Good day, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Lynas Rare Earths' Quarterly Results Investor Briefing. 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 need to press star one one on your telephone. You'll then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Lynas Rare Earths. Thank you. Please go ahead. Good morning, and welcome to the Lynas Rare Earths' investor briefing for the quarter ending 30 June, 2023. Today's briefing will be presented by Amanda Lacaze, CEO and Managing Director. Joining Amanda are Gaudenz Sturzenegger, CFO, Pol Le Roux, COO, Daniel Havas, VP Strategy and Investor Relations, and Sarah Leonard, General Counsel and Company Secretary. I'll now hand over to Amanda. Please go ahead, Amanda. Thanks, Jen. Good morning, everybody. Q4 results, which, of course, means it's the end of the year. I'm really pleased that even accommodating for our significant investment in growth, that we have finished the year with just over AUD 1 billion still sitting in cash, which means that our continued growth plans are very secure. Just turning to the quarterly itself, despite really a much lower market price, I think this is a really excellent result, driven by our record operational performance. As we look at that, we really can see the value of the Lynas incumbency in this market and the fact that we have facilities which are in place and which are operating really very efficiently. Just turning to production to start with. 1,864 tonnes for the quarter is a record. It's our second record in a row. As we look at this financial year, which has just passed, in the first 6 months, production was significantly lower as a result of external disruptions to our ability to operate, most specifically the outage caused by the lack of water in Malaysia. The second 6 months of the year shows what we can do when we're not troubled by some of those external factors. It really was an excellent performance at the plant, but also well worth recognizing that at Mount Weld, we also broke records in terms of concentrate production, with sufficient produced to feed the record production in Malaysia and also to accumulate inventory of concentrate ahead of the startup of our Kalgoorlie facility. The record production outcomes means that we have been able to secure supply for our major customers ahead of any of the transition challenges that we've covered previously, if and when we are required to move from a sole cracking and leaching facility in Malaysia to operating our cracking and leaching facility in Kalgoorlie. As we look at market conditions and the market prices, we have made a choice that we will now hold additional inventory, once again, as safety stock on that, but also because today, with the price where it is, we feel that it's prudent that we hold that inventory for what we believe will be an inevitable uptick in the market as economic conditions, particularly inside China, improve. Major projects are operating on each of our sites. I think we always spend quite a lot of time thinking about Kalgoorlie, of course, because it's such a substantial new facility. We do have major construction activity occurring on each site. At Kalgoorlie, we are very busy. I was there just over a week ago, and we still have a lot of people on site finalizing all the last parts of the plant ahead of our first production. In Mount Weld, we've really broken the back of all of the major earthworks and had some really substantial progress as far as, you know, sort of early pours, our early cement pours, and we're actually seeing that, that expansion starting to take shape on the footprint, you know? Once again, I was out there just a week or so ago, and looking at, the site is really very exciting. You know, I mean, we've been operating with a very small facility now for a decade, but this is really a significant step up in terms of our processing capability, as we move forward. In Kuantan, we often don't really reflect on the scope of the work which is being done as part of the introduction of mixed rare earth carbonate as a feedstock, in addition to the lanthanide concentrate that we feed to Kuantan at present. That receival facility, we have taken the opportunity to also include some operating enhancements to continue to improve efficiency of the Kuantan site as we move forward. Because as we see with the current price scenario, we need to be able to be successful even when the price is lower. That's included some enhancements around things like soda ash loading and unloading, as well as a sulfate removal circuit, as well as a new initial solvent extraction circuit, which is going to allow us to continue to drive improvements in site operations. Finally, everyone will have seen from today's report that we have named the site that we have purchased in Seadrift, Texas. It's just, it's in Calhoun County, not far from Victoria. I visited the site some time back. It was previously part of the close by Dow site. As neighbors, they will be, we believe, an excellent, excellent neighbors. They've already shown themselves to be very welcoming, and there are opportunities for us to enhance operation at that site as it's constructed, utilizing some shared capabilities with our neighbors. It would not be proper to not reflect on the fact that we're very disappointed that we've had three lost time injuries during the during the quarter. One each at Mount Weld, Kalgoorlie, and Kuantan. We really are taking the opportunity to pursue very clearly initiatives on each site to remind our people that safety must always be prioritized over any of the other deadlines or production outcomes that, that we're driving to achieve. I'm sure that many would like me to make some comments about the licensing situation in Malaysia as well. Of course, during the quarter, we received the six-month variation to our existing license, which sees us able to continue to import and process lanthanide concentrate through to the end of this calendar year. You would have also seen that last week, we lodged our application for judicial review of the two appeals that we had lodged with the Ministry Minister and which were heard in April. We believe that these are very strong, and, you know, we're pleased that Malaysia offers excellent processes to get proper reviews of these types of decisions. And so we're commencing that process now. Alongside that, and I think much more importantly, we're spending a lot of time aligned with various departments within the government and various leaders within the government to really look at the opportunity to focus on industry development in Malaysia. The development of industries which are based upon rare earth materials is something that is well-recognized as value-adding for an economy in, well, of course, China, but Japan, the U.S., Australia, the EU. I think that, you know, Malaysia, and many in Malaysia who may not have put their minds to this so much previously, really now understand what this opportunity is for Malaysia and the unique opportunity that having the Lynas processing plant represents. Really focusing on, on opportunities to enhance the Malaysian economy development, as far as rare is concerned, is as important for us as the fact that we have launched those judicial review proceedings last week. With those as starting comments, I'm very open, of course, once again, to questions. Just key points, you know, the most important, I think, is really the operational performance. Record production levels at both of our current operating sites gives us great confidence as we look to the future in a market that we believe will continue to grow and will continue to grow, not just in terms of demand, but also in terms of value. Happy to take questions, or my colleagues, Gaudenz, and Daniel, and Sarah, and Paul are also happy to take questions. Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask questions on the phone, please press star one one and wait for your name to be announced. If you'd like to cancel a request, you can press star one one again. Please stand by while the questions are being collected. The first question comes from the line of David Deckelbaum from Cowen. Please go ahead. Good morning, Amanda and team. Thanks for taking the questions this morning. Hi, David. Hi there. I just wanted to, to follow up on some of your prepared comments about stocking inventory. It seems like there's a combination of factors at work here, one just being, maybe the timeliness of a, of a weak market that you anticipate getting better. Just, two, I'm just curious what, what your expectation would be, I guess, in the ensuing quarters? Any guidance you can give on how much sales would be impacted relative to where you were in this Q4 as you start stocking inventory to, to sort of maintain volumes for key customers? Yeah, it will be noticeable, but not really significant. I mean, our key customers continue to have demand, which is, you know, amongst our really sort of key customers, it's at least 75%-80% of what we produce. We will continue to do that, but where we might, in other circumstances, actually allow some inventory build within the, within the, the, the various, you know, sort of supply pipelines. We feel that it's prudent at this stage to hold those within our own facilities rather than have them sitting in the pipeline. That makes sense. You know, as, as my follow-up, I was hoping that you could talk a little bit about just the Kalgoorlie commissioning process and the timeline there. You know, recognizing, of course, that, you know, you're at some final stages, I guess, in finishing construction there, and you did say that this was sort of part of one of the considerations or paths of, of timelines that you're looking at. I, I guess, how, how are you thinking about that progression towards getting to where you want the facility to be going into this, this next fiscal year? I think everybody knows that we always had very challenging timelines on Kalgoorlie, which were, you know, quite arbitrary, really, based upon some of those license conditions which were set previously in Malaysia. And our focus has been on ensuring that we have the productive capability, even if we don't have every last bit, you know, like at new buildings and those sorts of things, finalized. And we're in a good place as far as that's concerned now. We only have one critical path element left on the project, and that's the waste gas treatment plant. You know, we're, we're substantially, I mean, like, I think, I think 99% complete on structural and mechanical, and we're in the piping and electrical phases of that project. Now, because that sits as a, as, as a separate plant within, within the area, we are able to complete our commissioning on all other parts of the plant, but we do need that plant finalized before we can start the heat up cycle on the kiln. We expect that to be within, within weeks, but, you know, we, we certainly, you know, as, as we've said, we're continuing along this path, but as well as that, we need to make sure that we're not putting our people at risk by having too many people working in too small an area, which is basically our comment about, you know, sort of workforce availability. Thanks, Amanda. I appreciate the answers today. Terrific. Thanks, David. Thank you for the questions. One moment for the next question. Next from the line, we have Dim Ariyasinghe from UBS. Please go ahead. Thanks. Thanks, Amanda and team. Yeah, congrats on the strong operational result. Just a question, maybe following up on David, in terms of the inventory: Am I right to assume then that we can expect inventory to continue to build while the NDPR or the rare earth price complex is depressed? Maybe if you could just help us with any other considerations, like how much capacity, you know, you have available to build in maybe relative terms, and, yeah, anything on that? Sure, sure. As we said, you know, we have contracted volumes within a number of our key customers, which, you know, we will need to continue to serve through this period of time. With many of those, we have a price-... adjustment mechanism, which means that if the price does go up whilst we have, even if we have material sitting in the pipeline, we will be able to adjust for that price. Then we always have had a proportion which is sitting at around about 20% to maybe 25% of what we produce, which is available for sale, not into the spot market, but we have more demand from, you know, non or customers who are contracted but not at, assured volumes, than we actually, you know, sort of, supply on an ongoing basis. We will not, as I said, we've made a choice that with some of that, we will not supply at the lower prices, but we will hold that material until the price starts to improve. Yeah. Thanks. That makes sense. I guess then, just a follow-up question, then I'll maybe rejoin the line. It sounds like, you know, I sincerely hope there's a question of, when, not if, maybe could you help us in terms of, like, when you think prices could pick up again? Like, is it the H2 production quota? Maybe help interpreting the tea leaves, please. Oh, yeah. Well, we, we all have our inside liners. I don't think any of us have ever had consistent winning bets on what's gonna happen with the price of rare earths. Having said that, yes, I think that there's much written about the softness inside the Malay- inside the Chinese economy. We do believe that that will pick up, and there will be additional stimulus into that economy. We also see that the softness actually is in... It's, it's different across different segments of the market. We still see, you know, sort of the primary driver of, you know, sort of growth in electric and, and hybrid vehicles continues inside China as well as outside. Some of the other applications which can be you know, a little more optional, you know, the, the, the rate at which they grow. Things like, yes, there's been a bit of slowing of use in, in the wind turbine segment and in things like industrial automation or, or in, in China, you know, sort of home, home applications like new air conditioners and those sorts of things. Really, I think that that's going to as, as some of those conditions pick up, particularly inside China, we'll see, we'll see the market price start to pick up. Yes, I think also what happens with the second half production quota will also affect confidence levels in, in the inside China market. Okay, cool. Thanks. That's fair. I'll rejoin. I wish I could give you a, I just wish I could give you a, crystal ball, a forecast which was correct, but I can't. I think that, what our, position on this has always been, is that the long-term settings of the market remain r- really very positive. That, we need to be in a position where we can be successful if the market price is low, and we can be very successful if the market price is high. Understood. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you for the questions. Next question comes from the line of Paul Young from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Morning, Amanda and team. Hope you're well. Amanda, great to see record production from LAMP and also Mount Weld. A question, first of all, on LAMP. Producing a run rate of 7,500 tons per annum in the quarter. Have you tested-- I'm just curious about what you think the current capacity actually is. Have you tested all the bottlenecks in the refinery? And, you know, I guess, from a long-term perspective, where do you think you'll take rate of capacity to on LAMP as well? Oh, yeah. Look, I, I think that it's, I'm happy for Paul to respond to this as well, and since he's got up, he's in France, and he's got up at 2:00 in the morning, I should probably give him a chance to talk to make it worthwhile getting up. I got to say, you know, that looking at what the team is able to achieve, and that we did still have some downtime for various pieces of maintenance during the quarter. You know, it, I, I think that we see that we've got a little bit more that we can achieve out of this. How far we take production at the LAMP, of course, is going to be dependent upon further discussions with the Malaysian government with respect to the license conditions. To step up production by, you know, we've, we've got a, an industrial plan for the site, which we have put on hold at this stage as we await some of the decisions on the license. Certainly, we're able to step up production initially by 50%, and then by 100% for relatively low cost at the LAMP, given that we have the facility to operate the whole of the plant. Why don't I invite Paul to make some comments? Because it's his team that's delivered this outstanding result. Paul, are you there? Okay. Maybe the line didn't go up. Go ahead. Oh, no, he's there. I know. You spoke before. Thanks, Paul. Thank you for the questions. One moment for the next question. Oh, hello. Yeah, go ahead. Oh, sorry. I'm still, still here. Thank you. Sorry, I thought Paul was gonna speak. Amanda, he might have some technical difficulties his side. Can I just move on to Mount Weld? Sure. The record production there. I think your rated capacity is, you know, on an all throughput basis, is 240,000 ton per annum. That's under environmental license. I think you generally produce, give or take, you know, 60,000 tons of concentrate per annum, so 15 a quarter. Just to put it in perspective, you know, what, what does record production mean from Mount Weld? Does it, does it mean 20,000-25,000 tons of concentrate in the quarter? Look, actually, Paul, I, I'll need to get Daniel to come back and actually confirm those numbers for you. Because I, I just wanna be sure we're talking apples and oranges, because we tend to think about this just from a contained tons basis. Yeah, the REO contained basis rather than a total throughput. I'll just, I'll, I'll just get him to come back and, and do that. Suffice to say that, you know, the objective is to make sure that each of our supply stages is aligned. You know, your point, Paul, which is that, can we get it some even further incremental improvements in the lab? We are focused in the same way at Mount Weld to continue to get incremental improvements there. As we're doing the work on the expansion, we have prioritized the areas where we will be able to improve Mount Weld operations. The current bottleneck is the dewatering circuit, and that will be the first part of the expansion that comes on board. We won't be able to make the jump from the equivalent 600 tons to 1,000 tons of NDPR per quarter in one go, but we will get some steps up as we actually release some of the bottlenecks. Yeah. Okay. That's great. Obviously, it gives you the flexibility, Amanda, if Mount Weld's running well. I'll, I'll, I'll chase Daniel on that data. Just last question on this round is just on the back on Kalgoorlie and the commissioning there. You know, you're commissioning the back end of the circuit on the mixed rare earth carbonate, sorry, from or concentrate from LAMP. That's good. Just on the front end of the circuit being the kiln, and you mentioned about the commissioning the kiln in September with the waste gas circuit being completed. With respect to the kiln, commissioning, does that do I infer that, that, yes, you're pushing through first high grade, direct high grade ore or, or Mount Weld concentrate through the kiln in September? Just, I'm just curious about your experiences of running the kilns in Malaysia and commissioning there. What, what sort of typical sort of process or, or timeframe did it take to sort of commission the kilns there and, and ramp them up? So it's, it's, Paul, it's an, it's an interesting comparison, but not, not all that useful. I mean, it's useful, and, in fact, we've brought the team down who've already done this. They're, you know, we've got quite a lot of our Malaysian team either already on site or going to be there shortly. You know, when, when we think about the heat-up cycle for the kiln in Kalgoorlie, it's much shorter than the initial heat-up cycle a decade ago in Kuantan. It is more like, you know, we see with the, with the way that the plant's been designed, it is more akin to if we take our, our kilns down, say, for major maintenance or something like that, and they go completely cold in, in Malaysia, then the heat-up cycle that we get after we bring them back up is going to be more like the heat-up cycle here. We're estimating that at, that at some, you know, at less than a couple of weeks, where, I think the initial heat-up cycle, yes, it, in, in, in Malaysia took longer than that. Remember, there was 4 separate kilns, and we certainly had issues there with specification of materials on that front end, which have been addressed at Kalgoorlie. Okay. All right, Amanda. Thanks very much. I'll leave it there. Thanks, Paul. For the questions. One moment for the next questions. Next on the line, we have Regan Burrows from Bell Potter. Please go ahead. Yeah, thank you. Good morning, Amanda, and team. Congratulations on the good result there. Just perhaps leading on from Paul's question before, just so we get the timing right. Just in terms of the mixed rare earth carbonate production now sort of targeting September. Yeah. Just in terms of sort of final production out of the end of the plant, I think last time we spoke, you said roughly 2 weeks to get it up to Malaysia, and then another 2 weeks to flow through LAMP. Are we sort of thinking October, November production coming through? We certainly think that it's gonna be in, yeah, in the next, in, within this half year. I think that the speed with which it comes out the other end, comes down to the speed of the ramp up. As I think I've said to everybody here previously, ramp up trajectory is inherently unpredictable. We have a number of scenarios. Under some of them, you know, we ramp up really quickly and efficiently, and under others, we find ourselves with some challenges to deal with along the way. One way or another, we expect we will be getting first production at the other end, within, in the, in the Q2 of this year. Yeah. Great. Okay. That, that's, that's good. Sorry to sort of go back to this question, but just in terms of the sort of preferential, in terms of the stockpiling. Are you sort of preferentially stockpiling more NDPR, or is it other areas? Is there anything, I guess, you can give us in terms of the breakdown of that stockpiling? Sure. It's, it's, it's NDPR and SEG, which is the heaviest compound. The lanthanum and cerium, we will continue, despite significant oversupply in China, we're pleased that lanthanum and cerium demand for our materials, particularly our, you know, sort of higher-grade materials, has remained very strong. We always have plenty of lanthanum and cerium, it's really the NDPR and the SEG that will hold. Yep. Yep, that's probably gonna be roughly 10% per quarter if you sort of take- Maybe a bit more. going forward. Maybe a little bit more. Maybe a bit more. Yeah. Yep. Okay, cool. Just finally, if I could squeeze one in, just on CapEx. Obviously, CapEx picked up a little bit this quarter. Just in terms of your overall guidance for the expenditure from Mount Weld and Kalgoorlie. I assume Kalgoorlie is mainly done, and it's just now focusing on Mount Weld. Just thinking, I guess, how you're, you're approaching the remaining cash balance after you've completed the expansion of Mount Weld and those adjustments to LAMP. You've got a fairly, fairly robust cash balance there. Just sort of thinking about the strategy from how to best deploy that. We still have quite a lot of construction ahead of us, so, as part of the growth plan. This year's cash is pretty much in almost, almost exactly in line with the guidance that we provided last year on CapEx. It was for about AUD 1.2 billion over the financial year just finished and the financial year ahead of us. We haven't varied that. There can sometimes be a bit of movement between different projects and, certainly we won't know the final cost of Kalgoorlie until we've done all the variations. I think everyone on this call understands that that's part of project. The other thing is, so we'll see that. We get some pluses and minuses across, you know, sort of across it, but, but the, you know, envelope that we've indicated, which is the $1.2 billion in capital over the two-year period, remains, remains current. We'll update that if, if, if we see that there's any significant change. Great. I'll, I'll leave it there. Congratulations, and, we'll speak to you soon. Thanks. Thank you for the questions. Our next question comes from the line of Reg Spencer from Canaccord. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning, Amanda. I've had some connection issues, so these questions may have been asked already. But I was wondering whether you could provide some comments on what you expect the Kalgoorlie ramp-up profile to look like relative to your concentrate production from Mount Weld. Again, apologies if this has already been asked earlier. I'm not quite sure I understand the question. However, suffice to... I, I think that the short answer is: we won't have any disruption to the ramp-up schedule at Kalgoorlie, based upon supply of concentrate. At Mount Weld, we have built a significant supply of concentrate. We've done a first test that will now be moving that material in rotainers. We've sent a container to, to Kalgoorlie and back and, and, you know, sort of tested it, tested its flowability and all of those sorts of things. Mount Weld have, have built the stock which is required to ensure that we have no disruption to the Kalgoorlie ramp-up from availability of raw material. The other thing, which is pretty exciting, is that our silos of various of the raw materials required for start-up have now got product in them. You know, we've received and, and are storing the various different reagents and other chemicals used in the process. That's, that's another part of the commissioning, of course, but making sure that we've got that material on site. As people would have seen, you know, even with the fact that we've had to implement an LPG gas solution ahead of resolving some pipeline gas issues, we've got the first fill of that occurred as well. The site is, you know, progressively very well prepared for this, you know, final commissioning and startup. You know, we remain, we remain cautious in making any statements about it because any ramp-up is, is, inherently unpredictable. Okay, great. Thanks. I, I, I guess my question was really more about where your target capacity utilization relative to your concentrate production from that. Well, noting that, that expansion there still got a little bit of time to go, but I, I, I take your point, Amanda. Thanks for that. Maybe I'll follow up offline. My second question relates to rare earth market outlook. I think this is the first time you guys hadn't made mention of strong apparent demand in your quarterly for, for, for some time. While I, I note your earlier comments there about the longer-term outlook, is, is there anything you can help us with on the short-term outlook? We know that production quotas have increased earlier this year by a lot. We're expecting the Chinese to announce something more in, in August, perhaps, in relation to potential further quota increases. You mentioned in your report soft the demand for magnets. Is there anything that yourself or Paul can help us with in the, say, in the next 12-month outlook, to give us some, some comfort around, where we might expect pricing to go? We tried to get Paul to speak before, and seemed to have troubles connecting. I'll try to give him another chance, but, but essentially, Rich, we're seeing it's a bit, demand is, is different by, by application. Electric ve- electric and hybrid vehicle demand continues to be strong. We're seeing a bit, you know, much, much softer, you know, with some delays on projects and things like in the wind, wind segment, and also in household applications, for example, you know, things like new air conditioners and those sorts of things in China. I don't know, Paul, are you back on, on, on... Are you able to-- Are we able to hear you? Yeah, I'm online. I don't know if you can hear me. We can now. I can. Yeah. Thanks, Paul. I don't have anyway. The two factors is basically the production quotas of China will be released, probably this coming month, months. I would say again, in terms of demand, China, if the real estate industry recovers in China, then because this is the weakest segment, market segment, then the demand will be back, back on. That are the two factors to look at, the general economy situation of China and which drives the real estate, and the, and the production quotas. Okay. Well, can... I'll cheaply ask one last quick little question. Paul, would you expect them, sorry, them, China, to deliver another production quota increase? Where does that sit relative to what we might think capacity utilization to be in China? I can't answer that. Okay. It's a pure guess. Yeah. Sorry. No problems. No, no, no worries. Thanks, Paul. Thanks, Amanda. Whilst we've got you, Pol, because the earlier question about, Paul's question about how much more do we think we can get out of the LAMP, than, you know, sort of our... Yeah ... current performance? This is an interesting question. Provided we have clarity, of course, with the regulators in Malaysia, I think we, we have, we have, of course, studied a lot on the industrial plan for LAMP. I would say that overall LAMP site structure is fit for twice more production than what we have today. That, of course, with investments, but the bottlenecking kinds of investment could double the production in Kuantan, if we wish to. After that, we talk about a new site. That's different stories and different economics, but that's the potential. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for the questions. One moment for the next questions. Next on the line, we have the line, Paul, Al Harvey from JP Morgan. Please go ahead with your questions. Good morning, Amanda. Just wanting to get a little bit better understanding of that, that ramp up and the sequencing between CAL coming online and Malaysia taking the product. I guess you've got to switch things off, the cracking and leaching off in 2024. I know you're not providing guidance just given, you know, difficulties ramping projects up, but you have talked about some scenarios there. Just trying to get, get a sense of the, the range of outcomes around the ramp-up. You know, is it likely that we see, you know, things ramp up at Kalgoorlie from September? That kind of gets you up to 50% capacity that can then feed into, into Malaysia, or is it, are you expecting it to be much faster or less fast? Just really trying to get a sense of what happens into calendar year 2024. Well, yeah, look, Al, it is difficult. I think that as we look at our various scenarios, we can see ourselves with the potential for, at least, you know, still 2 months where we would have lower production. You know, so let's say a quarter of lower production, where previously, when we were looking at, you know, sort of the 30 June deadline, we were looking at a quarter of no production. That would be the difference that that additional time in Malaysia has given us. Great. Thank you. Maybe if you could just expand a bit on next key milestones for the U.S. facility. Are you gonna get a study or anything like on the project? Just wanted to know what to look out for. Sorry, I... You just broke up. Are you going to get what? Sorry. The, for the Texas facility, just wanting to understand the next key milestones there. Will we get a study or, yeah, what, what, what should we look out for there? Yes, we will have a more detailed study. Our, our team is actually working on that at present. We will be able to provide additional information. As I've indicated previously, you know, we are constructing this plant in partnership with the U.S. government, and so together, we may, you know, we, we, we certainly have to accommodate their, their view on, on, you know, what we disclose and at what times. We will have a, sort of a completed study which looks to all of the activities that need to be completed on that site in the relatively near future. Great. Just finally, you might not-- mentioned in the, in the downstream part of the release, low hydrochloric acid availability for cerium and lanthanum production. Did say that demand had been pretty resilient for that product. Just wanted to get an understanding of, you know, if that low availability has been resolved, and if that can kind of help you back, backfill some cash flows in, in the near term. Yeah, we're in a much better position as far as supply is concerned. In terms of its effect on, you know, sort of cash flow outcomes, it's, it's relatively moderate. It's improving as we're bringing even more, you know, sort of higher-spec materials to market, but it still remains that cerium and lanthanum materials are in oversupply. So therefore, you know, sort of the, the pricing for those remains pretty low. So it, it helps, but it, it won't make the difference compared to the material that we've, that we'll be choosing to hold as inventory on NDPR and SEG. Yeah, sure. Makes sense. Thanks, Amanda. Thank you. Thank you for the questions. One moment for the next questions. Follow-up questions from the line of Paul Young of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Yo, hi, Amanda. I've got a follow-up question on, on the downstream or refining capacity. Just trying to square that away, considering we have the CapEx guided on Cal and Mount Weld. We don't have the CapEx estimate for the expansion from 7,000 tons to 12,000-12,500 tons of NDPR. Paul just mentioned that you've got installed sort of utilities and a good footprint at LAMP. That's a very low-cost brownfields expansion there, I presume. The US, you've better down the site location, but still studying, I presume, the size of that refinery. How do we think about first of all, what the size of US refinery is? Is it still 5,000 tons of total reverse? You know, where will you expand, and what's the CapEx associated with the, with the refinery piece? Okay. In, if we take the first in Kuantan, the capital that we expend in Kuantan is wholly dependent upon the resolution of discussions related to our license. As, as Paul indicated, we have developed a plan, and it is orders of magnitude lower cost than anything else that we could invest in. You-... certainly within the $1.2 billion guidance that we've provided, we have some of that capacity up plan. About 50% of that capacity up plan is included within that number. That gives you a sense, really, for how, you know, sort of, how, how efficient any increase in capacity in, in, in, in the LAMP is. The decisions on what we invest and how we invest it in the LAMP will not be finalized until we have some of the current license discussions that we're having complete. With respect to the US, we've got two components to that plant. One is the heavy rare earth separation facility, and the other is the lights. Together, we expect that that's about 8,000 tons of separation capability. We will, as I said, be providing some final work on that. The team's been working very diligently with our local engineering partner on updating all of our forecast costs in those areas, and also ensuring that we've got those costs fit for purpose with the site which has now been acquired. Thanks, Amanda. That, that's, that's great context and info. Just on, back on LAMP. As far as if you do decide to expand LAMP to whatever the number is, you know, how long will it take to do the engineering studies? How long will it actually take to, to complete that expansion? If you, if you pulled the trigger, say, let's just say, for example, you get an extension in Malaysia, hypothetically, to run the cracking and leaching beyond 1st of January, you do decide to commit to expanding, expanding LAMP. Would it be ready in time to take the expanded material from Mount Weld? You know, by, by, say, middle of 2025 calendar year. We would expect it'll be, it will precede the completion of the Mount Weld upgrade. Great. Okay, thanks, Amanda. That's great. Thank you for the questions. We also have another quest- follow-up questions from Dim Ariyasinghe from UBS. Please go ahead. Thanks, Amanda. Just one more on cost. I know you haven't guided too much on this, but, like, how... can you give us a relative guide on how the cost base increases? You know, just assuming, like, so, you've got the appetite in, you've got Kalgoorlie online, like, how that potentially changes the cost base, given where the NDPR price is. I think it's pretty just pertinent to revisit what you've said about this. Sure. what can I say? Australia is a more expensive place to do business than Malaysia. Oh, gosh, that's a significant insight for all the analysts on the call, isn't it? There are elements for our operations at, at, at Kalgoorlie, which clearly, are challenging for us. Having said that, we also see opportunities for us to be able to improve efficiencies on a number of the cost elements in, in Kalgoorlie. I think under our new scenario with our three sites, that it will take us some time to really optimize the efficiency across the three sites. When we have the fourth come online at, at, at US, that will be another challenge. Landside logistics is probably the most significant, you know, sort of, difference that we're talking about. Because a lot of the cost disadvantage at Kalgoorlie, we've engineered out by engineering, you know, sort of, scale into, into the facility. I think everyone would know that when you've got, you know, sort of, extra scale, you do get, you get, sort of, cost improvements. So yeah, we, we do have some cost challenges. Certainly, as this result shows, we are able still to be successful, even when the price is not at those very attractive levels that it was, you know, a year ago. Yep. Cool. Okay, thank you. Thank you for the questions. We have another follow-up questions from Regan Burrows from Bell Potter. Please go ahead. Thank you. Yeah, apologies for the follow-up questions, now that we've got Paul on the line, just potentially following up from Regan's question on production quotas earlier. Just trying to get, sort of, my head around, I guess, the internal production in China. I think, Paul, you've mentioned previously, where they're operating in terms of the cost curve. Do you take a view on, I guess, are they sort of, internal producers within China? Are some of them coming under pressure at these levels? Where is the, where is the cost curve currently? Well, the cost curve, the competitiveness of Chinese producers vary from 1 to another, so, it would take too much time for me to comment on each of them. Again, it wouldn't make so much sense that I discuss my guess about the production quotas. What, and I haven't been to China for a while, but my team has. I think what is important to understand is that Chinese are very confident on the demand increase. They are all investing in additional capacities, and you have to give them this. They are not stupid people, and they love money, so they don't spend money for the pleasure of spending it. That means that, yes, we are going through a weak demand period at the moment, but the long-term strategy is really quite enthusiastic on the Chinese side, I think. I, I cannot comment on the cost of each Chinese producer. Yeah, I guess just trying to figure out how, how much lower prices can go if they, and I guess their internal thinking, but I guess, yeah. Well, we've been quite stable for a while, around AUD 60, huh? VAT included. Yep. Yep. No, thank you for that. I appreciate it. Thank you for the questions. That's the end of the Q&A sessions. I would like to hand the call back to Amanda for closing remarks. Terrific. Thank you so much. Once again, thanks everybody for joining us today. I'll ask any follow-up questions. I know that Daniel's sitting eagerly by his phone, waiting for any of us. I know he's very happy to take any further questions. I look forward to speaking with you all again as we release our annual results later this month or next month. It's just, it's the last day of July, isn't it? Yeah. Okay. Thanks all. Talk to you soon. Bye. Bye. That does conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation.