Ivanhoe Mines Ltd.

Good day and thank you for stopping by. Welcome to the Ivanhoe Mines third quarter 2024 financial results. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. another kind of conference over to speaker today matthew keble director investor relations please go ahead matthew your line is on you thanks operator um yeah everybody thanks very much for joining us today our apologies there was a slight technical glitch on the back end of the system

We will ask you today to refer to the slides that are posted to our website at www.ivanhomeminds.com. You can click on investors and you'll see the deck there. If you could follow along with management on those slides, that would be great to just deal with this little bit of a technical glitch. We appreciate it very much and thanks for your patience. But welcome today. It's my pleasure to welcome you to the Ivan Home Minds third quarter 2024 financial results conference call. As the operator mentioned, my name is Matthew Keevil, and I'm the Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications with Ivanhoe Mines. On the line today from the company, we have Founder and Executive Co-Chairman Robert Friedland, President Marna Klote, Chief Financial Officer David Van Heerden, Chief Operating Officer Mark Farron, Executive Vice President Project Steve Amos, and Executive Vice President Corporate Development and Investor Relations Alex Pickard. We will be finishing today's event with a question and answer session. You can submit a question using the Q&A box on the webcast page, as well as through the conference operator via your phone line. If your question is not addressed, please do contact our investor relations teams directly for follow-up, and we'll be happy to answer that question offline. Before you begin, I will point to slide two. We do have to remind everyone that today's event will contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Details of the forward-looking statements are contained in today's press release, as well as on CEDAR Plus and at www.ivanhomeminds.com. It is now my pleasure to introduce Ivan Home Minds' founder and executive co-chairman, Robert Friedland, for opening remarks. Please go ahead, Robert.

Well, greetings, everybody, and we certainly apologize for the technical delays. trying to get a global system that is reliable. I'm addressing you from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where we are at the Future Investment Initiative here in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Our opening photograph shows my standing next to Marna and a lot of our key people and a team of international investors inside the actual furnace in our new smelter under construction. That visit was fantastic. For those of you that haven't been to the Congo recently, the progress on site is stunning and remarkable. So I welcome you all to this session. You can walk through the slides with us as I turn this over to Marna, our president. Let's go to the first slide with a picture of this melter from a drone, and off we go. Thank you, Marna.

Thank you, Robert, and welcome everybody to our third quarter financial results It's quite an impressive picture. You see that it's even more impressive when you drive around on site. And it's quite exhausting to walk to the top of that building. When you look down, you can see quite a vista from that smelter. We're looking forward to completing the smelter in December and then start with commissioning early next year. But really a magnificent project. I'm moving over to slide number five now, which is the highlights of our third quarter. We were really busy with the ramp up of our phase three concentrated during this quarter. That will help us increase our annual production capacity to 600,000 tons of copper. And we see ourselves probably producing slightly less than 600,000 tons of copper next year and then taking over the 600,000 tons of copper per annum in 2026 once we complete project 95, which is our recovery project that Mark Farrant will speak to a bit later in the school. We've had another record quarter. It feels like we say that every quarter, but it happens to be true in terms of production as well as revenue at Kamoa Kokula. Unfortunately, we had to reduce our guidance slightly, and that was mainly due to the intermittent power that we experienced earlier in the year. We've really broken the back of our power problems. Some of the projects are longer-term projects, so it will take time to sort of get to steady-state power the way we would like to see it. But we're currently importing about 65 megawatts of power. We've got 145 megawatts of backup power installed. That does have a cost impact, so we're trying to be as green as possible and stay on grid as far as possible. And Mark will also speak a bit later during this call about our power initiatives. Very exciting for us as a management team, and we've hosted a number of tours to the Western Forelands over the past quarter. It's what we're doing at the Western Forelands, really an exciting time, and we have indicated that we will put out a press release towards the end of the year with our plans for next year and give you a little bit of an update as to what we've seen at the Western Forelands. We added some additional land packages to the Western Forelands, another 336 square kilometers. And we've also deployed two new rigs to the Western Forelands, bringing the total number of rigs drilling to 11. We will probably be able to drill a bit through the wet season because we've prepared in our target areas. If we move on to the next slide, slide six, health and safety. It's a continued area of focus for us. Unfortunately, we did experience a fatality due to a fall of ground during the quarter. I think a picture speaks a thousand words. You can see our workforce increased from 2021 to today. Currently, we sit with basically over close to 30,000 people working across Argonne mines. And our safety statistics are quite impressive compared to the industry average, but it's never good enough when you do experience fatality incidents on the site. We've closed out the report. We've done retraining. We've implemented mitigating factors. But every time we experience these incidents, it's sort of a reset back to zero. And it's a collective effort to ensure that all our staff goes home safely every day. Moving over to the next slide, which is a picture of our first inaugural class at the Kamau Centre of Excellence graduating. Earlier this year, it was quite a joyous occasion, as you can see. And I had the privilege of visiting the Center of Excellence a couple of weeks ago together with an investor group where we were greeted by the new 38 students that really applied from across the Congo. We give preference to our communities and people that's in our footprint area, but we really choose the best of the best in the country and people as far as Kivu have applied to be accepted at the Kamara Center of Excellence. These students were in class for for a two-month period, and they came to the Centre of Excellence basically only speaking Swahili or French or Langala, and they presented in fluent English to us during this presentation. It was really a touching moment for me to see the impact that we are making at the Kamoa Centre of Excellence. So with that as an introduction, I will now hand over to David van Heerden, our Chief Financial Officer. to take you through our financial results. And that starts on slide eight. Over to you, David.

Thank you, Marna. And good morning and good day to everybody joining the call today. As I move over to slide nine, the increased production in the second quarter, which Marna already mentioned, translated to a record payable copper tonne sold for the quarter and an 8% increase when compared to the second quarter of 2024. Because of the increase in tons sold, Kumaoka Kula achieved record quarterly revenue of $828 million for Q3, even though the realized copper price decreased to $4.16 per pound for the quarter from $4.34 per pound the quarter before. And notwithstanding the fact that we had an increase in unsold copper stock in inventory at the end of Q3. On the next slide, with Kamoa Kukula feeding lower grade materials into the phase three concentrated during ramp up in the quarter, and considering the impact that had on total average grade, we are pretty happy that cash costs came out at $1.69 per pound of payable copper in the third quarter. I would add that the 17 cent quarter on quarter increase Of that, $0.08 was due to the increase in power cost when compared to the previous quarter, where our power needs needed to be supplemented by the use of diesel generators to keep the plant operational. Turning to Kamoa Kukula's quarterly EBITDA, as shown on the right-hand side of the screen, EBITDA for Q3 2024 was $470 million, and that is Kamaukakula's second highest quarterly EBITDA on record. Due to the relatively low grade copper concentrate produced by the phase three plant, when compared to phase one and phase two plants, Kamaukakula toll treated all phase three concentrate into blister copper at the nearby Luolaba copper smelter to maximize the profitability until the onsite smelter is completed. Where normally sales generally takes place as soon as the trucks are loaded with the concentrate bags. Toll-treating concentrate adds roughly 30 days to the timeline, as the sales are then only recognized when the blister produced by the Lua Larva copper smelter is loaded onto the off-takers' trucks. This increased our copper inventory on hand to 16,000 tons of copper at the end of September, impacting on our EBITDA for Q3. The EBITDA waterfall on the next slide nicely shows the drivers of the quarter-on-quarter EBITDA movements. Q3 EBITDA of course benefited from the increase in copper done sold. This was however more than offset by the decrease in realized and provisional copper prices from the levels experienced in the previous quarter. Logistic charges for the quarter decreased from the levels early in the year, but as I mentioned when speaking about cash cost, power cost was notably higher for the quarter. Assuming equivalent tons, the impact of power on the above EBITDA waterfall was $18 million. And as one would expect, mining and processing for phase three was more expensive in the quarter due to it being in ramp up. Having said that, The EBITDA for Q3 would have been very close to the record EBITDA achieved in the second quarter had we sold all the copper we produced in the quarter, even with the lower copper price in Q3. The next slide shows a snapshot of Ivano's consolidated results. I'm on slide 12. Ivano recognized a profit of $108 million and a normalized profit of $112 million in the third quarter of 2024, with normalized profit basically being flat quarter on quarter. With the last remaining portion of our convertible notes redeemed in Q3, there will be no difference between our profit and our normalized profit in future periods. As usual, our profit for now at least is driven mainly by the results from the Kamau-Kukula joint venture, where our share of profit decreased slightly from the second quarter to this quarter of $84 million in Q3. Although Kapushi commenced production late in the second quarter, sales of zinc concentrate only commenced in the fourth quarter. And we will start to reflect on our results from the next time we have an earnings call. Looking at Ivano's adjusted EBITDA on the next slide, slide 13. Given the environment in the quarter, we are happy with our adjusted EBITDA of $160 million in Q3. However, we continue to drive growth at each of our projects with the majority of the capital for the short-term growth initiatives already spent. So we expect our EBITDA will continue to grow. in the upcoming quarters as we reap the rewards of our past investments. In the near term, we expect that the increased production from Phase 3 at Kamau, as well as at Kapushi, will drive growth in our EBITDA. And then there's, of course, the smelter at Kamau Kakula, followed by Project 95 and revenue from Plat Reef. And we will, of course, not stop there. The next slide, slide 14, shows our guidance for the year, or capital guidance for the year. We have been spending slightly ahead of schedule at Kamoa Kokula, and we therefore expect to be close to the top of our 2024 spending range. And that would mean that our 2025 would then be at the lower end. Spending at Platte Reef will be towards the lower end this year. We had cash and cash equivalents on hand at the end of September of $180 million and have added to our liquidity subsequent to quarter end. We recently closed a $75 million working capital facility of which we have already drawn $40 million and are in the process of drawing the first $70 million of the Black Reef Senior Debt Facility with the funds expected to hit our accounts in early November. We still have very little debt for a company of our size and strength and have a lot of flexibility and many options available to add gearing. And we will continue to do so as needed. I will now hand over to Mark Farren and Alex Picard for the latest updates on our operations.

Thank you, David, and good day to everybody on the line. It's Alex Picard here, EVP Corporate Development and Investor Relations. I will take you through our production results at phase one and two, and then also the progress with phase three that we've been making. What you can see on slide 15 here is another fantastic image of the smelter construction site. I'll leave Mark Farr and our COO to talk about the progress at the smelter. So I'll skip now to slide 16, looking at Kamoa Kokula's quarterly production. So given the ramp up of phase three, it follows that we had another record quarter, as Marna mentioned, in terms of both mill throughput and copper production with 116,000 tons of copper in concentrate. If we break that out now by the two phases, we milled about 2.2 million tons at Kukula at a grade of close to 5%, and then just over 1 million tons at Kamoa or phase three at a grade of 2.6%. At Kamoa in particular, we were feeding quite heavily from existing surface stockpiles at phase three. So about 40% of the total ore volume was coming from stockpiles, and then the remainder is coming from run of mine. This will be a bit of a feature as we continue to ramp up the underground mining rate at Kamoa 1 and Kamoa 2 ore bodies that support the phase three plants. The good news is that we do have a huge amount of flexibility in this regard. We've got, I think, 4.5 million tons of ore that's been mined and paid for effectively, stockpiled on surface at a grade of approximately 3% copper across the complex. It's obviously slightly higher grade at the cooler side and slightly lower grade at the Kamoa-Kantoko side. In terms of the concentrator, we are pleased to say that we achieved nameplate capacity just after the quarter end in early October. I'll come back to that on the next slide. And Marla mentioned the revised guidance for the year, which we announced a few weeks ago, is now 425,000 to 450,000 tons of copper in concentrate. Just to give some context on that, in terms of the impact of intermittent power, particularly in the first half of the year, for the full year to date, we calculate that we lost approximately 36,000 tons of copper production to intermittent power, and well over half of that was in the first quarter alone. But the good news is that going forward, I think the trajectory is very strong in terms of where we are today in order to catch up from the start of the year. And I think we are looking forward to Q4 to be a really strong quarter and hopefully another significant record. As we move into 2025, as Marta mentioned, we're going to be pushing production volumes to get close towards the 600,000 tons and then 600,000 tons from 2026 and beyond. moving to the next page 17 just looking at a bit more detail at the phase three concentrator ramp up um so we commissioned the concentrator in may um we had a pretty good quarter but we achieved the nameplate capacity in early october as i as i mentioned um some real positives here in terms of what the concentrates shown um in terms of its potential to mill significantly above the nameplate capacity so the nameplate is five five million tons per annum We've achieved over 19,000 tons daily recently, which implies 30% over that design capacity. So one of the projects is to really try and lock in this optimized throughput over the next 12 to 18 months with a deep automation program. For the month of October, the recoveries have been around 84%. The recoveries are hampered slightly just because we're feeding all from the stockpiles, as I mentioned before. But we have seen numbers day to day at 86% or 87%. So we are well on track for design there. And then as David mentioned, and just to remind people, the concentrate that we produce at phase three is slightly different from what we produce at phase one and two. Phase three is more chalcopyrite dominant. So the concentrate grade is in the sort of 30%. So what that means in terms of sales strategy is that we've been shipping all of that material to the Lua Lava copper smelter for refining into blister copper to improve the economics. We will continue to do that until we start stockpiling concentrate in anticipation of the smelter commissioning. So that stockpiling will take place from early next year. Looking at the underground ramp up and actually what you can see in this picture is the ore handling system and the main belt that comes out of the Kamoa 1 and 2 box cuts and declines. So this is the exact same ore handling concept that we have at Kukula. It's really the backbone of the underground production and the tons coming out of the mine going forwards. The good news and very recent good news is that yesterday we actually tipped the first ore coming from this system. And so going forward, this will allow us to ramp up the mining rate and notably improve efficiency coming from underground. Currently, all the material from Kamoa 1 and Kamoa 2 has been trucked out of the box cut. And then also, we will be looking to target improved grades toward 3% run of mine over time with this additional oil handling infrastructure. So that's an update on phase three. I'll pass over to Mark Farron now to talk a bit more about power on page 18.

Thanks, Alex. I'm going to cover power in five different areas, and that should give a reasonable summary of where we are. So we took a decision about two and a half years ago to make sure that our power was totally de-risked by adding the the generating capacity on the mine. It's expensive, but at the end of this year, this financial year, we'll have about 220 megawatts of diesel generation on the footprint, which is enough to run phase one, phase two, and phase three under any conditions. So basically, if you have a total blackout, you'll be able to switch in and then run all three concentrators in all three mines. That decision, I think, was a good decision, but obviously it's not something we want to do going forward. Then inside the country, we've been working on a number of initiatives. The one is obviously the G25 unit at Inga to replace the unit and bring it to commission it and then take that power and get it through all the way from Kinshasa into the system and into Oman. That's 178 megawatts. That one will run in about May. Commissioning in quarter one and full steady state, I think, in about May. And then along with that, we've identified and are executing a number of grid stability projects. They're big projects, they're not small projects. Some are at Inga, so there's filter bank projects at Inga itself, and then at the local substation in Kowezi. You've got a DC line that transmits all the power from Inga through this DC line into another switching station in Kowezi. We've got a major project, which is to supply a very modern static compensator and install it. That will run by December next year. And in the interim, we're using what you call synchronous compensators, which we have also, in terms of our engineering and our project management, we are also maintaining and upgrading So through the last year and through this year, we've been working on the network to de-risk and to stabilize the network, to de-risk the projects that we're going forward with and to stabilize that network. In addition to this, import power is very important for us. Not so much for the phase one, phase two, and phase three, but for the further phases that are coming. So for us to grow into, The next phase four, which we'll talk about at the end and potentially, not potentially, definitely in the time coming to execute projects in the Western Forelands, we're going to need more and more power as we grow our footprint. So import power short-term through the Zambian network, Zambian corridor, but some of the power generation comes all the way from Mozambique. Through that network and up to the mine, we have got 65 megawatts at the moment. And agreements that we're working on to increase that in the short term to 100 and potentially 200 through next year, 200, 215 odd megawatts are being offered and will be taken as we grow the footprint. We are also executing a project with one of the suppliers to do a dedicated line through the Zambian Corridor right up to the mining footprint. That's an independent line. It'll take about two years, two and a half years to execute, and that will be an additional 350 megawatts. So if you look at the long-term strategy, in terms of de-risking power, it's fixing the network here, the backup generation is in place, and we are working with wheeling companies and energy suppliers to be able to get dedicated power to Kamoa as we grow the footprint. In addition to this, we've been studying solar for this year, right from the beginning of the year. We're at a final bidding stage at the moment. We're sitting with 11 bidders, each offering between 10 and 30 megawatts. We'll probably end up taking two or three of these bids and going forward with executing some solar projects with storage. That will take place, I think, in the next 12 to 18 months. We all expect to see something. significant solar installations on the footprint, and that can be grown incrementally over the next couple of years. I do believe that solar is another answer that we must, must pursue in addition to the import power and the generation projects that we're doing in the country. So all in all, Alex, we have lost 36,000 tons of copper this year. It did influence a lot our forecast. I believe we put ourselves in a very good position going into next year. And like Mona says, we're aiming in the high 500s. And we have put enough work in place to be able to de-risk this and make sure that we can actually get it. Obviously, we're going to be running the smelter. I'll talk about that again just now, but that's also going to demand some power. But in what I've spoken about now, we've catered for that as well. Carry on to the next slide. Okay, the smelter. I'm going to ask Stephen just to talk a little bit about the smelter, where we are, and the heat drop.

Sure, Mark. So things are going well. It says on the slide 94% complete, so we're almost there. Busy with the last bit of piping and the electrical installation, and we are hoping by the end of this year to be mechanically complete. We're on track for that. It'll take us a few months to heat up, so Q1 2025 heat up, and then first feed by the end of Q1 2025, and then we're hoping for a fast ramp up there. So big project. It's been hard work, but it's going very well.

Thanks, Stephen. Okay, then. The future, I mean, that's what we're here for as well. I think we've gone very fast in building this mine. Phase one, phase two, phase three. They've been ahead of schedule. These concentrators are fantastic. They're all, when you optimize them, it's not going to be a 14 million ton mine, but you can definitely get these three concentrators running at about 17 million tons. And I think it'll be happening in the next two years or so. So that's where I think we're going. Project 95 is in execution. It will be ready and running in quarter one, 26. So that's why I'm going to say from the year 2026, we'll be over the 600 mark. That implementation gives us about 30 to 40,000 tons of extra copper per year. And then phase four, if you think about the three projects taking us to 17 odd million tons, that means phase three is much bigger than the five. So phase three we think is going to be about a six and a half million eventually when we've done some de-bottlenecking. Again, in a year, in two years max, it won't take two years. It'll be less than two years to get that running. And then we're actually working on what does phase four look like? And we'll come to the market, we'll come to you guys by quarter one next year with a proper study, with a proper plan. We're looking at how we're going to sequence it. What are the next priorities? How do we do it with the current power constraints? How do we develop enough power in the area to do it? Chairman Chen, you would have seen, has a plan to get to a million tons of copper. The next steps along the way to me, and I'm going to say, I think there's another two steps here on phase three, phase four. I think there's another two concentrators the size of phase three and potentially getting us to not to 20 million tons here, but probably 30 million eventually. 30 million will leave you, you can work it out yourself, but between seven and 800,000 tons of copper for the next 40 years. So I think that's where we're going, and that excludes the Western Forelands, which is very interesting, and Robert will talk about the Western Forelands as well. So the focus for now is to make sure we get the smelter commissioned properly, that we tap into the value of phase one, phase two, phase three, we get the recoveries up to where they need to be, we get our operating costs down, the smelter will have a massive influence on that, and then obviously the dependence on diesel, David did speak about 10 cents per pound is expensive to run diesel. So the work there is to actually de-risk power over the next couple of months, over the next year, and then make sure that we earn our own right to grow by creating enough power sources and getting stability into the networks, designing the project as we always have, properly and responsibly, and making sure we execute like that. So all in all, I think next year is going to be a great year. Going forward, we are doing a lot of work. We're doing a lot of work to line up the next steps. So somewhere between what I'm saying and what Chairman Chen wants, I think that's our future. There's another couple of steps that we'll be taking. We'll come to the market with those next steps by quarter one next year. Okay, I think carry on. Okay, we're on Western Forelands. I think Robert's speaking to the Western Forelands slide.

Yeah, this is Saudi Arabia coming back on here. So we're in a world that desperately needs copper, and in particular green copper, copper that is produced without the generation of global warming gas. We expect that copper to trade at a premium as we de-risk the hydroelectricity in the country. And we have not mentioned that Angola intends to export 2,800 megawatts or 2.8 gigawatts of excess hydropower to the DRC. That would be the final killer. That would be enough copper in this part of the world to produce 5 or 10 million tons here of copper. So we are limited more by the availability of stable hydroelectricity than we are by our ability to find more copper. We told the world we're going to drill 70,000 meters in the western forelands this year. We've drilled over 63,000 of those, so we'll definitely make that target. And we're now up to 11 rigs turning. So it's quite exciting to go out there by helicopter and land in that camp because Makoko is really the largest copper system found in the world in the last 10 years. that is not Kamoa or Kukula. So there's no exaggeration in the claim that the Western Forelands system is the best place in the world to find high-grade copper resources that can be mined in a green, safe, and mechanized manner. And of course, the future of our company, in large measure, is also in the Western Forelands, which is wholly held by Ivano Mines and a few minority pieces. This new piece of land that we acquired, and we don't sometimes think it's really in our interest to say too much about what we're doing in the Western Forelands because some of this license acquisition is somewhat competitive, but this new piece of ground, which is almost as big as the joint venture area we have with Zijin Mining at Kamaukakula, is in a very attractive exploration area based on our 20 years of experience in the Western Forelands. So we're putting two rigs on that right now out of the 11 rigs. And we're drilling 24 hours a day. And we've made provision to drill through the wet season. South of us, the Zambezi River system has been experiencing drought. That's putting a lot of pressure On some of the Zambian operators, they also have to import power to Zambia from Mozambique. So we're hoping that it starts raining to build up the southern grid. The Congo watershed has had plenty of water. It's a different watershed. And so our hydropower is very well backed by the waters in the Congo River. We have a giant mining conference held here in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia yearly now. It's the Future Minerals Forum. It's been graced by top management from Rio Tindo, BHB, Tech Corporation is coming this year, and others. And so we look forward to that in early January. It's a very good time for us to be talking about what we've been finding in the Western Forelands. We'll have the entire mining industry there, a lot of state-owned actors. And we also... we'll be in a position to update the market about our sister company, Ivano Electric, which has been drilling here in Saudi Arabia. So January is the start to the new year. It's not far away. By then, we should be seeing our third phase three concentrator running at full speed. And we really look forward to either an earlier, slightly late Christmas present for our shareholders when we tell you what we've been doing at the Western Forelands. But I'll repeat. There is no place on this planet as attractive to find copper metal. A, the acquisition cost is incredibly low. If we look at the monies we've spent to find copper, it's a penny or two a pound finding cost for high-grade resources. And these high-grade resources are blessed because they're in a region with hydroelectricity, no ice, no snow, No need to burn coal. It's ridiculous to burn.

Robert, we've lost Robert.

Because the hydroelectric power is coming to scale and the Lobito corridor. Sorry. Am I back? Am I back? So the last comment to make is the Lobito Corridor is downhill. We're at about 4,500 feet elevation at Comocacula. So an electric train going west to the Atlantic Ocean will actually generate electricity going downhill to the ocean. So the Scope 3 emissions, once that railroad is up and running, and we will use it next year, will even further place this copper complex as the greenest copper complex on planet Earth. And by the way, that also applies to capuchin. So I'll now turn this over to Alex or Mark to talk about the ramp up of our capuchin zinc germanium copper mine. Thank you.

Thank you, Robert. Okay, capuchin, I'm just going to touch on it. It was a mine. It was obviously flooded for a long time. We dewatered it. We built it now. It's a fantastic, beautiful zinc mine. It's a very high-grade zinc mine. And we've got the concentrator running. I'm going to ask Steve to comment on how we battled a little bit with commissioning. But the underground mining is very, very good. We've got a lot of surface stockpiles. The mining conditions are fantastic. And I invite anybody to come and have a look at a very modern, beautiful underground mine. Steve, just comment a little bit about how we battled on the... In the beginning with the commissioning, and then I'll talk some more.

Yeah, sure. It wasn't easy. Initially, we had some metallurgical stroke, mineralogical problems. We thought we were depressing pyrite. We were actually depressing zinc, so we weren't floating anything. Anyway, fortunately, that's behind us. We also had some issues with excess fines in the run of mine. So we sort of had to get our heads around how to cope with that, which is also behind us and a number of other odds and sods that crept up. I think the good news is we're on the up now and things are going well. Our recoveries are well north of 90. Our congrade is very, very saleable, well north of 50% zinc. And our plan is Q1 next year to reach nameplate. So definitely all the issues behind us and going from strength to strength.

Maybe just to close it off. So we did battle a bit with commissioning. It is running very nicely at the moment. There's a couple of pumps and there's a couple of areas within the plant that need to be upgraded. By quarter one next year, pretty much, we'll be on what the feasibility number was. And then you can see there on the last bullet, we're aiming to go 20% above that. We will definitely go 20% above that. We know the infrastructure can do it. We've ordered the pumps. We've ordered the switchgear. It's all up and it's going to be going by quarter three next year, 20% plus and well north of what we plan in the feasibility study. So it's a good project. It's an exciting project. It's going to have a very low cost because it's a very high grade mine. So by far the highest grade zinc mine in the world. We run it about 33%. The feed grade next year is 33% plan. And I think the average across the world is about seven. So it's a small mine, but it's a wonderful mine. And a lot of good work has gone in there. And I invite anybody to come and have a look and see what a world-class mine looks like. Thank you. Alex, are you going to talk about Platte Reef?

Yeah, thanks, Mark. I'll close out the presentation. I'm looking at slide number 24 where you can see the impressive shaft number two head frame at Platte Reef. So, in terms of Platt Reef, we really discussed this before around the commissioning of the phase one concentrator. We took the decision to defer that commissioning. Sorry, I'm just hearing the background noise. We took the decision before to defer that commissioning until later on in 2025, and the target of that was to focus instead our efforts on shaft development and the underground development ready for the Phase 2 expansion. In terms of that, we actually hit a significant milestone, I think it was this weekend on Saturday, where we hauled the five-meter diameter shaft number three from 950 meters underground. So we will now move to equipping that shaft to be ready for hoisting from early 2026. And that will take our total hoisting capacity from around one million tons today from shaft number one alone to about five million tons per annum. You can actually see that in the picture. It doesn't look like much compared to the shaft two head frame in the foreground, but where you see the blue crane in the background, that's the top of the raised ball from 950 meters for shaft number three. So once we have that shaft hoisting, that basically provides the platform to build the phase two concentrator. And with the phase two concentrator, that's when we really get meaningful production scale and also cost benefits in terms of economies of scale at Platte Reef. We're targeting roughly 400,000 ounces of PGM production plus significant nickel and copper, just reminding that about 25 to 30% of the revenue basket at Platte Reef is coming from these base metals. At the same time, we are completing the initial race for within the larger shaft to headgear that you see on the page. And that will be completed this year. Shaft number two is what drives the further expansion to 12 million tons of hoisting capacity. And that unlocks the phase three expansion and the potential to produce roughly a million ounces of PGMs. All of this work is being updated in a feasibility study that we're working on now together with a PEA or scoping study, which includes the expansion case and phase three. That study will be published early on next year. So with that, I will conclude the presentation and hand over to Matt Keeble to chair the Q&A.

Thanks very much, Alex, and management. Yeah, we'll move forward with the Q&As. As mentioned, you can insert a question into the text box on the webcast as well as use the phone line. First and foremost, we'll go to the phone line. Operator, could we please move over to those waiting on the phone, and we'll move through the phone questions, and then we will field any webcast questions. Thank you very much.

Sure, and as a reminder, to ask a question, you need to press star 101 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please. Press star 1-1 again. One moment for our first question. Our first question comes from the line of Oris Guaokado from Scotiabank. Your line is open.

Hi, good morning. I realize your updated mine plan for Kamokakula will be out in a few months, but I'm wondering if you can give us, I guess, a sense of when you currently anticipate phase 4 of coming into the plan and whether we should anticipate that to be moved up from the previous plan, which I think had it around 2030.

I think it's too early to give you an answer. We're looking at different scenarios. I did speak about it last time that we potentially will do the front end and start treating the old tailings to take out that additional 7% copper that's sitting there and then ramp up the workings, the underground resource. Also, we have some open pits which we're studying. We ourselves don't have a definitive answer of that exact timing, but there's definitely a phase four. I don't speak to you about the size. You can work around sizing it and sequencing probably two more plants over time, but most probably we still need to internally make sure that we're happy with the final profile. Alex, I don't know if you want to add to that.

I would maybe just add, Mark, in terms of what we published in the last integrated plan. Aris, you correctly said I think we had phase four coming in 2029, 2030. I mean, I would view that as let's say the long stop date, it certainly is not going to be any slower than that, much more likely to be accelerated.

It'll definitely be ahead of that, Joe. Yeah, I agree.

Okay, perfect. And just to follow up as I could, I mean, obviously a very perspective in terms of the Western Forelands. I'm wondering from a strategy perspective, from when you think the right timeline is to bring in a JV partner, or do you want to proceed on a 100% basis indefinitely?

I think that's a Robert question.

Yeah. Is Robert still on? Robert? Not hearing Robert. We get this question a lot. I think the landscape for Ivanhoe Mines has really changed and we don't necessarily have to bring in a partner on the Western Forelands. If we do bring in a partner, it must be compelling. It must be a partner that would add something to I Have No Mind. But we are definitely geared to go at it alone. And we will certainly not do a deal at the wrong time in the value cycle. So I think, you know, it's sort of an open question if we will bring in a partner at the Western Forelands.

Thanks, Margaret. Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Lawson Winder from Bank of America Securities. Your line is open.

Thanks very much, operator, and good morning, Ivano team. Thank you for the update today. Could I ask about Western Foreland, actually? And you mentioned that you've actually done some drilling and I think gotten some results at the Sakonama and Lubutis Ubudi targets, are there any similarities to either of the existing Western foreland mineralization that you would observe or share with us of either Makoko or Kitoko or Kiala?

Mark, I'm back on here in Saudi Arabia. I want to finish the previous remark about speculation about partners. I don't think we want to tell you that we need a partner, and I don't want to tell you that we don't need a partner. We don't negotiate in the media, and there's really no worry. Nothing really turns on that question. We're in a very strong financial position. We have no debt, and we're going to tell you about more about the Western Forelands in January. We have a board of directors to consider what the right thing to do is, but It is the world's preeminent exploration area. It could be divided into little pieces. It's an enormous area. It doesn't take a very big area to host an incredible amount of copper metal, given the grades. And so let's just ask the questioner to exercise a little bit of patience, and we'll file this under to be continued. Thank you.

Thank you. One moment for our next question.

Well, I think, Operator, Mark, if you had lots of that, a quick question on geological similarities between the areas, if someone would like to field that one.

Yeah, so both those two are new. There is work going on on both of them, very new work. They're all highly prospective, like Robert says. They're very prospective. And, you know, as we drill, it's just... Very exciting, and that's about all I can say. Just very new. There is focus there. We will develop this footprint over time. But there's much more than one or two mines in that place.

Thank you. And our next question comes from Andrew Megachuk from BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Thank you. Maybe a question for David or someone else. what would be the trajectory or expectations for dividends coming back from, um, Kamoa to, uh, Ivanhoe in the balance of this year or into next year?

Yeah. Thanks. Thanks, Andrew. I'm happy to take that. Um, I think firstly, I'd note that we are past our spending peak at Kamoa Kukula. And then also that, um, we are negotiating or, um, drafting new anode offtake agreements and those as those are being finalized we do expect that they would include a sizable advanced payment portion that and then the the increased cash generated by by Kamau's operation will give us pretty nice flexibility to flow funds upwards and on on your question I think more specifically, I think on our agreement with the DRC government is that we distribute 20% of our distributable accounting profit upwards as dividends. So we do expect that to occur in 2025. Just a clarification note on the 2024 dividends. And so the dividends declared in 2024 has for now only been flowed up to Kamawa Holding and not all the way up to Ivano Mines and Jejin. And that's just to maximize flexibility for Kamawa, noting that, I mean, that might still be sent upwards if Kamawa has excess cash. Yeah, so looking at the current forecast, we do expect, for dividends in 2025 to flow up all the way. And then, I mean, if there's cash flow generated exceeding Kamauakakula's operational requirements and what it needs for approved future growth project, then that excess cash will be utilized to start the repayment of shareholder loans under the current agreements in place. So I know it's not a definitive answer with an exact date, but I think that does give you a bit of a framework to make your own assumptions, Andrew.

OK. And if there's time, could somebody just briefly comment on the scheduled drilling in South Africa on the licensed and neighboring flat reef in terms of timelines and what to expect, please.

The Mokopani feeder? Yes. So we're doing, at the moment, we've defined the target areas. There's three of them. We've mobilized the drilling contractor, and we're engaging with the community. So that process is almost finished. Patricia Capesha, what's her name? Capesha, what? Patricia is one of our VPs. She's busy helping us with that. And we believe that those holes will start being drilled in quarter one next year. Potentially this year, but I think quarter one next year. Perfect.

Well, thank you very much. I'll pass the microphone to the next questions.

One moment for our next question. Our next question will come from the line of Carlos de Alba from California. MS, your line is open.

Yeah, thank you very much. Just a very quick question, maybe for Marna or Alex. You mentioned that in 2025, copper production is expected to be maybe slightly below or close to 600,000 tons. That could be a wide range or a wider range.

We've got a bit of an echo there. We will put out guidance. We will put out guidance towards the end of this year where we will give you a narrow range. We just wanted to guide you to the fact that it might be slightly below 600,000 tons for next year. And then we'll definitely be 600 and above in 2026 once we've completed Project 95. But we will provide a more definitive number in due course.

Fair enough. Thank you, Myrna.

Thank you, Myrna.

Yeah, sorry, just to add, that guidance will be when we announce our Q4 production numbers. So it'll be kind of first, second week in January.

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Daniel Major from UBS. Your line is open.

Hi there. Yeah, thanks for the questions. Just a few from my side. Yeah, the first one, your sales come a bit below production, the 16,000 ton build in inventory this quarter. Would you expect a reverse in Q4 or carry into 2025? And then the second part of that question, what would be the expected concentrate inventory build during the smelter ramp up? So what should we expect as a gap between production and sales in 2025?

So for the quarter four, we will reverse it to concentrate sales. And in ahead of the smelter rent, Ahead of the smelter ramp-up, we'll stock probably 30,000 tonnes of copper equivalent, and that will halve as we ramp up the smelter. We think there will be a lock-up of about two weeks or 15,000 tonnes continually ahead of that smelter at steady state. We believe steady state will be quarter four, so quarter three, 75%. Quarter four, we're hoping to get 100% capacity going. and then lock up about two weeks of copper, 15,000 odd tons. OK, so 15,000 over the full year. Next year. So this year, we'll wipe out the deficit. And next year, we'll probably lock up about 15,000, roughly.

OK, thanks. And then the second one, Alex, you mentioned we'll get the guidance update for the group with the 4Q production update. Robert, you mentioned around the resource update at Western Portland. When should we be expecting that? Is that kind of with the production numbers or later in the quarter?

We'd like to make you as nervous as possible. Christmas comes once a year. We might do it at Christmas. We might wait until we come to Saudi Arabia in January. We might wait for the BMO conference in February. We'll do it when we feel like doing it. We'd like to keep you on your toes. We don't want to keep you fully satisfied.

Okay, fair enough. Thank you.

I mean, we have 11 rigs turning, man. Like, you know, think about that. There's nobody on planet Earth with 11 rigs turning in high-grade sedimentary copper. So I think that's enough for now. We love you, though. We love you, though. Don't take it personally. It's just... You know, good things take a little bit of time, you know, and your mother taught you to be patient when you were a kid. So let's just exercise a little bit of patience and at the right time, we'll have more to say. We just acquired some really important ground in the Western Forelands. I want to emphasize that our understanding of the geology there is better than anybody on the planet. So we know what to acquire and getting ground in the Congo through the regulatory process and getting it properly licensed and and bet it down, it's not easy. It has to be done right. And then you have to build roads out there and infrastructure and camps. But we'd love you to come out there and take a look. I think you'll really enjoy it. We just had an institutional tour, and I can assure you it was extremely well received. So come on out, and we'll show you what we're doing with your own eyes. We'd like that.

Sounds good. Thanks.

Thank you. Thank you. I'm not sure any further questions at this time. I would like to turn it back over to Matthew Peeble for any further questions.

Thank you, Operator, and thanks to all our analysts for the great questions. In light of time and our slightly delayed start, again, thank you so much for bearing with us and your patience. I think we'll wrap the call up here for today. If there were any questions unaddressed, please do reach out to the IR team directly at www.ivanhomines.com, and we'd be happy to answer them. But once again, thanks everyone for joining us, and we look forward to providing some very exciting news as we move into the fourth quarter in 2025. Thanks, Operator.

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Everyone have a great day.