitted via the registration form. For any additional questions, you may send those via the Q&A box or we can unmute you. So let's now begin with our financial highlights. This slide presents our consolidated financial highlights for the first quarter of 2026 compared to the same period last year. The leftmost set of bar charts indicates our top-line performance for the period and historically over the last three years. Revenues, which are comprised of the sale of ore, power, and other services, amounted to $3.2 billion in the first quarter, an 8% increase year-on-year from $2.9 billion in 2025. The set of bar charts in the center showcases our consolidated GDP for the period, which totaled $1.3 billion from $1.5 billion in the first quarter of last year. That's about 13%. The rightmost set of bar charts shows us our income, excluding minority interest. For the first quarter of 2026, that amounted to $0.4 billion, or a decrease of about 26% from 0.5 billion in the first quarter of last year. So we see here that the attributable net income declined despite the increase in revenues. So the primary reason for this is the one-time gain of 800 million that we disclosed in the first quarter of last year. So if you recall, there was a one-time gain from Nickel Asia's 15% stake in Coral Bay Nickel Corporation. So excluding this one-time gain for the first quarter of last year, we would have reported an attributable net loss instead of a net income. Specifically, the attributable net loss last year without the one-time gain would have been around $25.5 billion. So if we look at our first quarter performance this year, From a core earnings basis, our performance has actually improved with a turnaround year over year from negative to positive. So moving on to our margins, as shown in the table below, gross profit margin for the first quarter of this year stood at 51%, up from 40% last year, an improvement of about 11 percentage points. Even if the margin improved Sorry, EBITDA margin stood now at 43% from 53% last year, and net income margin this year is at 21% from 23%. Next slide. Moving on to our nickel mining performance for the quarter. This slide details our mining volumes, prices, and revenues. So let me walk you through each set of charts. starting with sales volumes on the left represented in millions of wet metric funds. The green portion represents saprolite ore exports, while the orange portion represents limonite bleach valve sales. Total mining sales volumes for the quarter declined 9% year-on-year to 2.27 million wet metric tons from 2.48 million wet metric tons. Soprolite ore exports particularly were down 15% year-on-year to 0.56 million WM tons from 0.66 million WM tons. With respect to limonite H-file deliveries, these decreased by 6% year-on-year to 1.71 million WM tons from 1.82 million WM tons in the first quarter. of last year. So the reason for this decrease is primarily because of weather disruptions from Artelianito and Villatuba Mines, as well as the nickel grades that were sold this year were slightly lower than what were sold last year. So moving on to the movement in average ore prices, your attention in the middle charts, please. So for ore exports, which are seen in green, the average prices registered at $35.63 for wet metric funds. This is a slight decrease of 3% from last year's average price of $36.60 for wet metric funds. For limonite H-file prices, there was an increase of 35% from $12.29 for wet metric funds from 2025 to $9.10 for wet metric funds. So weighted average ore prices grew by 10% year-over-year to $18.03 per WMT from $16.40 per WMT. The table below gives us additional context on nickel prices. So the average nickel LME price per pound for the first quarter of this year stood at $7.87 per pound. an increase from $7.35 in the first quarter of last year, so approximately 12%. The effective nickel pay factor for ore exports stood at 23.92%, slightly lower from 24.80% last year. On revenues, which is shown in the right-side chart, we see that total ore revenues totaled 2.42 billion, which is still an increase of 3% year-on-year. or export revenues were down 60%. However, HPAL revenues grew strongly by 29% year-on-year, driven by higher realized prices. So this slide walks us through the key drivers of our revenue performance in the first quarter versus the first quarter last year. As mentioned previously, total revenues grew by 8% year-on-year, There were several contributors to that. The first is better nickel price realizations for HVAL, which gave us about $284 million more in revenues versus last year. So, as seen in the previous slide, weighted average for price grew by 10%. Nickel payability also improved for our HVAL sales due to renegotiated prices. So, another reason is higher generation revenues. from our San Isidro plants, which had an incremental contribution following the energization from October last year. Finally, another contributor for better top line was the several movements in Philippine Peso U.S. dollar exchange rates. So the average exchange rate this quarter was at 59.19 pesos to $1 compared to 57.85 pesos to $1 in the first quarter last year. which contributed positively to our peso-denominated revenues. Partially offsetting these positives, however, was the lower export volume due to the unfavorable weather conditions in some of our operating lines. So this slide now summarizes our costs and operating expenses for the quarter. Year-on-year, our costs and expenses decreased by 4% to $2.37 billion, from 2.47 billion in the first quarter of 2025. So the savings were primarily due to a reduction of about 207 million year-on-year in mining costs. So this was due to improved production volumes. Essentially, higher production volumes reduced the carrying costs that we had for our inventory, thereby lowering shipment costs that we recognized in the first quarter. With respect to the renewable energy side, costs increased primarily due to additional depreciation charges from the San Ysidro Solar Power Plant, which commenced their testing and commissioning in the fourth quarter last year. But we see that these costs are consistent with our planned capacity build-out, and we expect These things eventually be offset over time by the revenues generated by these new assets. Let me walk you now through the key movements in our balance sheet as of March 31, 2026. On assets, total assets stood at 65.7 billion as of end March. compared to $70.2 billion at year-end 2025, a 6% decrease over the quarter. The variance was primarily for paying dividends and retiring debt at the EPI level or our renewable energy business. Trade and other receivables also declined by 22% to $1.9 billion, which consisted of the collection activity after the strong close we had last year, ETE grew modestly by 3% to $34.2 billion. With respect to liabilities, total liabilities decreased 12% quarter-on-quarter to $19.7 billion. So notably here, our short-term debt declined significantly by 68% to $2.1 billion, So, this reflects that the payments fees were related to the renewable energy business under ETI. Long-term debts here remain relatively the same at 9.3 billion, essentially flat from year-end. On equity, total equity attributable to the parents, so that's 38.2 billion pesos brought in to spend with our strong equity base at year-end. So, overall, the balance sheet remains healthy and well-positioned to support our ongoing growth initiatives. So, moving on to our renewable energy updates, I'll now hand the floor over to our Director for U-Thermal Business, Mr. Joseph Roach.

Thank you, Miriam. Let me begin with an update on JSI, our flagship operational solar asset. located at Mount Santa Rita within the Subic Bay Freeport Zone in Zambadas, with an installed capacity of 172 megawatt-feet. As of the end of the first quarter of 2026, 170 megawatt peak of GSI's capacity has been contracted under power supply agreements. Our PSA to Western sales mix for the quarter stood at 94% to 6%, a significant improvement in contracted exposure. compared to 78% PSA in the same period last year. The additional PSA contracted in January 2026, covering 55 megawatt peak, was a key contributor to this improvement. Our direction continues to be to fully contract JSI's energy output through PSAs, insulating our revenues from Western Plains productivity. Moving on to the San Ysidro NATO project, which is being developed under Greenlight Renewable Soldiers Incorporated, our joint venture with Shell Overseas Investments BBE. The project is divided into two phases, each contributing 129 watts peak of capacity. Both phases are fully contracted. Phase one was energized in the fourth quarter of 2025, and is targeted for commercial operations date, or COD, in the second quarter of 2026. Phase 2 construction is ongoing, with energization targeted within the third quarter of 2026 and commercial operation in the first quarter of 2027. Here are the consolidated financial highlights for EPI, our renewable energy arm for the first quarter of 2026. The standout figure this quarter is generation, which grew 63% year-on-year, 65,831 MWh. The strong growth was driven by the contribution of sunny cedar phase one. The first full quarter of generation of the 120 megawatt peak sunny cedar later facility. EBITDA more than doubled, growing 120% year-on-year to 267 million, with EBITDA margin expanding significantly to 62% from 46%. This reflects both higher revenues and the relatively low incremental operating costs of the new capacity. The weighted realized tariffs improved to 4.52 per kilowatt-hour, a 7% increase year-on-year attributable to a higher contracted tariff rate of JSI from a new PSA signed in January 2026 and the contribution of San Ysidro, which is fully contracted with Shell Energy at a practical base. Overall, the renewable energy business is gaining meaningful scale, and we expect this trajectory to continue as our pipeline projects come online. Speaking of which, let us now move on to updates on our development pipeline. Our next project under the Greenlight Renovos Holding Strength Venture with Shell is the San Juan Batalan project in San Carlos. The project, made up of two phases, Phase 1 at 45 MW, is fully contracted and is targeted for energization in the fourth quarter of 2026. with commercial operation in the second quarter of 2027. Phase 2 at 14 megawatts peak is targeted to be 100% with energization in the first quarter of 2027 and COD in the third quarter of 2027. Construction activities are progressing in line with schedule. For our wholly-owned renewable energy subsidiary, the big power project remains a key development lesson. This is a 149-megawatt deep facility divided in two phases within the Subic Bay Freeport Zone. Phase 1 at 70 megawatts peak is currently 64% contracted, with active ongoing negotiations for the remaining 36%. Energization is targeted for the second quarter of 2027, with COD in the third quarter of 2027. Phase 2 at 75 megawatts is targeted to be 100% contracted, Energization is expected in the fourth quarter of 2027, and COD in the first quarter of 2028. Our fourth development project is a Nazareno facility in Bataan, a 15-megawatt-peak power plant. This project is currently in the pre-development stage, with offtake contracting the ongoing. Energization is targeted for the third quarter of 2028, with COD in the fourth quarter of 2028. Next slide will be a summary of our projected capacity build-up. This slide summarizes the expected progression of EPI's installed generation capacity over the next two to three years. By the end of 2026, EPI's gross installed capacity is expected to reach 458 megawatts, incorporating GSI and contribution of siliceper phase 1 by siliceper phase 1. By 2027, we are targeting a gross capacity of 617 megawatts, revised from our previously disclosed 667 megawatts, reflecting updated project timelines and our transition toward a value-driven rather than volume-driven expansion strategy. As we have communicated before, our primary focus going forward is on maximizing the value of each megawatt we bring online, prioritizing fully contracted assets, integrating battery energy storage systems across the portfolio, and exploring hybrid solutions for iron grid operations to capture mid-marriage supply options.

Thank you, Sir Joseph. Moving on now to updates on our gold and copper exploration projects, I give the floor to Dr. Jun Yilmol, President of Cordillera Exploration Company.