Well, let's get started then. Welcome, everyone, to our September quarterly webinar. It is good to be with everyone again, and it has been an incredible quarter for Vulcan Energy. I guess some real key highlights that I wanted to bring to the front here is that, importantly, we have really started to advance on the ground our flagship project, Lionheart, particularly in areas of drilling and construction activities, which really have progressed on schedule and within budget. A couple of highlights to mention as part of the last quarter is that we have focused heavily on safety. We have got a real important role to play here within our safety leadership and making sure that we send our people safely home. We have also had no lost time injuries again recorded this quarter. We are coming up to well over a year and a half now without an LTI. So, really, really proud of the Vulcan leadership that continue to drive quality in this space, and we are very proud of that record. So, we continue to drive a strong HSE leadership and culture within the company. From a construction, engineering, procurement, construction perspective, we remain on schedule and within budget as part of the Project Lionheart. A couple of standouts from the broader project as well, a few details. In the upstream where we have the field development, we successfully drilled our seventh well of the entire campaign, and it is the first time we have actually drilled a matrix injector into our Buntsandstein. This is actually a really important part, and it basically validates some key assumptions that we have had in the field development, which basically now tells us that we are basically on track to deliver our base case. More importantly, we saw some really strong results where we exceeded by nearly 50% injection capacity into our first matrix injector. So, that is a wonderful signal. It is a wonderful validation. I would also argue that this now opens up opportunities for optimization of the field development, which our teams are now working on. So, it is great to be able to be in this position, seven wells in out of the 28. We are well on track to have the wells required to start production in 2028, and more so, we now have even opportunities on how we can potentially optimize. So, yeah, delighted to be able to report that in this quarter. Our new, or our next drill site or well site, which we refer to as Trappelberg, is nearing completion. I was there last week smelling the asphalt, and we have actually started to do some of the pre-drilling of the protector pipes into the well. So, some of the pre-drilling activities have already started, and that means, it will allow us to mobilize the Vulcan V10 rig this quarter as well. So, that is another great signal, again, as per plan in mobilizing the V10 rig to site, and that will now be at the Trappelberg. So, all in all, going very, very well on the drilling side. Last but not least, as part of the broader field development, we also announced that we received another lithium production license called Ilka. Effectively, that responds to our Landau Süd license, and now we have got the two main production licenses for the project. So, all in all, a really strong period for the field development of Lionheart. If I switch gears a bit to our pipeline project, we've got a number of really important and a lot of momentum in this pipeline part of the project. We've started section one construction. I think we put a nice video out along with the announcement today with the quarterly. Really moving along really well, on time, on budget, probably a little bit ahead, actually. Looking really, really good, and we're also preparing now to commence the section two start of the construction of the pipelines. We've also started tendering the remainder of the pipeline sections three to seven, which have been received and looking very positive, and we'll look to actually make an award of the remaining pipeline sections this quarter as well. All in all, going very, very well within the pipeline part of the project. Obviously, very key, we need to connect our well sites where we drill the wells with pipelines to our central upstream facility where we extract the lithium and extract the energy. If I now switch to the heart of the upstream, which is what we refer to as our geothermal and lithium extraction plant, that's progressing really well. Particularly if I look at the power plant, it's very, very visual. We've actually now started seeing civil, so we're coming out of the ground where the power plant is being built. It's a 30 MW electrical energy Organic Rankine Cycle power plant, one of the biggest in Germany, actually. But that's going really, really well, on track, and also you can just start to see the construction on site, which is great to see. On the lithium extraction side, where we have the plant, where we're working with our main contractor, Sedgman-HOCHTIEF joint venture, some key earthworks have been completed there now, a lot of the bulk earthworks, in preparatory work now for some of the. We've also completed a major design review in the 30% for that plant as well. Again, very much validating our on-track assessment. Nicely to see as well, Vulcan's commenced commercial production of our adsorbent. It's our proprietary adsorbent called VULSORB. Important part of the lithium extraction process is the adsorbent. It's what extracts the lithium from the brine, and of course, this is something that Vulcan has spent a lot of our time and shareholder money on, having a Western IP and a Western supply chain for this adsorbent. So, we've received the first few batches. It's all looking very, very good as well. On track to provide our first full volumes for our VULSORB. If I now talk about the downstream, of course, once we've extracted the lithium, we've purified it, and we've created a bit of a concentration, 40% weight, we then truck that down the road to Frankfurt, where we convert that into a battery-grade chemical. This is what we do in Frankfurt, in the Industriepark Höchst. Now, that plant is going also very well. A lot of the bulk earthworks are ongoing, and now we're looking to seize an opportunity to start some early civil works. So that's also going quite well. Similar to the lithium extraction plant, our contractor, our EPCM, Sedgman-HOCHTIEF joint venture, they've also finalized the 30% design review. Very much on track in terms of the engineering, the procurement, and the early construction, which is great to see, because that sort of keeps us on track as we move into this quarter and the following year. What is also important to note, and this is probably something we gloss over sometimes, but remembering Vulcan has and are and have been producing lithium and renewable energy for a number of years now from our demonstration industrial-scale plant. We continue operating this value chain, this supply chain. That is an important part of our financing as well, where we have to continue to actually deliver high-quality battery-grade chemicals, lithium chemicals from this supply chain. We have had a really solid quarter where we have produced what we needed to the quality we needed to enable a lot of the funding for the project. I am delighted to see the team really operate there and operating safely, but also operating with quality, because a lot of these lessons learned will be directly applied to the industrial, the commercial plant that we are building at the moment for Lionheart. I am really delighted that we continue to produce high quality and a lot of tons of material for Vulcan. One thing to note, I think it is something which I wanted to explain in a bit more detail, and we have tried to do so within the quarterly this time, is that, of course, we are following a standard project finance process, so we have a number of milestones that we need to meet as part of the equity process and as part of the funding for grant funding, and also eventually for the debt. What we demonstrated this quarter is that we have actually met the first two milestones for the equity drawdown, the strategic equity drawdown, and we have also met the first German government grants as well. That is sort of totaling around EUR 60 million of equity investment we have done so far in this quarter. That is a very strong signal and almost a validation that as part of that process, it demonstrates that we are on track with the project, because that is the enabler to enable the equity drawdown and the grant funding. Hopefully that message is loud and clear to everyone. Last but not least, I think we also mentioned in this quarter that we had a very positive preliminary feasibility study. We mentioned Project Ludwig as a potential second phase of production. Very robust economics for the project. We demonstrated another 30-year life with around a 15% capital intensity reduction from Lionheart. We saw sort of NPVs, sort of pre-tax of around EUR 2.6 billion and rate of returns around 25%. Again, it is not a priority for Vulcan as much as Lionheart. Lionheart still is our key focus. Again, we are continuing to develop our portfolio in the background, knowing at some point we can sort of move into a future phase of production. Last but not least, I just wanted to highlight some of the corporate updates. Probably people are aware at the moment that we have had a change within the board. We are really fortunate to have Amanda Lacaze join and be appointed as a Non-Executive Director. Obviously, she speaks volumes to being able to manage and lead a critical material and raw material company with Lynas, and having her on board obviously provides a lot of stewardship of the company and of the project as well. Welcome to Amanda to the Vulcan board. Also, we've had the appointment and the transition of Angus Barker, now appointed as the Non-Executive Chair, who succeeded Francis, our Founder, who's now moved into a growth role as founder within the company as well. Congratulations to both Amanda and Angus. Just wanted to address the share price as well. That's something that we're obviously keeping an eye on. Of course, we really believe in Vulcan, in our fundamentals. We appreciate there's concern out there, and obviously the short-term valuation impact, we understand that can be concerning, but we also very, very much believe in the fundamentals of the project and the fundamentals of the company, which have not changed. If anything, they've got better over the last 10 months as we've started moving into the execution of Lionheart, and that's what drives us as well. We genuinely believe that if we keep on doing what we were doing, that the value will be there, and I guess that's what we're here to do, is to demonstrate that we can deliver the value for our shareholders, and the best thing we can do is delivering on time and budget, which is exactly what we're doing at the moment. We'll continue working hard for our shareholders. Please, please be aware. Of course, coming out with positive announcements and positive on-track assessments of the project is the least we can do. That's basically what we wanted to update you on. We've been really busy. We're really delighted to see the progress now on the ground and transitioning from pretty much a lot of the planning phase into the execution phase. Of course, there's a long way to go, but it's almost a delight to be a year into execution and seeing such positive signals, both in the field development, in the drilling results, in the way we're producing lithium, but also in the way we're executing a major capital project. Hopefully that gives you a bit of comfort where we are. Please have a read of the quarterly, and some of the videos that we've posted gives you a really strong feel for where we are, and looking forward to keeping you guys updated in the future with more information. I'm happy to take some questions as well. If there's any questions out there, please let me know. I can't see any on the chat at the moment. Q and A. Okay, here we go. Okay. Anne, "Please comment on costs. Are you experiencing a cost blowout?" Well, I've just actually stated, we're actually on budget and on time, so therefore we cannot be having a cost blowout, and we can't draw down on equity, and we can't draw down on grants if we're not. Very much on track. Really happy with what we're doing, and that's something we'll continue to keep our shareholders posted on. Thanks for your question. Thank you, Graham. "Congratulations on what you've done and achieved to date. Around the current LHM price, how is it affecting financing, given the price of LHM in your business case is quite a lot higher?" Actually, that's a great point, actually, Graham. I think something to be aware of is that Vulcan has got an incredible, I guess, protection against lithium price. If you remember, as part of our offtakes, the binding four offtakes that we've got for Lionheart, we have the first 10 years sold out for the four offtakers. But more importantly, it's the mechanisms and the price protections that we have within those offtakes that really probably help Vulcan stand out and protect us in a period where there is low lithium price. At the moment, we would be protected in a really depressed lithium price because of those price floors, and nearly 72%, so nearly three-quarters of our volumes are protected with those price floors. Again, our business case is probably more resilient than most because of this. I think that's what makes us unique, and gives us robustness even through all cycles. Hopefully that gives you some comfort. Helen, "Hi, Cris. How many wells are planned need to be completed by H2?" We don't have an exact number. We've got a minimum requirement of around 40% - 50% of production to be in place. If you convert that into number of wells, you're somewhere just, yeah, between 15 and 20, and we're pretty much on track for that. We've drilled seven wells already, seven wells available, and we can drill between three to four wells per rig per year. Obviously that gives us more than enough wells to go into production in the back end of 2028. So, pretty comfortable and pretty confident with the amount of brine and therefore wells in the ground before the end of 2027. 2028, sorry. Trevor, "Is there a qualification process that potential purchasers of VULSORB go through? Is anyone doing that at the moment?" So, Trevor, VULSORB is our adsorbent. It doesn't go through a qualification process because it's actually our adsorbent. So, we've been qualifying that for the last five, six years. Basically, our qualification is that when we speak to different suppliers or tollers, when they produce the VULSORB for us, we then take that VULSORB and we test it in-house, and then we measure the actual extraction performance of the VULSORB. So, it doesn't have to go through any more qualification. It's actually a bankable technology, proven by the fact that we're able to raise the EUR 2.2 billion financing package. So, yeah, no further qualification for that, to be honest. It's good to go. In case we do start to commercialize that outside of Vulcan, that would have a different process, but for ourselves, no, we don't need any further validation or qualification for that. Paul, "Congrats on progress to date. Can you confirm whether the existing committed finance fee remains sufficient to complete Lionheart through commissioning ramp-up, including contingencies, allowances, requiring additional equity, so forth, so forth." Okay. Good question. Look, Vulcan has secured, as you are aware, the EUR 2.2 billion financing package, and that basically supports the execution, the startup, the ramp-up of Project Lionheart. That EUR 2.2 billion package is made up of different facilities. It supports the CapEx, it supports owner's costs, i.e., our people, standby budget, financing costs, et cetera. This is a very normal and standard project finance process where it gets released, or capital gets released when you provide an on-track assessment for equity and for debt. As per our quarterly and what we have done so far, we have started successfully drawing down on the strategic equity and the grant funding, and then in the future with the debt. Today, all I can say is that we are absolutely on track, which enables us to release that capital from equity, grants, and lenders as part of that broader process. To date, we are doing well. Well, thank you, everyone, again for dialing in and participating. We will be doing the quarterly, each and every quarterly now. We think we are moving into a period of real interest for the company and our shareholders. Obviously, we will be moving very quickly into the heart and the meat of the capital project and the execution, and of course, we want to keep our shareholders up-to-date on the performance of that. But really, really proud of the Vulcan team, so a big shout-out to everybody in Vulcan Energy. Really proud of what we are doing, how we are performing, and let us continue that, and continue to deliver this on time and on budget. Thanks again, everyone, and chat to you very soon.
Loading workspace