Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Pilbara Minerals March 2023 Quarterly Investor Conference Call and Webcast. All participants are in a listen only mode. There will be a management presentation followed by a question and answer session with approximately 20 minutes allocated for teleconference participants, followed by 10 minutes for online questions from webcast participants. The call is scheduled to conclude by 10:00 A.M. AEST. For teleconference participants, if you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. For webcast participants, if you wish to ask a question, please type it in using the Ask a question facility on the webcast browser. I would now like to hand the conference over to Pilbara Minerals Managing Director and CEO, Mr. Dale Henderson. Please go ahead. Thanks very much. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, depending where you're dialing in from. Welcome to the Pilbara Minerals March Quarterly Call. A warm welcome to all. I'd just like to acknowledge the traditional custodians on the land on which our businesses operate. The Whadjuk Noongar people, where our headquarters are, and where we're calling in from today. Nyamal and the Kariyarra people up north where our operation is located. We pay our respects to the elders, past, present, and emerging. In terms of introductions, speakers today, we've got Luke Bortoli, our new CFO. We've got Vince De Carolis, our Chief Operating Officer. We'll have Alex Eastwood moderating our questions. He's our Chief Commercial and Legal Officer. Also in the room, we've got a number of the team who are also joining us today. As to the call outline, we'll be stepping through the slide pack presentation. The basic flow there is I'll offer some opening remarks on the quarter. I'll then hand to Vince for an operations update. Back to myself to update around the expansions and downstream, over to Luke for the financials. Lastly, I'll be updating on guidance and some commentary on the market. As the moderator outlined, we're gonna try and aim for, well, 20 minutes roughly, we think for Q&A questions and 10 minutes for the webcast. We'll look to keep this call within the hour, 'cause I understand there's a number of other calls today. So we'll be firm on the time limits today. Just starting with a bit of opening commentary. In terms of progress for the quarter, it was a solid quarter for the business, both volume and pricing. Albeit at a slight touch off what was achieved in the December quarter, it was still solid in terms of volumes and pricing, and more similar to the September quarter. Financing, a lot of reinforcement milestones in the financing area, which I'll touch on a little bit later. As it relates to expansions during the quarter, we essentially just got on with the plan. FID for P1000 and P680 are in progress. Downstream, POSCO is making great progress on a joint venture operation. I'll speak to that a little bit later. We are now underway with our partnering process, given we'll have additional tons coming online mid-2025 here for P1000 project, which we approved. Another busy quarter getting on with the plan. Of course, this is all set against a market backdrop that has changed. It's no surprise to everyone that we have seen some softness sort of emerging over the last couple of months. We've seen a price decline, particularly within the Chinese market, which is in contrast to some of the global market price references. I'll offer some market commentary later in the pack around this. The relevance of mentioning this of course, is we have seen a bit of a pullback in the realized pricing for this quarter. Some of that will flow through into next quarter 'cause our pricing mechanisms trail the market indices. We'll see some of that flow through into the June quarter. All that being said, the pricing is very strong and you're looking back 300% year-on-year increase in terms of realized price. Still very solid margins to be made in this market. Moving now to highlights on slide two. As I mentioned, solid quarter for volumes both in production and shipment, albeit a touch back on the December quarter. 80+% increase year-on-year for the quarter, which sort of speaks to the big leap we've had in that short period of one year. Realized pricing down a bit on last quarter reflective of the market. Unit costs up a touch. We have revised up our expected guidance for cost for the year. Vince and I will offer some comments on that a little bit later. A solid set of numbers, which generates some solid margin. Of course, that's flowing through to the balance sheet. A good balance sheet step up of AUD 457 million. That's after, of course, paying an inaugural interim dividend. Still a great set of numbers, a solid quarter. We are going well. Moving to slide three, a couple of the milestones for the quarter. The dividend that I mentioned. Great to get that out the door to reward those many loyal shareholders who have gone the Pilbara journey. As it relates to expansion, the P1000 FID approved by the board and the team are getting on with the job of delivery now. In the category of finance, yeah, a number of Finance milestones. Debt facility for our joint venture with POSCO for the downstream plant in Gwangyang, South Korea. I'd note that that's non-recourse to Pilbara Minerals, a great debt facility, which will support that development. A new debt facility back at home for our expansion care of EFA and NAIF to the tune of AUD 250 million. Long tenure, low cost debt. Then it was the refinance of our existing debt on a five-year term. Major construction package was awarded to Primero for the P680 expansion project. Site is looking very busy as the concrete comes out of the ground and steel goes in the air. Great to see that project moving forward. Also, during the quarter, we completed the executive appointments, so the team is full, and they are very busy, delivering our growth profile. Lastly, but not least, we're now underway with what we're calling a partnering process, whereby we're engaging with a select group of the market to explore joint downstream initiatives. Look forward to updating on that later in the calendar year. Moving to slide four, just a quick update on our growth strategy. Our aim is to be a leader in the provision of sustainable battery materials product. We have four planks to that strategy. First and foremost, it's about delivering operating performance. That's our foundation. Two, it's about expanding that foundation and expanding this incredible tier one asset, making the most of this amazing asset that we are stewarding into existence. Priority three is about extracting more value through downstream integrations, the likes of our joint venture with POSCO, the likes of our midstream, a joint venture we have with Calix or the likes of the partnering process we're now starting to step into. Lastly, but not least, and priority four, last on the list is around diversification through inorganic growth outside of our base asset. That's a quick snapshot on the quarter, which was, a t this point, I'll hand over to Vince for an update on the operation. Thanks, Dale. Starting with safety, as you can see on slide five, our lead indicators, safety interactions continued to trend strongly, which is critically important in our leaders engaging with our people out in the field. Our total recordable injury frequency rate has increased from 4.2 in the December quarter to 4.9 in the March quarter due to some low-severity soft tissue injuries. This, in part, has been due to a rapid increase in new employees, particularly in mining, as part of our plan to increase mining volumes. We're enacting a plan to improve our onboarding of new starters to rectify that. We've also commenced new training for all of our leaders on our critical risk management and how to conduct effective critical control field verifications. This program will run from now and through all of FY 2024. People and culture. We've been delivering on our commitments coming out of the first cultural engagement survey, delivering a bunch of hygiene improvements such as a new warehouse facility and new admin and crew room facilities to meet our growing demands. Pleasingly, we're seeing a reduction in our voluntary turnover. Female employment is also strong at 22%. Moving on to volumes. Production, as Dale had mentioned, was in line with our expectations, given expected lithia grade and planned runtime for the quarter. I can also confirm with this production volume that we're comfortable with our previously reported production guidance. It is, of course, noted that this quarter's production is slightly down on the previous quarter, owed to a combination of an extended processing plant maintenance shutdown for the Ngungaju Plant to accommodate maintenance activities and lower-than-planned recoveries due to suboptimal ore feed mineral variations. Runtime for the period was 82% across the combined processing plant. However, we plan for higher than this. Recoveries for the period was 68% for February, March and slightly lower in January. In mining, we achieved a 4.5% improvement in total material moved at 7.8 million tons for the quarter, an improvement month-on-month through the quarter as well. Our mining uplift plan is gaining traction, inclusive of additional resources, as mentioned earlier, yielding improved utilization rates of equipment and new equipment, plus upgraded facilities that we continue to work on. Further initiatives to come include fleet composition optimization and improved equipment availabilities in the coming months. In processing, both Pilgan and Ngungaju have operated consistently in runtime rates and recoveries. However, processing rates were reduced to the prior quarter, linked to critical maintenance activities that were required to be completed, and recoveries were slightly lower than previous quarter as a result of ore feed material variations. Programs of work are underway with a focus on recoveries, availabilities, and rates. Unit cost, as mentioned, noted in the quarterly release, we've adjusted our guidance, lifting our expected operating costs for FY 2023. This is broadly attributable to three categories: Inflationary pressures such as labor costs, although they've stabilized, is still elevated. Contract services such as our mining service contractors, fuel and flights, just to mention a few. We had a bunch of one-offs. We have a number of one-off operational expenditures, which include things like spares as part of our availability uplift program and P680 operational readiness. Maintenance provisions such as noted, such as the and the Ngungaju shutdown and upgraded infrastructure. As mentioned, the new facilities warehouse, again, to lift our operational standards. The third bucket is pre-investment, a component of increased operational costs as we prepare for being a larger operation, such as P680 ramp up, our mining ramp up, just to mention a couple. Ultimately, we expect a unit cost reduction as we realize productivity and scale efficiencies into the coming future. With that, I'll hand back to Dale. Thanks, Vince. Moving to seven, our expansion pathway. As I mentioned in the opening, we're getting on with the job of our expansion delivery. Yeah, pleased to report that the P680 project, construction's on track and going well. Then there was the P1000 project, which achieved FID during the quarter, of which we're looking to be online and ramped up mid-2025. Moving to slide eight offers a little bit more, more detail on a couple of pictorials of what's coming to life and, yeah, a bit of extra detail there. Just a reminder of the dates which remain on track. Moving to slide nine, downstream integration. The POSCO Pilbara Lithium Solution joint venture is going well. To remind everyone, this is our 43,000 ton lithium hydroxide plant located in Gwangyang, South Korea. The POSCO team are foot down, going very, very well on construction. It's a two-train processing plant. The first train, procurement's essentially complete. A lot of construction work's done in terms of civils and steel work. As it relates to train two, which lags train one, the team has procured 22 of the 26 packages and has started to commence some of the civil works in that regard. From all reports and what we see, on track and going well, and we look forward to seeing that project develop in the months ahead. Hard to believe that it's only gonna be the end of the year, we'll be sending some tons over there to support the commissioning. Very excited to see this joint venture facility come to life. Moving on to slide 10. As I mentioned, here we completed our executive appointments. I know I made note in the half year that a couple of the team had joined us, being Sandra, John, and Paul. The last team member to join us, Luke Bortoli, our new CFO. Big welcome to Luke. It's week three, so he's barely had chance to unpack his pencil case. Already he's well off the curve. A big welcome to Luke. That completes the set of the executive appointments. I'm delighted 'cause that means no more interviewing for me. I think we've got a fantastic executive team, who've all in their own right, got amazing track record and will serve the business well, and most importantly, serve their teams. Cause it's all about our great people in Pilbara, our teams. Everything we've achieved in our business to date has been through our team. As much as the executives, as shown here, it's all about the team and the team delivery and supporting those teams to be successful. I think we're in good hands with these new leaders who have joined us. Now, with that, I'll now hand over to Luke for an update on the financials. Thanks, Dale. Good morning to those on the call. As Dale discussed earlier, the March quarter showed marginal declines across production, sales, and unit cost metrics in the period. Notwithstanding this, the quarter also showed continued strong performance from an operating margin and cash flow perspective, as well as payment of our first fully franked interim dividend. More specifically, the quarter featured a marginal 3% decline in tons sold to 144,000 tons. A 15% reduction in weighted average realized sales to $4,840 per ton on an SC5.3 basis, reflecting a softening market price in the period. A 9% increase in unit operating costs to AUD 632 per ton, measured on a free-on-board basis and excluding royalties, primarily due to higher mining and maintenance costs as we ramp up to P680, as well as general cost inflation. Against these declines, we saw continued strong cash operating margin in the period of AUD 919 million, comparing very favorably to the AUD 950 million received in the December quarter. This strong operating margin underpinned an AUD 457 million or 21% increase in cash to AUD 2.7 billion. As Dale mentioned earlier, to help support our expansion plans, we also announced a number of finance initiatives. The first is the signing of a 10-year, $250 million debt facility with Export Finance Australia and Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund to support the P680 expansion project. We also refinanced our existing debt facility, replacing debt of $110 million with a new facility of $113 million on improved terms through a syndicate of new and existing banks. Finally, we signed a $460 million debt facility for the POSCO Pilbara downstream joint venture to fund the remaining capital and commissioning costs for the 43,000 ton per annum lithium hydroxide chemical facility in South Korea. To provide some more detail on margin in the period, as mentioned earlier, unit operating costs, excluding freight and royalties, saw a 9% increase in the March quarter to AUD 632 a ton. In contrast, unit operating costs on a CIF basis improved by 2% to AUD 1,144 per ton in the December quarter. This was driven by a reduction of approximately AUD 75 per ton in royalty costs linked to the lower selling price, as well as a continued reduction in ocean freight costs. Overall, operating margin declined broadly in line with the mix of a lower selling price and lower unit operating costs in the period, but still remained strong in nominal terms. As mentioned earlier, cash operating margin was approximately AUD 919 million or AUD 6,368 per ton, versus the December quarter at AUD 953 million or AUD 6,412 per ton. Our operating margin remained very solid. Turning now to cash flow. As previously mentioned, the company's cash position increased by 21% to AUD 456.5 million or AUD 2.7 billion as of 31 March. Key movements in the cash balance included net cash margin from operations of AUD 919 million, comprising AUD 1.1 billion from sales of concentrate, less AUD 174 million of operating costs to produce and sell concentrate. There was capital expenditure of AUD 119 million versus AUD 76 million in the December quarter. Net proceeds from borrowings of AUD 78.6 million were primarily driven by a partial drawdown of the 10-year, AUD 250 million debt facility for the purpose of funding P680. We also showed a first dividend payment of AUD 0.11 per share, equating to AUD 329.8 million, and a first tax payment of AUD 88.6 million relating to the company's FY 2022 tax return. Excluding the first dividend payment and first tax payment, cash would have increased by approximately AUD 875 million, which is comparable to the December quarter cash increase of AUD 851 million. Again, emphasizing the strong quarter that we had. I'll now hand it back to Dale. Thanks very much, Luke. Moving to slide 13. As Vince outlined, we've adjusted our guidance on our unit operating cost, tweaking that up from our previous guidance, moving it up to AUD 600-AUD 640 per ton unit cost range. As Vince walked us through, this is owed broadly to three buckets. Inflation pressures, some one-off costs, and some pre-investment to support expansion. Importantly, volumes for the year, we're reaffirming that we're on track and feeling comfortable about the delivery of those for the full year, which is good. Yeah, looking forward to moving through to the last of quarter four and finishing the year strongly. Moving from slide 13 to slide 14, a market update. I'll be slightly more expansive in my commentary here, just to support those whom I know are keen to hear our perspectives. In answering this, I'll talk through three sort of pieces. The long-term outlook, secondly, the March quarter and our observations of what has occurred in the March quarter. Lastly, I'll talk a bit about the look forward. In terms of the long-term outlook, we remain very positive on the structural deficit for lithium. Of course, we note that there seems to be a broad supportive opinion for that deficit. When we look back over the March quarter, really the points of evidence we would highlight are in two parts. One's around the major investment, which continues to happen. Secondly, it is around EV sales being the key consumption driver for lithium at this point in time. Now, as it relates to major investment, a couple of the highlights of late, obviously the Albemarle takeover attempts of Liontown, with Liontown's rejection of that speaks to the value both that Liontown sees in that asset and also Albemarle does. GM invested $650 million in Lithium Americas. Ford invested $3.5 billion or was committed to for its first LFP plant in the States. LG's committed $5.6 billion towards a battery manufacturing facility in Arizona. Redwood Materials has secured $2 billion from the DOE in the U.S. BMW's announced $870 million plant in Mexico. The Canadian government has unveiled a federal government budget of CAD 80 billion in tax credits for clean technology, including CAD 25 billion for investments in clean energy. Just rattling through a couple of major announcements of late. As it relates to EV sales, China, 27% year-on-year growth was pulled back quarter-on-quarter, but overall, the broad theme remains strong. Outside of China, the combined global EV growth rate remains strong at a 25% year-on-year growth. Broadly, very, very strong indicators supporting the structural deficit that looks to emerge in the outlook. Moving now to the March quarter, which in contrast has demonstrated some softness, particularly in China. Just to offer some commentary around this, I'm not gonna be revealing anything particularly new or different here other than just to reinforce, we support what we're hearing. The evidence around the pullback within the Chinese market for the quarter is owed to a number of factors which have conflated. There was the seasonal variation around the Chinese New Year. There's been the end of China's EV subsidies. There's also been a war underway between the ICE vehicles and the EVs. The ICE vehicles within China have been heavily discounted to move that stock in advance of some tightening on Chinese emission standards, which are coming into effect from the first of July. That, of course, has put some competition, some strong competition, short-dated competition, we think, in the market around EV versus ICE. There's also been a component of inventory, destocking, or stocking which had occurred, which is moving through the system. Lastly, there's a category of what we call buying behavior and sentiment. Our observation of the Chinese market is that it runs up hard as price starts to appreciate, and it runs down hard as price declines, and it looks like we're seeing that play out yet again. So that's as it relates to the Chinese market, but I'd point out that hydroxide pricing, although it's had a pullback, it's been nothing near the pullback we're seeing in the lithium carbonate pricing. Engaging with our customers who, in the main, all weighted to hydroxide producers. By the way, also most of those are exporters to the external market. Their commentary around this talks to the high barrier of entry to produce hydroxide product, in contrast to carbonate product. They also talk of the remaining strong demand for that high nickel cathode feedstock. Because of that, yeah, we are seeing a bifurcation at this point in time between, as I say, the Chinese price points versus the global, particularly hydroxide price points, which haven't gone off as much. Does the gap close? Look, we'll find out. I think it's likely the gap will close. Some of the low-cost carbonate can be taken into hydroxide. We haven't seen that yet, we'll see what unfolds in the months and quarters to come. That's a little bit about, you know, the March quarter. Moving to the look forward, where does pricing go, and what do we see is going to unfold? Of course, this is in the category of crystal ball gazing, but our assessment is, having spoken across our customer set and engaging with some of the respective reporting agencies in the space, is what we anticipate in the June quarter is likely either a leveling or softening. If it is softening, we'd be surprised if it softens strongly, but we'll wait and see. As to a turn in the market, the opinion we have formed, as I say, engaging with others, is the back half of this calendar year looks most likely. Now granted, there's a big range, as I say, it's ranging from, you know, the thing to take within weeks, some saying late in the year. As I say, we're anticipating the second half of this year to be the most likely time that we would see the uptick to get underway. Of course, we'll all have to wait and see. This is set against a backdrop of a number of moving matrices, Chinese domestic sentiment, global sentiment. We will see what happens. As I say, Pilbara Minerals remains bullish. On the long-term outlook for the market, we remain committed to our expansions and getting on with the job of developing this incredible tier one asset and enjoying, hopefully, strong margins for many quarters and many years to come. With that completes my commentary on the market. I'll now hand back to the moderator to step into Q&A. Thank you. If you wish to ask a question on the phone, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. In the interest of time management this morning, we ask that you limit your questions to two per person. Your first question comes from Hayden Bairstow with Macquarie. Please go ahead. Yeah. Morning. Morning, Dale. A couple of quick ones. Just on CapEx, I mean, we're seeing a fair bit of this now across the industry, but how confident are you in your ability to actually spend the capital in line with what you're trying to do, to deliver these production sort of growth plans? Is there some risks around, not necessarily the actual CapEx number, but just the timing to actually deliver it? What are you, what are you seeing on that front? Yeah. Yeah, good, Hayden. No, I'd put that. The short answer is yes, but I'd put that in the category of any of these big projects. You always have that risk. Our project team is foot down busy getting commitments done. And yeah, they assure me that we're all AOK. As always, these projects, there's a lot of moving parts to be progressed quickly and we'll keep a keen focus on that. Yeah. Okay. Can you just remind us on realized pricing on your SPOD contracts, just how linked they are to? Is it domestic or export pricing for China? We're obviously getting a fair bit of bifurcation on pricing at the moment. Just to get an idea of, not so much this quarter, but even into next year, how things might start to move around between what you get versus some of the peers. Just trying to work out the differences. Yeah, sure. I can speak in general terms. Across our offtakes, it's broadly weighted to hydroxide and broadly weighted to the export market, but it does depend on which offtake we're talking about. The pricing references a basket of different reporting agencies. Depending which groups and price points that does affect it as well. That's probably as much as I can say without getting into the specifics of each contract. I agree with that. Thanks. Thanks for that. Thanks, Hayden. The next question comes from Rahul Anand with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Hi, Dale, Vince, Luke, and team. Thanks for the call. The first one here is on that spot sale you flagged for the 15,000 tons on the new pricing model, which was linked to tolling this quarter. The question there from me is, you know, how does that pricing compare to other sales? In terms of that contract itself, should the downstream margins turn negative, are you forced to still supply into that in terms of volumes and basically have losses on that conversion? Or can you step out of that contract? Sure. Yeah, no, good question. Happy to answer this. Just to remind everyone that this particular sale was a 15,000 ton spot sale. This was our first toe in the water, as we described it, for doing a tolling contract. 15,000 tons equates to about 2% of our production profile. Very, very small percentage. It was our toe in the water. To answer your question, the price received from that was in two parts. We disclosed this at the time that we did the sale. The first part being effectively the spodumene priced component, of which was locked in. That's secure and done. As it related to part two, was an uplift as it relates to the actual chemical price, around the time of sale. Now, because of the downward trend, that component's essentially gone to zero, but it does not mean that we go into a negative in that case. We covered the downside risk in that regard. As I say, this was a bit of a toe in the water as we look to explore this model. Oh, okay. That's great. Thanks for that clarity. That helps. Look, the second question is around the sales this quarter, so 144,000 tons. I note that there was a 20,000 ton delayed shipment in the last quarter, which means the underlying shipment rate was probably sitting at about 124,000 tons. I guess the question there is whether you held back sales during the quarter as you saw that weakness in the Chinese market, because despite the operational performance, production was ahead, and inventories as well, at least on my numbers, seems to be around that 50,000 ton level for finished products. I just wanted to understand whether you withheld sales, which is similar to some of your peers' indication in the market. Yeah, no, the short answer is no. We didn't withhold sales. The view we've always taken as the products produced is to get that moved out and off to customers. There hasn't been any sort of. We haven't tried to sort of adjust any of that. What happens as it relates to the actual sales is sometimes it's blocky, and blocky in the sense that it depends. It's about pairing with when companies need that product and where that particular, where that timing falls, on sort of the quarter battery limit. Those are the reasons around seeing some sort of ups and downs in this space as we move from quarter to quarter. Okay. It's basically some volume commitments not being taken up at this point, which will probably come through in the next quarter, is the right way to think about it? Yes. Due to the softness in the market. Not softness, but yes. It's just timing. It's just timing. Second quarter is a big quarter for us. Understood. Okay. That's my two. Thank you very much, team. I'll pass it on. Thank you. The next question comes from Tom Hays with CLSA. Please go ahead. Good morning, Dale, Luke, Vince, and team. Thanks for your time. Maybe a similar question to what was just answered, around inventory. We've seen build over the last three quarters, and by my counts, we're sort of at about 30 days of your production rate last quarter. Will we see those inventories sort of stay at that level going forward? You know, given the cyclone, can we expect inventory drawdown during this quarter? I'll come back for a second. No, we should be drawing. Firstly, Tom, good day. We should be drawing those inventories down. The name of the game is to reduce stocks and just keep that move to market. We don't wanna hold our cash in stocks around produced product. Is there any impact of the cyclone early this quarter? Yeah, we did have a bit of an impact. Yeah, the cyclone, fortunately, yeah, as a, you know, was a fairly light touch for our site in the end, which was great. It was a category five bearing down on us, and we were battened down and worrying what might transpire. It was fairly light on in terms of the cyclone impacts, other than, of course, we had to do all of our shutdown and readiness for the cyclone. We did take a bit of a hit in terms of production runtime. However, we've effectively allowed for that as we've looked at our guidance for OK and volumes for the year. Yeah, pleased to say, yeah, that cyclone was a light touch. Thank you. Maybe just to follow up just on pricing and, you know, maybe tackling it from a different way. I'm wondering if you can provide sort of a high-level split of your sales by country going forward. Well, this would be question three, Tom. Sorry. Other than count. Let us take that on notice. Yeah, we don't have many customers, and we just need to be careful the way we protect, you know, the commercial sensitivity of these arrangements. Let us take that on notice. No worries. Thank you for your time. Thanks, mate. Next question comes from Ben Lyons with Jarden. Please go ahead. Thanks. Good day, Dale and team. Dale, really helpful getting your insights into the market. Much appreciated. I'm probably more interested in your current marketing behavior. We're already a one full month into the June quarter. Can you make any comment about your sales behavior during April? For example, and this is 1 question, but it's a multiparter. Have you resumed spot sales using that GLX platform? Can you make any comment about whether the April pricing has been in line or lower than those Platts and Fast markets indices that most people tend to look at, which I put at about $4,100-$4,200 at the moment on an SC6 basis? Thank you. Good day, Ben. Good question on our sales pathways. The short answer is, as it relates to spot sales, we are leaning more towards a closed tender type approach at the moment. We haven't done any BMX sales since last year. I'd expect we'll probably continue with the closed tender approach for sales. If the market goes, flips back into fee for pitch, I would see a scenario where we probably like sort of the BMX. That's where we are. That's the way we think about it today. As it relates to part two in terms of April pricing, obviously I can't give away too much there. I appreciate that the challenge anyone looking at the industry would have right now that I see there is a very wide spread around well, what the price reporting agencies are reporting. Now within that, what I'd say is our aim is to keep, of course, pairing our sales with those hydroxide participants who participate in the stronger margin part of the market. That will be the aim at this point moving forward. As to where does pricing go for the quarter, yeah, we'll as we noted, we're sort of nondescript on that. We'll see how the quarter goes and look forward to reporting at the end of the June quarter. Okay. Thank you, Dale. Might direct the second one towards, I guess, both you and Luke. Luke, welcome. Obviously comes with great credentials, highly qualified, et cetera. Just a bit slightly unusual though for your CFO to also hold other board positions in listed ASX companies. Just maybe whether you can sort of make any comments, Luke, around the allocation of your time. I'm sure you've got the capability, clearly. But just how you sort of approach those, you know, conflicting demands on your time. Thank you. Thanks, Ben. I might wade in on that one. Look, firstly, with all of the executives we've engaged, we've engaged five executives in total in a short period of time. All of those executives has a long process of risk checks, screening, and pretty much all of the roles. It was an international search, including that one, for the CFO, which Luke won out. With each of these executives, they of course have other commitments. As part of that, there's transition plans to be worked through. Transition plans don't happen overnight and of course there are things in motion. You know, as a business, we're of course, we're conscious of making sure the executives are fully devoted heart and soul to Pilbara. We don't want them distracted or their time diffused over the other interests. That's the case across all our executives. There is a bit of a process to work through to do that. Yeah, delighted to have Luke, very well credentialed, and he comes to us excited and enthused to really move the dial for us. Ben, bit of an indirect answer there, mate, but wanted to sort of outline the process. It's definitely on our radar, this bit, and we're working with Luke on that point. Thanks for your question too. Your next question comes from Levi Spry with UBS. Please go ahead. Good day, Dale. Thanks for the call, Dale and team. Maybe just sticking on the realized price question. The realized price did miss mine a little bit. Maybe it's a two-part question. Second part might be around Benny, more what Benny was talking about. Firstly, just on grade. Can you talk around what grade you plan to produce this quarter and in the short to medium term? Yeah, sure. Good day, Levi. The grade, we'll continue to target the low fives, 5.2-5.3. Typically, and, just to remind everyone, we've progressively moved down the grade curve to maximize yield from the mine to get more lithium units to market. That production strategy will be unchanged in the near term. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Just on the other part. Were there QPE adjustments in the March quarter price received? Just in terms of like the read-through price discount. You know, I remember you talked about recutting some of the price outcomes during pre-Christmas, and now the tolling's happened, but it didn't quite work that time. Can you just talk to, you know, what the other big piece there may have been versus those indices that we look at that Ben mentioned for last quarter, not this quarter? Okay. Look, I'm not sure completely. Let me have a crack at the question, but welcome. I haven't quite hit it. In terms of, yeah, the offtakes, of course speak to the lion's share of our production commitment. We went through a bunch of commercial pricing negotiations, which are a matter of course and contemplated under those contracts late last year. We are now moving into that, to the next phase of that, which is a function of that, you know, timing, which is predetermined in those contracts. We don't know where those outcomes will lead, but it's always the negotiation as to which price points we will use. Yeah, as I said earlier, there's a bit of a wide spread, so, we'll see how we go with all of that, and we'll update in the future. Does that answer your question? Yeah, kind of. Just maybe, just a simple one. You mentioned the QPE adjustment that's happening, this period, this quarter coming up. Was there any last quarter? What was the materiality of it last quarter? You want that, Vince? Yeah, sure. Yes, there was an adjustment in the last quarter. It's in note nine in the announcement, and was also. Roger. Disclosed at the December quarter. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, I'll look it up. Thank you. Thanks very much. Next question comes from Tim Hoff with Canaccord. Please go ahead. Morning, Dale and team. I just wanted to ask a couple of questions around the middlings product. Was that volume included in the shipped tons or is that actually excluded? Yeah, Tim, no, it wasn't. Excellent. In terms of that product strategy, is that something you're gonna keep going forward? Yeah, Tim, I think, yeah, that would be the aim. At the end of the day, our whole operating strategy is geared around maximizing value for our shareholders. Yeah, if that lever works for us, we'll continue to pull it. Excellent. And then just tap finally, the plant was running at 82% availability. Is the goal there 100% or is that a total availability? It's Not many operations will run at 100% availability. We target high 80% and, in time we wanna get that even higher. We wanna be in the top quartile on our availabilities. Yeah, that's our goal. Roger. There's still a little bit of wiggle room on throughput there for us. Excellent. Thanks very much for the questions, guys. Thanks, Tim. Next question comes from Mitch Ryan with Jefferies. Please go ahead. Morning. You've called out sort of that you're looking at downstream partnering initiatives. Obviously that's in the early stages. Can you just give us some of the sort of key metrics that you're assessing those proposals on? Is it just price or are there other components that you're assessing them on? Yeah. Good day, Mitch. You're only at the start of the process, but yeah, to talk about some of the parameters which we would assess or think about would be obviously around ultimately if it's a downstream proposition together, capital cost of production and ensuring the pricing, i.e. the ability to deliver high-end battery grade product, of course, that all speaks to margin. Two would be about supply chain integration, i.e. is it located in an existing battery hub ecosystem or is it being proposed in an emerging hub? Three would be alignment on sustainability. Four would be around the technical expertise and demonstrated experience in being able to operate these types of facilities. The last one would probably be more around government support. Is there a particular domicile? Does it yield IRA support or European subsidy support or other types of support? Broadly, those are the factors we would consider as we look at these different partnership opportunities. The fact that you're assessing these, should we read anything into that with regards to your midstream product focus and project, or do you think that they can coexist? It's definitely part of the thinking, Mitch. The thing with midstream, it needs to earn its stripes. We still characterize it as an R&D project, but we have got an eye on it in terms of, and thinking around the long game as to if it proves out well, how do we migrate our business into that model. The short answer is yes, it is part of the thinking. Thank you. That's my turn. Thanks, Mitch. Our final question comes from Kate McCutcheon with Citi. Please go ahead. Hi. Good morning, Dale. Can you just elaborate on the feed or production issues in the quarter? It seems like you're operationally well ahead of peers, and there's still some issues with feed quality, so I'm interested in that. Some of the market has a misconception that mining hard rock lithium is easy, so interested in comments around those issues. Firstly, that would be a misconception. Mining hard rock is difficult. I would agree with you. On the ore mineralogy, there are variabilities of that through our operation or through our ore bodies. We continue to work on that and improve the understanding of that. As we stabilize and learn more in what's coming out of the ground, it stabilizes through to the processing plant. That's part of our geometallurgy program of work. I won't get into the detail of the things that we're working on. That's something that I don't want to do here, but we've got programs at work in that space that will yield recovery improvements into the future and that program's up and running. Okay. Just a quick one to follow on. You said for the January fab, 68% on our two plants, and that's below plan. Can you provide some color on what the site is broadly aiming for? Yes. expected recovery? A good one. Yeah, absolutely. For the Pilgan plant, we want to be into the 70s, and our long-term goal is to be 75 and beyond. For the Ngungaju Plant, it's the high 60s. Yeah. Again, similarly to the geometallurgy program of work, we've also got one that's just specifically on recovery to make the plants more robust, depending whatever mineral feed is fed to them, so that they become more robust and again, continue to improve their recovery. Lots of work to do and lots of potential upside. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I'll now hand over to Pilbara Minerals' Chief Commercial and Legal Officer, Mr. Alex Eastwood, to emcee webcast questions. Thank you. Hello, everyone. We have quite a few broad range questions. I know we are trying to stick to a time limit, so I'll try and consolidate some of those questions. The first question we have is: Has the board considered a listing on the New York Stock Exchange or any other U.S. exchanges? There's a few questions along those lines, Dale. Yeah. Occasionally the idea has been discussed, but it's certainly not something we've put any meaningful effort into and not something I think we would explore in the near term. Maybe one day down the track, but certainly not now. Next question around appetite for M&A activity in the lithium space and are we open to acquiring other battery metal assets other than lithium? Yeah. As it relates to M&A, I would characterize us as being early in our journey around thinking through our inorganic growth strategy. Ultimately, we wanna be geared to capitalize on opportunity. As I said in the opening, we were to step through the strategy. This is priority four on down the list. We've got a very full plate delivering inorganic growth. Our organic growth strategy story, as we look to effectively double our operation over the next sort of 18 months, plus our downstream, plus midstream and our downstream joint venture with POSCO, et cetera, et cetera. That remains the focus and yeah, M&A is well down the list. A few questions about the Calix JV and just generally inquiring for a bit of an update on that. Also in terms of market engagement, you know, what how's the sample products being seen by the market? What gives you confidence that there will be market for an intermediary product? Yeah, no problem. As it relates to the midstream project, the team are busy working through the next level of study, which supports the FID decision for the demonstration plant that we've pledged to make FID late in this quarter, in the June quarter. Yeah, the team's busy underway progressing that. As it relates to feedback from the market on samples, that's, you know, been broadly, yeah, it's positive, supportive. The team are working through with counterparties understanding the detail really around impurities, importantly price, et cetera. Yeah, nothing's given us cause for concern at all. Question perhaps for Luke. In terms of the AUD 1 million of cash held, for the quarter, what's the average interest rate earned, and is there scope to get higher interest rates? Thank you for the question. It has been creeping up. At the moment, the weighted average interest term rate is approximately 4%, they reflect market rates over time. Thanks, Luke. A question centering around exploration at Mount Francisco. Is there any plans anytime soon to continue with that? Really just around Mount Francisco. No. No, no plans on the near term on that one. Yep. Question about, I think, you probably covered a bit of this, but how significant the POSCO JV is to the company and what sort of things would we take into account in considering moving our interest from 18% to 30%? Sure. Yeah. The POSCO joint venture is very significant for our business. First and foremost, we've committed 315,000 tons of our production profile, so that's approximately 50% of the run rate we produce today and will be 30% once we've expanded to the million ton per annum profile under 25. It's a big part of our production profile. Importantly, it's a means by which we're making margin, not only through our spodumene concentrate delivery, but then we're getting the add-on of the margin cure of the lithium hydroxide production through that joint venture business. It's about increased margins. It's also about increased stability. The POSCO joint venture is 100% wholly dependent on the supply from our operation. There's a codependency which exists there, which we feel makes our business more robust and reinforces the foundations such that inevitable cycles Pilbara will be one of the mainstays of the industry, and we'll sail through those down cycles, which no doubt will occur from time to time. Lastly, I'd add that POSCO is pretty impressive as a business. They've got obviously a global presence. They've been enormously successful in steel. As it relates to this new energy, green energy and green materials, they are moving powerfully into the space of which the lithium component is but one puzzle piece that they're pulling together. They have bold ambitions to take a large position. We're delighted to be hooked up with them as they blaze that trail. A lot of pluses for our joint venture with POSCO. Yeah. A few questions around dividends. Mainly would we be reconsidering our dividend policy in light of build-up in cash reserves, such things like buybacks? If not, is further consideration being given to diversification through acquisitions? Which I think we've really, we covered. Really just the questions around will there be a change in the dividend policy? Yeah. No, thanks, for the question. The capital management framework that we put to market was only in the December quarter last year, so not that long ago. Yeah, as time moves on, yes, we will periodically be reconsidering that capital management framework, which of course sets out how we think about dividends and the other proceeds use, which come from the business. Short answer is yes, we will reconsider that over time, and we'll make that assessment based on the health of the business, where we're at with our strategic priorities and the macro outlook. There's a question about, given, the significant cash flow we have each quarter, which, is significant, is there enough, market buyer interest to justify, spending money for a possible P1500 expansion in the future? Oh, I like it. Is it possible to go P1500? To answer that, we need to do the work on that question. Is it on the drawing board to consider? Yes, it's on the drawing board as an idea that we should continue to do everything we can to make the most of this incredible tier one asset. That starts first and foremost around drilling out the asset to full extent. As disclosed in the quarterly, we're busy progressing a drilling program there, which we are optimistic will yield more lithium units. That's really the first port of call is understanding what's in the ground. The second part of the equation is to then optimize production capacity relative to life of mine doing optimization. Depending how we go with the drilling, there is potential opportunity to lift production. It's too early to say to what level we could increase production to. Okay. I note, time is running out, so I'll limit to one more question. In terms of future extensions, are we expecting economies of scale, with, you know, cost reductions? Yeah. The short answer is yes. Moving to a larger operation does provide scale opportunities, and that's as it relates very much to the processing capacity and plant. I would also add that given our long life mine and the high volumes that we produce, continued capital investment around cost down investments is there. We see quite a long list of opportunity, ranging from different types of power for power supply for the business to reduce power costs. Two, looking to move from triples to quads for haulage. Three, the way we outload at port, potentially moving to bulk outload facilities at Lumsden Point, moving away from retainer boxes. There'll be the continual focus on lithium recovery that Lynn spoke about earlier. We are in the business of concentrating lithium, so that will always remain a focus. We wanna keep building on that. That will all play to reduce costs. And the list goes on. Yeah, plenty more, of course, to come out, I expect in the years to come. Thanks, Dale. Apologies I haven't got to everyone's questions. There are a few, but we've covered, I think the majority of them. You know, the ones we haven't covered, we do have emails from the shareholders who've made those questions, so we can respond, through the normal shareholder inquiry line. Yeah. Thanks, Alex. Thanks everyone for dialing in today. We look forward to updating next quarter. Thank you very much. Thank you.