Good morning, and welcome to the Allkem 2022 Full Year Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press the star one again. For operator assistance throughout the call, please press star zero. Finally, I would like to advise all participants that this call is being recorded. Thank you. I would like to hand over to CEO and Managing Director, Martín Pérez de Solay, to begin the call. Thank you, Paul, and welcome everyone, and thank you for joining us today for Allkem Limited financial results for the year ending 30 June 2022. I will provide an update on our very successful merger, our operations, project execution, growth strategy, and the lithium market. Also filling in for our CFO, Neil Kaplan today, is Chief of Staff, Christian Cortes, who will present our financial results. We'll be going through a slide deck. On slide number four, I am pleased that we have achieved the record financial result in the first year of the transformational merger of Orocobre Limited and Galaxy Resources. The merger has generated substantial value through a combination of outstanding operating assets and development projects. We have restructured our business around our global portfolio, and we continue to strengthen the management, operating and development teams by attracting the highest quality personnel. Through effective management, the group has significantly improved safety performance and achieved record production at both Mt Cattlin of 194,000 tons of spodumene concentrate and Olaroz of 13,000 tons of lithium production. We enhanced our sales contract terms with our customers and continued to improve product quality and maintain our lowest-quartile cost performance. As a result, we have been able to capture the benefit of the higher lithium prices to deliver record revenues of AUD 770 million and EBITDA of AUD 513 million. With our robust balance sheet, including cash and cash equivalents of AUD 664 million and two revenue-generating operations being supplemented by new operations in financial year 2023, we are fully funded to deliver our global growth pipeline. New developments and expansions are expected to see the business expand threefold by 2026, with the aim of maintaining 10% market share as the lithium industry continues to grow with increasing adoption of electric vehicles. During the year, we advanced all our development assets. Olaroz Stage 2 has now reached over 91% construction completion, designed to deliver an additional 25,000 tons of technical grade lithium carbonate product. In line with our strategy to diversify our product offering to customers, we completed construction of the Naraha hydroxide plant and commissioning is underway. We are well advanced and commenced the construction at the Sal de Vida Stage 1. We also completed feasibility studies on three development projects, which include a 2.5x increase in the interim Olaroz resource to 16 million tons of LCE, making the combined Olaroz-Cauchari resource of 22.5 million tons, one of the largest in the world. A 40% increase to Sal de Vida production capacity to 45,000 tons per annum in two stages and a 10% increase in the resource to 6.85 million tons of LCE. The James Bay project economics demonstrate a very competitive hydroxide project that gives us a unique access to the high-growth North American market. On slide number five, there has been a clearly material step up in the scale and cash flow of the business over the last two years. The next two years represent another step up in the business where we can expect to see first production and ramp up of the Naraha and Olaroz S tage 2, Sal de Vida Stage 1, Sal de Vida Stage 1 construction and first production with sequential development of Stage 2 and the construction of James Bay. In addition to this, we have further growth opportunities in the earlier stages of development, which I will discuss in further detail later in the presentation. This includes Olaroz S tage 3, James Bay Downstream, and optimization projects in Argentina. Firstly, sustainability remains a core focus in Allkem's journey, and we continue to be recognized for our leading ESG practices. Not only did we deliver a record production volumes as we continued to successfully operate within our COVID-19 biosecurity protocols and improve our overall safety performance, achieving a TRIFR of 2.6 for the rolling 12-month period. This is a reflection of our focus on excellent operational management, despite increasing our global footprint, operational and construction activities. Further, you can expect us to continue working with all community stakeholders to create long-term share value through areas such as local employment, education and procurement. We also continue to advance our strategy to deliver responsible products in respect to climate change and human rights. I will now hand over to Christian to go through our financial results. Thank you, Martín, and good morning to everyone. I will take you through the financial results slides starting from page eight. Following the merger and substantial increase in lithium carbonate and spodumene prices, Allkem achieved record revenues of AUD 770 million. Which is substantially higher than prior years. With the strong revenues and effective cost control measures at Mt Cattlin and Olaroz, delivering some of the lowest cost lithium produced in the world and very strong EBITDA of AUD 513 million, with a profit after tax of AUD 337 million. Cash on the balance sheet has been boosted to approximately AUD 664 million, with a combination of cash added from the merger and strong free cash flow generated during the reporting period. Moving on to the next slide. Record revenues of AUD 770 million, with Mt Cattlin contributing approximately AUD 452 million for the 10-month period post-merger, and AUD 293 million from Olaroz. EBITDA of AUD 513 million included Mt Cattlin's contribution of AUD 336 million and Olaroz's contribution of AUD 220 million respectively. Spodumene average CIF unit sales price of $2,221, compared to $415 for the prior period, and lithium carbonate FOB unit sales price of $23,398 in FY 2022, compared to $4,983 in FY 2021. Disciplined cost control in a challenging environment of inflation, with Mt Cattlin's operating unit cost of $420 and cash margin of 80%, whilst Olaroz's unit cost of sales of $4,282, approximately 11% higher than prior year, due to inflationary cost pressures and a higher sales mix of battery-grade lithium carbonate, also delivering record high cash margins of 82% for the period. Higher depreciation and amortization costs relative to prior year was due to the addition of Mt. Cattlin's operation. This resulted in a record profit before interest and foreign exchange of AUD 463.1 million. Net finance costs are lower to prior year, mainly due to reduced interest rates for a large portion of the year and reduced Olaroz debt outstanding balance. Income tax expense of approximately AUD 93 million, representing an effective tax rate of 22%, has benefit from AUD 64 million of previously unrecognized tax losses brought into the balance sheet, partially offset by foreign currency movements and hyperinflation in Argentina. Net profit after tax of AUD 337 million included AUD 38.5 million of once-off costs related to the purchase price allocation and transaction costs associated with the merger. Moving on to the next slide. Profit performance bridge to prior year pro forma EBITDA include a very strong pricing increase for both spodumene and lithium carbonate, delivering revenue increases of approximately AUD 600 million, which, after taking cost variances for the period, delivered a very strong increase of approximately AUD 495 million of EBITDA during the period. Improvements on product quality, focus on cost control, and renegotiation of sales contracts and record production were key in delivering the increase in profits. Moving to the cash flow and balance sheet. Cash on hand at balance sheet date of AUD 663 million was up by AUD 405 million compared to prior year, which includes AUD 210 million added from the merger and the net increase of AUD 195 million generated during the period, which is attributable to a strong operating cash flow of AUD 475.6 million, partially offset by CapEx spend of AUD 261.4 million. Cash balance also includes AUD 7.9 million and AUD 83.9 million, which have been set aside as pre-completion guarantees for Naraha and Olaroz, with the AUD 83.9 million related to Olaroz available for Allkem to fund CapEx, VAT, and working capital related to the Olaroz Stage 2 expansion. Bank debt of AUD 228 million relates to the project finance for Olaroz, which will reduce to approximately AUD 210 million in September. Working capital facilities were fully repaid during the year in Argentina. CapEx spend of AUD 261.4 million mainly relates to the progression of Olaroz Stage 2, Sal de Vida, and James Bay projects. In summary, record revenues, EBITDA, and net profit after tax, a robust balance sheet with cash on the balance sheet to fund the pipeline of projects, and an expectation of a very strong financial year ahead of us. Thank you, and I will pass back to Martín. Thank you, Christian, and I will now provide an update on our operation, starting with Mt. Cattlin. On page 13, we achieved record revenue of AUD 452 million from sales of over 200,000 tons of spodumene concentrate at an average selling price of $2,221 per ton CIF for the period. Despite rising prices, we remain focused on strong cost management. As a result, high gross cash margin of 81% was achieved for the year, in line with low cash cost of production of $420 per ton. Excellent operational performance was due to favorable head grade and improved processing rates and recoveries, particularly in the first half of the financial year. Toward the end of the year, the operations commenced transitioning from the Northeast pit to the Northwest pit, where pre-stripping works continue. Challenges arising from COVID-19 and the Western Australian labor market continue to impact operations in WA, including Mt Cattlin in the September quarter. Mitigation mechanisms have been implemented and will deliver progress in Q2 financial year 2023 and into the second half of financial year 2023. These include the mobilization of an additional mining contractor and the replacement and upsizing of mining equipment with the existing mining contractor that was implemented in August, and the installation of magnetic ore sorters to allow processing of low-grade stockpiles to be commissioned at the end of September. As a result, financial year 2022-2023 production forecast has been revised to 140-150 tons of SC6, and production is expected to increase across each respective quarter with an average cost of approximately $900 per ton. This deferred production will be partially offset by the sale of 130,000 tons of lower grade spodumene concentrate to existing customers in the first half of financial year 2023. We recently increased our mineral resource tonnage by 21% to 13.3 million tons at 1.2% grade, principally reflecting the application of a 1,100 pit shell at 6% lithium oxide concentrate grade compared to the $900 per ton using the 2021 estimation. We're also making good progress with our resource extension drilling to test immediate extensions to mine life. We're about 40% through the program with 60 holes completed to date and over 14,000 meters of drilling, and we will provide an update of results in the September quarter. At Olaroz, on slide 14, we achieved record profitability driven not only by stronger pricing, but focused cost control and strong operational management, which delivers stable, high quality production with an improved sales mix of 54% battery grade and better price realization. Record revenue of AUD 293 million reflects a 341% increase in revenue from the prior year, largely due to an average FOB pricing increase of $176-$23,398 per ton. The material increase in revenue was only partially offset by industry-wide inflation. Our gross profit margin remained very high at 82%. Now I'm moving to the project execution of our development assets and other projects that we are advancing to unlock further growth. On slide 16, we are focused on executing our growth pipeline to triple production. To do this, we must optimize our operations and deliver our development projects while we minimize the impacts of the pandemic and other global challenges. In addition to this, we're investigating a number of value-adding growth projects, including advancing studies on Cauchari-Olaroz Stage 3 and James Bay Downstream. The soon to be acquired Maria Victoria Tenements and advancing the James Bay Downstream project. The expansion at Olaroz is well advanced, with overall construction at 91%. Ponds are complete, permitting is full and final and filled with brine. Lime plant number 3 is complete and commissioning. Lime plant number 4 is near completion. The soda ash plant is nearly complete, and the carbonation plant has reached construction progress of 69%. First production of Olaroz Stage 2 is anticipated by the end of this calendar year. On slide 19, at Naraha, we successfully and safely completed the construction activities during the year in the backdrop of the global pandemic, and commissioning activities are well underway, with first production expected early in the December 2022 quarter. This project will provide exposure to the high-value lithium hydroxide market, with production expected to be around 10,000 tons per annum. Sal de Vida, we are leveraging our skills from Olaroz and construction is progressing well, with the first two strings of ponds at Stage 1 at over 32% completion. During the remainder of this calendar year, we are focused on commissioning the first two strings of ponds and commencing the construction of the carbonation plant. First production from Stage 1 is expected by the second half of calendar year 2023, and Stage 2 development will occur sequentially after that. At James Bay, we have signed an agreement with Hydro-Québec, and we are progressing our regulatory approvals in anticipation for construction commencing in early 2023 calendar year. We will commence a drilling program in the December quarter to determine the upside potential of the resource that remains open to the north, south, east and also at depth. James Bay Downstream provides an opportunity for a cornerstone regional processing facility to serve the North American market. We have been investigating locations for a conversion plant in Quebec that will be in close proximity to rail and other infrastructure that will deliver material economic advantages. Capacity will be linked to James Bay's spodumene production and potential resource expansion with the optionality to process third-party ore. A pre-feasibility study is on track for completion in Q1 calendar year 2023. The Olaroz and Cauchari resource is one of the largest in the world, and with a recent agreement to acquire Maria Victoria Tenements, provides further potential to unlock significant development pathways for Olaroz Stage 3. We're currently reviewing the development options for Olaroz Stage 3, assessing a substantial increase of production capacity for Stage 3 above the previous studies, and advancing ongoing studies for conventional and alternative processing technologies. On our continuous improvement projects on slide 23, we will discuss our dedicated purification facility. We have a clear strategy to capture in as much of the chemical supply chain as possible to maximize return for our shareholders. As such, we're progressing an additional dedicated purification facility to supply increasing demand for battery grade product. This may be located near Jujuy, which would benefit from a lower altitude, proximity to services, contractors and land and labor, thereby reducing Olaroz CapEx costs. Currently, we are completing a Class 3 estimate engineering package, which is expected to confirm lower costs and better sustainable performance with increased carbonate recoveries. This project would allow Olaroz Stage 1 to become a dedicated technical grade facility with which would increase lithium carbonate production by 30%-40%. The enhanced brine recovery is progressing and applicable to both Stages 1 and 2 of Olaroz. This would likely see the lithium recovery in primary processing increase from 75% to approximately 95%, resulting in additional production. Currently, we are reviewing and piloting processing options with a combination of our standard technology and new technologies. We expect results to have high return on investment and add material value and aim to complete a feasibility study for the end of the first half of calendar year 2023. We're also commencing studies on the local supply and manufacture of key reagents to meet increasing requirements with higher production at both Olaroz and Sal de Vida. The objective is to develop self-sufficiency and maintain lowest quartile costs. Options are being considered for the development of Allkem-owned land properties located in the northwest of Argentina. Moving on to the lithium market on slide 26, we are seeing a strong ramp-up of brownfield expansions, but this is still unable to reach surging demand. In immediate and long term, we expected the market to remain tight. Customer demand for electric vehicles remain resilient despite changes during the year, with global EV sales up 71% from the prior year and up 123% in China from the previous year. Prices rallied to new record during the year, and our marketing efforts maximized our financial year 2022 realized pricing and revenues. Our strong customer relationships back our long-term contracts. At Mt Cattlin, demand in the spodumene market remains robust and spodumene concentrate pricing in the September quarter is expected to be above $5,000 per ton CIF. At Olaroz, we successfully restructured our contracts, phased out from favorable commitments to capture higher realized pricing in line with upward pricing momentum. Average pricing for the lithium carbonate is expected to be in the $47,000 per ton range for the first half of financial year 2023, excluding Naraha feedstock. Following the merger of Orocobre and Galaxy, we have had record-breaking operational, operating and financial results. We have also successfully accelerated our growth projects to meet our target of tripling production by 2026. We will strive to continue delivering excellent results by optimizing our operations, executing our development assets, and advancing our growth projects. The industry supply and demand profile requires new development projects, and we are in a very unique position with a clear growth strategy and with further upside to deliver the scale and the product flexibility required by the customers as the world transitions to a net zero economy. We will now move on to the Q&A session. Thank you, all speakers. At this time, I would like to remind everyone in order to ask a question, press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. In the interest of time, we do request a firm limit of three questions per person to allow everyone on the call today the opportunity to participate. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Speakers, your first question comes from the line of Reg Spencer from Canaccord Genuity. Your line is open. Thank you. Good morning, guys. Congratulations on a very good FY 2022 result. My first question relates to your guidance for pricing in the September quarter of $47,000 a ton for Olaroz production. You mentioned that it excludes Naraha, which I presume relates to, you know, buildup of inventory ahead of commissioning there. Can you let us know what kind of net impact that might have on pricing? Thank you, Reg. Christian Barbier will answer your question. The guidance I gave was for the first half, not just for the second half. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Yep. Yes, Reg, this is Christian Barbier speaking. Thanks for your question. Look, it doesn't really have a material impact. We're supplying technical grade feedstock to Naraha, and as such, we thought it is more appropriate and more representative to continue to report prices on the carbonate that we sell in the market. What we see is quarter-on-quarter, an improvement in our weighted average carbonate prices. That's what we also wanted to report in this half year guidance of $47 per kilogram. Okay, excellent. Thank you. Second question relates to Mt Cattlin. You mentioned that you'd be looking at selling a hundred odd thousand tons of low-grade concentrate. What kind of pricing should we expect for that material? Should we work on an implied pricing based on a 6% benchmark? Look, Reg, first, it's about 130,000 tons of this low-grade concentrate that we're planning to sell during the half year. We reported a price range of between $500-$600 per ton for this product. Now, if you make your own calculations, you will see the grade of this product is within the range of 1.1%-1.3% LI2O. It is a significantly lower grade product to the SC6 that we normally market. Okay. I presume given that, the production costs for that material are gonna be beneath an expected selling price. Of course. Yeah, yeah. We will not sell. The reason also we're doing this is because we wanted to complement the LI2O units to our customers in order to continue to supply important LI2O units. Reg, adding on that, it is a very profitable operation that we're undertaking. Understood. Last question is for James Bay. I'm quite interested in your comments on the sizing of the downstream there to handle any expanded resource or third-party feed. Are you in a position to guide us as to what kind of total capacity that might be? I know there's a lot of work to be done, and you've got a completed pre-feasibility, but you know, should we be thinking about linking that directly to implied capacity based on James Bay or something materially larger than that? Listen, you said the answer yourself. It's a lot of work yet to be done on that project. What we are seeing is a tremendous potential for James Bay to go beyond its currently expected production, and that's why we are undertaking this drilling program to prove the resources in the areas north, south, and east of the current pit shell of the current pit shell design. That will tell us what the definitive capacity is there. We see a tremendous opportunity in the Canadian market. It's not just us, but there are many other projects that are arising in the area that we see them being smaller in terms of total capacity and head grade, which will require further processing capacity. We also see a tremendous demand in the hydroxide market in the U.S. building up. As a consequence, we are including and factoring in these opportunities into our feasibility study. Understood. I have to agree with you on the potential in Canada there, so I'll pass it on. Thanks very much, guys. Thank you, Reg. Your next question comes from the line of Al Harvey from J.P. Morgan. Your line is open. Good morning, Martín. Just to follow up on the carbonate price guidance, wondering if you could give us the split of battery grade versus primary grade there, and maybe any guide on the transfer price between Olaroz and Naraha. I'll ask Christian to answer the details on your question. The split is going to be very similar to what we've seen this year based on the contracts. Yes, Al, at the moment, the split is about 50/50 between battery grade and technical grade. As the Olaroz expansion will kick in, the technical grade will increase in proportion to about 75% of the carbonate production. Thanks for that. Again, maybe another follow-up on the lower grade concentrate coming out of Mt Cattlin. Can you just reiterate who is taking that product and yeah, how does that make money? Would be quite expensive to ship and whatnot. Can you just step us through that? Yes. Well, we have a number of converter customers in China, which is the main market for converting spodumene at the moment. These people are able to process lower grade concentrate as well as what I mean 6% LI2O concentrate. Basically, these are the same population of converters we are supplying to or we are in discussions with at the moment. In terms of prices, you know, bulk shipments between Australia and China are about $80 a ton at the moment. With the prices that we've reported, this is still a very profitable product. Is the 1.3% concentrate essentially like direct shipping or like you have some high-grade stockpiles, or does it go through the plant and take the same yeah processing to get it to a concentrate? Let me introduce Keith for this answer, which is more technical. Al, it's Keith, thank you for your question. I just wanna highlight that out of the 130,000 tons that we intend to sell this half, we've already shipped 30,000 tons of that. It's a combination of legacy stockpiles on site as well as material that's coming through the process plant at the moment. About 50% of what we're intending to sell is coming currently from the process plant, so it's a stream that we are tapping into that we haven't previously done. Then, 50% of that material is legacy stockpiles that we are basically just taking to port and shipping. Great. Sorry, guys. Just my final one there. Just looking at the Mt Cattlin resource, that's gone up, but reserves haven't moved up as well. When can we expect that larger resource base to convert into reserves? Alex, Keith again. The depletion that we have reported is the mining depletion over the last 18 months since the last report on the 31st of March, 2021. We're expecting to complete the resource infill drilling, as well as the resource expansion by the end of this financial year, and then we will update the resource and reserves early in the second half of FY 2023. Thanks, Keith. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Hayden Bairstow from Macquarie. Your line is open. Hi, guys. Just a couple for me. First one, just on the ramp up of Olaroz. Just keen to understand your percentage of battery grade you're expecting or how quickly you can get that to. I guess the original target was closer to 100% on Phase 2. Just to understand, you know, what we should be factoring in during the ramp up phase in terms of moving to full battery grade product. Well, it's Olaroz Stage 2 is designed to produce technical grade lithium carbonate, not battery grade. That's why Christian was mentioning that once Olaroz Stage 2 kicks in, we will see the technical grade production going up while we will maintain the same level of sales of battery grade production from Stage 1. What I referred earlier in the projects we're looking into, we're seeing a very large market for battery grade growing and we are thinking of other options to maximize production of battery grade going forward so as to meet customer demand. But Stage 2 is 100% technical grade facility. What are the options to go to battery grade? Well, the options to battery grade is Stage 2 will produce a technical grade lithium hydroxide that will be converted into battery grade hydroxide in Araxá. I said before, we're analyzing a larger purification facility at a more convenient size. We will result in lower costs and increase production from Olaroz facilities, both Stage 1 and total output of battery grade. Yeah. Okay. Then on James Bay, just the discussions with the government, et cetera. Is that more likely gonna shape as a fully integrated project into a hydroxide? Or do you think it'll be initially a spodumene project that you'd sell into the European market or North American markets and then look at downstream later on? This has always been the same. The current approvals and discussions with the government are for an upstream spodumene project. We are now working on the downstream project that will take the spodumene and convert it into hydroxide for the U.S. market. Given the timing, the approvals, and the starting of construction of the upstream project in the first quarter of next year, we expect to sell some spodumene into the U.S. and European markets for a few years until we get the downstream facility up and running. Okay, just a final one. Just on the technical grade conversion to battery grade or through hydroxide, can you just give us an idea of how long that actually takes? If we look at production coming out of Olaroz to getting through to battery grade product and then delivering it to customers, I mean, how much additional time does that add to the production pipeline, if you like? Well, that's not an additional time to the production pipeline itself because it's basically running the same purification circuit that we're running today on our product, on more product and finding a better location for our purification circuit to be able to operate it at further lower costs. That project is currently being analyzed, and we will not see the battery grade volumes increasing. It's exactly the opposite. We shall see battery volumes increasing as we start to Produce from this purification project, which is currently in the studies stage. Okay, thanks for that. Cheers. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Alexander Papageorgiou from Citi. Your line is open. Alexander, your line is open. Alexander, just checking that you're there. I guess we'll move to another one. We're just going to return Alexander back to the queue. Your next question comes from the line of Clarke Wilkins from Perpetual. Your line is open. Hello? Oh, hi. Sorry. It's Kate at Citi. Is my line open now? It is. Hi. Hi, Martín. I'm not sure what's going on there. Thanks for the call. Guidance for Mt. Cattlin. Can you just talk me through what happened such that you've had to revise guidance around 30 days after it's been set? Were the metallurgical issues a surprise? Why have you had to reset total material movement assumptions so soon? Thanks. Yes, Keith. Sure. It's Keith. I'll take that question. During the first quarter, we anticipated to process a small transitional lens that we first intersected in the upper portion of the ore body. This first lens turned out to be a fine grain spodumene material, which is not able to be processed through the plant in its current configuration setup. In addition, the delays in pre-strip from the previous calendar year following the COVID restrictions in WA has limited our ability to open up more than one mining phases and then has restricted us to access further ore deposits and a better higher grade coarse spodumene ore body that we're anticipating to now open up in the second quarter of this financial year. You previously said in June quarter you've expected carbonate pricing for September quarter of around $41,000. Is that still the case? You used today's weighted price for the half of $37,000. Yes, Kate. This is Christian Barbier speaking. Look, yes, we gathered these prices in reality during the current quarter. Our weighted average price, we expect to be a little bit higher than previous guidance and continue to have a quarter-on-quarter increase. The $47,000 per ton that we have indicated are the weighted average over the half year. You can consider it will be slightly lower in this September quarter and slightly higher in the December quarter. In both cases, it will remain above the guidance we gave for the quarter. Yes, absolutely. Yep. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Mitch Ryan from Jefferies. Your line is open. Good morning. I've just one question. Just wanted to clarify, are the lower grade sales from Mt. Cattlin sits outside of the existing, the revised guidance? Yes, it is. Yes. That previously would have been accounted for as waste? Well, that's other product material being sold, I guess. Mitch, yeah, this is Christian again. We were not selling this product before. As Keith mentioned, it's a combination of some existing stockpile and some product stream from the plant. It is not something that we were marketing until this current quarter. Okay. Thank you. That's it for me. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Max Vickerson from Morgans. Your line is open. Thank you, guys. Just firstly, quick question on lithium hydroxide prices as Naraha is ramping up. How relevant are things like the LME benchmark in terms of your pricing? Max, the first thing is we intend to produce battery-grade hydroxide from Naraha. However, it will take a few months to first adjust the quality, but also to have the product approved by battery grade customers. There is no battery-grade hydroxide spot market. All battery-grade hydroxide customers are buying on long-term supply agreements. During the first few months, until the product is approved, the battery grade product is approved, we'll be selling hydroxide technical grade basis on the spot market. Progressively we'll be transitioning into multi-year supply agreements with customers we have started conversations with. Excellent. Thank you. Just another question on your carbonate pricing. Sorry to maybe be a bit thick here, but when you're talking about the split between battery and technical grade, excluding the Naraha feed, can I just be really clear there? Is that 50/50 split taking into account what's already going to Naraha? Should we assume that, as you mentioned, the Stage 2 technical grade is what's going to feed Naraha? Production is about 50% technical grade, 50% battery grade at the moment. Now, we are starting to supply some quantities of technical-grade carbonates to Naraha in order for them to have a feedstock to process when the commissioning starts. Now, the Olaroz Stage 2 expansion will produce technical grade, which will be the main feed to Naraha. Does that answer your question, Max? It does, yeah. No, that's great. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Lachlan Shaw from UBS. Your line is open. Morning, Martín and team. Great results at the Mt Cattlin. Just a few questions to clarify some things from my side. Just on the Mt Cattlin downgrade, what confidence have you got that the steps you're putting in place around remediation, mobilizing additional contractors, can deliver the progressive step-up in production there through this FY? Morning, Lachlan. It's Keith. We've not only put those steps in place, it's already really operational. The additional mining fleet upgrade has started mining this week, and the key personnel and equipment of our second mining contractor is already on site, and they will be operational in the first week of September. In terms of confidence for the mineralogy of the rest of the ore body, we've got a number of diamond drill core holes that we've analyzed in the upcoming ore feed, and they show no signs of fine-grained ore. It is limited in information in terms of core drilling, but there's about 12 holes that we've looked at in a very small area that we're mining, so we're quite confident that the mineralogy will return to what it has been in the past. Okay, great. Just moving across to Olaroz now. Just the enhanced recovery project. You know, do you have a sort of sense or insight around timing of that if all goes to plan? I guess just a question, once installed, would it be, you know, an instant sort of ramp-up in addition to recovery there, or would it take some time to start getting that through? You know, this is a chemical plant and ramp up of chemical plants are never immediate. It takes time. What we are looking there is improving the recovery from the carbonation reaction and be able to transform more lithium chloride into lithium carbonate through a second step of stage of recovery. We are completing the technical piloting for the project. We expect to have a DFS in the first half of next year. Construction should not be very difficult, but it's always a construction, 4,000 meters, right? You have to consider that. On the back of that, it's a simpler plant as Olaroz, but in any case, you have to remember it's a chemical plant, so it requires fine-tuning of parameters and else. This ramp-up is never immediate. Once we have the DFS ready first half of next calendar year, we will be able to get more details around ramp-ups and expected how we expect to reach the maximum production from that facility. You know, when you look at the increased production, this is basically getting more product from the same brine using the same evaporation ponds. It's just adding additional value to the project by improving recovery. It looks very attractive. Great. Thanks, Martín. One final one, just on the purification facility. In Jujuy, is that an addition to the current circuit on site, or would that be relocating the current circuit down to Jujuy? Then just in terms of the impact on volume for the 30%-40% lift in technical grade production, is that just sort of share of overall production, or is that allowing Stage 1 to get towards notional nameplate of 17,500 tons per annum? Thank you. It is that. Basically by when you move the purification circuit to a more favorable location, we get improved purification results, and we increase the throughput of Stage 1 to reach its nameplate capacity by producing 100% technical grade. That will not only increase production of Stage 1, but will also increase production of battery grade throughout the plant because we'll have more tons of technical grade to be converted into high quality purified battery grade. Which is, if you remember the quality of our purified product, is quite high since we run the second crystallization. Got it. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Matthew Frydman from MST Financial. Your line is open. Sure. Thanks. Morning, Martín and team. Firstly, on the outlook for Olaroz, unless I've missed it, you haven't provided any guidance for production or cost. I'm guessing that's maybe because you might be thinking about How are you going to incorporate the ramp up of Stage 2 over the year. Can you at least give us a sense of what you're expecting from Stage 1? Is flat production and costs at Stage 1 versus FY 2022, is that a fair base case to consider? Anything else that we should be thinking about that might change that view? You know, maybe the mix of technical grade production or anything else that's going to drive costs or production versus taking FY 2022 as a base case. Yeah. Thank you for your question. Your answer is within your question. The reason why we've not provided a guidance is because we yet have to factor in how the ramp up of Stage 2 happens into the overall production of the plant. When you look at Stage 1, as you have seen, we have continuously improved year-over-year the performance from Stage 1, not only increasing the quantity of battery grade, but also increasing the total throughput of the plant while keeping the costs well under control. That is going to be the case for this current financial year with regards to output of Stage 1, we continue to improve. As you know, the movement between the exchange rate and the devaluation in Argentina may create some short-term movement in the costs, but in the long run, costs at Olaroz Stage 1 will remain in similar levels of competitiveness, taking into consideration increased production and increased battery-grade production. Got it. Thanks, Martin. Secondly, maybe this one's for Keith, but the legacy stockpile material that's forming part of that low grade product, just wondering how much of that legacy inventory that you have, and I guess, you know, with the 100 kilotons of low grade shipments, would that fully consume the remainder of what you've got in that stockpile? You know, and then at that point, if you wanted to continue selling this low grade product, it would just be from this tailing stream. Yeah, wondering if you can give us a sense of how much material is there. Thanks. Thanks for the question. Once we sell this 130,000 tons, that would not consume the full stockpiles that we have at the moment. Not all that material is suitable to be shipped, so we haven't done the work to fully understand exactly how much of this sits in reserve. We've only been able to access those that we are very familiar with the quality and we don't wanna take any risks to ship something that we do haven't tested before. Got it. Thanks, Keith. Just finally, I guess another one on realized prices for Olaroz that you've quoted at $47 a kilo. Just wondering what assumptions in and around market pricing are embedded, I guess, in that guidance. Or maybe to put it another way, you know, if spot prices are flat for the next three months, can we expect an ongoing repricing of sales into Q2 that would be positive for realized pricing relative to that guidance? Yeah. Well, Matt, this is Christian. Thanks for this question. You've probably seen that if spot prices have remained relatively flat over the last six months, the weighted average contract prices have continued to catch up and to increase, and this is what we've taken into consideration looking at the pricing formulas of our long-term supply agreements. We haven't factored in dramatic increases in spot prices. We believe the market will remain tight. And we know the mechanism of our contracts allows for a continued improvement. Got it. There's already some element of ongoing repricing, obviously, to get that weighting between the Q1 and Q2 in your expectations? Yep, correct. Okay. Thanks very much for the question. Your next question comes from the line of David Deckelbaum from TD Cowen. Your line is open. Thanks, Martín, and everyone for taking my questions this morning. I wanted to follow up a bit on the spodumene sales. Seems like implied in the guidance that you should be exiting the fiscal 2023 year close to 50,000 tons in the fourth quarter. I know on the last update you provided us, you said that you should see growing volumes, obviously, into 2024 as head grade improves. Obviously the back half of the 2023 year is gonna benefit a bit from some perhaps deferred sales. As we think about the trajectory, I guess, into fiscal 2024, is that 50,000 tons or more or less close to capacity? Is that a reasonable run rate to think about on a quarterly basis? Keith, this is you. Sure. We'll see the head grade return to approximately 1.04 over the life of mine. At the current nameplate capacity of the plant, which is approximately a throughput of 1.8 million tons, that's a quarterly run rate of approximately 45,000-50,000 tons of spodumene at about 5.6%. Yes, we can expect to see around the 45-50 each quarter going forward into FY 2024 as well. Thanks for that. Just the last one for me is just on Olaroz. You discussed some visions around Stage 3. Can you give us some thoughts on timing of when you'd be able to speak to the market around Stage 3 plans? And it sounds like you're considering incorporating the Maria Victoria Tenements in there. Is that accurate? Yes. Listen, let's start with the Maria Victoria Tenements. It's the agreement to swap Borax for Maria Victoria gives us a great opportunity to increase our reserves and resources in the area, increasing the potential of production from Olaroz Stage 3, and it would be more brine concentrated in the same area. As said before, we are currently working on the technology selection for Olaroz Stage 3, including all of the Olaroz assets, Cauchari-Maria Victoria and other properties that we have in the area. As we said, we are looking into hybrid solutions here. We don't foresee 100% DLE system. We don't foresee 100% evaporation system. We're looking into a mix of hybrid solution that would maximize the profitability and return on the project, as well as minimize the environmental impact and focus on sustainability in the area. As I told you before, we are piloting and testing different technical solutions. We expect to be better positioned on the technical side by the end of this year, and that will help us to get our DFS in the first half of next year. Appreciate that. Maybe if I could sneak in one more, since you guys are being generous with allowing three questions. It was interesting to me that I'm good for the next one. You brought up. Yeah, fair enough. In the States, we only get two, so I'm gonna take a third here. In your guidance for spodumene sales, in the subsequent quarter, obviously somewhere in that 20,000-ton range, you know, you highlighted the operational issues at Mt Cattlin, and obviously the incremental volumes of the lower grade spodumene. You know, we've read a lot in the headlines around power rationing for converters in China. I guess as you see the market today, is that something also impacting volumes? Or is the converter market in China sort of being prioritized with some of the energy rationing as you see it? Yes, David. Thanks for bringing this issue up. It's an interesting development, the acute drought in China impacting the power supply. We've been in contact with our customers on almost a daily basis over the last couple of weeks. What we've heard from them so far is that it is still the lithium supply that is constraining their production rather than the power supply. However, yesterday, one of them was talking to us under 41 degrees in his office without air conditioning. It is progressively affecting them and we're very closely monitoring the situation. Inventories of cathodes are low in China. Basically, the tightness remains. What we see is this probably will further increase the interest of consumers for electric vehicles because this historic drought in China, combined with what is happening in Europe and in North America is pushing consumers to move away from internal combustion engines into EVs. Again, to go back to the converters in China, at this stage, they are still tight in spodumene supply and asking for more material. That's an interesting point. We're more constrained on feedstock than we are on energy right now. I appreciate the update. Your next question comes from the line of Ben Lyons from Jarden. Your line is open. Thank you. Good day, Martín. Just one question from me, and it's probably more directed at Christian. Sorry to belabor the low-grade Mt Cattlin concentrate point, but I'd just like to approach this one and question the wisdom of the marketing strategy. To me, that essentially sounds like DSO, given your resource grade's 1.2% lithium and your reserve grade's close enough to 1% of the deposit, and you're basically selling a 1.1% product. If I think back a couple of years, it was sales at DSO, albeit from other market participants, that actually killed the cycle. You know, there's very few merchant vendors of concentrate at present. It's still a highly concentrated market. I get that converters in China are currently short, and they'll still be short next quarter, and they'll still be short the quarter after. You're selling a product at $500-$600 at a really skinny margin. You know, you compare that to selling a spec product at ten times that price. You know, can this material actually go through the concentrator and be upgraded? Or is it essentially waste that you're just tipping into the market and, you know, probably impacting the price for your other product at the moment? Thank you. Yeah. Thanks for your question, Ben. Look, this is not DSO. Very clearly, this is not. We're not shipping ore that we mine. This product is a combination of waste material and a product stream that has gone through the plant and that could not be upgraded into SC6. We've actually developed a lower grade product, which is a good way to supplement our SC6 production, but would not otherwise become SC6 in our own product stream. Our current head grade is below 1.1 because of the geology of the pit that we're mining at the moment. The product that we are currently selling, this lower grade spodumene concentrate is of different grade. The range is probably between 1.1 and 1.3 at the moment, and we're getting credits for every 0.1% grade above what the agreed price with our customers. This is Martin. To complement Christian's answer, this is not a long-term strategy. This is a solution that we're putting together with the finalization products that we're processing through the plants and finding a way to support our customers through a difficult cycle. If we had other assets, Keith was explaining, say we have other ore sources that would enable us to produce SC6, we would be doing that. It's not a change in strategy at all. It's a short-term solution to support customers and minimize the impact of the short-term problem that we found in the upper layer at Mt Cattlin in this quarter. Is that clear? Yes, it is. Thanks very much for your response. Presenter, your final question today comes from the line of Al Harvey from JPMorgan. Your line is open. Thanks for the follow-up, guys. Really just still wanna get on top of this, the low-grade product. You've called it a SC, like a kind of SC6 equivalent, but is the mineralogy actually spodumene? Is it a diluted spodumene, or is it kind of a stream that's coming from mica materials or lepidolite? If you could provide any color there, that'd be helpful. Al, it's Keith here. Yes, it is indeed a spodumene product. It is fine-grained spodumene, so the ability to process this in your typical DMS setup is diminished. However, with flotation or other processing technology, you would be able to beneficiate this fine-grained material. Short answer is yes, it's still spodumene. Thanks, Keith. There are no further questions at this time. I would like to hand back over to Martín to conclude the call. Thank you very much. Thank you, everybody, for joining the call. There is a very sensitive closing remark for us. Today is one year since we announced the merger between Galaxy and Orocobre. As you know, it has been a challenging but quite rewarding year for all of us. The merger has proved that together we did better than both companies would have done independently. This is the road that we continue to go ahead, as our motto says, "Together we go further." Thank you very much for all of your support during this particular year, and we share with you the happiness of our first anniversary. Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.