Good morning, and welcome everyone to Bushveld Minerals' 3rd quarter and nine months 2021 operational update call. I thank you all for dialing in. I am joined on this call today by Tanya Chikanza, our Finance Director, as well as Frans van der Merwe, our Director of Operations. With a full quarter of stable production, this has been a solid three months for the company, proving the success of the operational improvements that we are implementing and the investments that we are making to sustain the operations. We are pleased to report a total injury frequency rate in this quarter of 8.74, which is a marked improvement of 46% on Q2 2021, which had a TIFR of 16.10. We'll continue to focus on improving safety of our workers. South Africa is now coming out of the third lockdown and both industry and the economy are recovering remarkably well from the impact of COVID. Importantly, given the group production figures for this quarter of 1,056 metric tons of vanadium, which is 19% up from Q2 2021. We are on track to meet our full year 2021 guidance of between 3,400 and 3,600 metric tons of vanadium, with group production for the first nine months of 2021 standing at 2,629 mtV. The nine month production for 2021 was marginally down, 2% lower to be exact, compared with the nine months 2020 period. This is owing to the lower production volumes at Vametco that we experienced in the first four months of the year. The work undertaken earlier this year has enabled a stable and sustainable run rate and an improved cash cost on the back of a higher production volume at Vametco. A cash cost of $22.40 per kgV, which is an improvement of 13% on that of Q2 2021. At Vanchem, we saw an improvement of 3% to $27.30 per kgV, both helped by a 3% weaker Rand-to-dollar exchange rate. The improved stability and safety, the increase in production, and the cost controls are ample evidence of the work we as a company have done as part of our ongoing operational improvement plan, and the investment we have made and continue to make in sustaining and growth capital. We have seen a solid quarter of production, and we entered Q4 on a strong footing and are on track to meet the guidance for the year. Despite the increased production volumes, however, sales have been impacted by international logistics challenges due to the COVID-19 and disruptions in South Africa over the course of July and August, which were well publicized. Notwithstanding sales of 826 mtV for Q3 are still in line with the Q2 2021 figure of 820 mtV. We do expect sales to recover as warehouse stocks are replenished in our target markets. Bushveld's cash and cash equivalents at 30 September stood at $25 million, and this compares with $31.6 million as at 30 June 2021, providing us with sufficient funds to meet our payments. Cash was impacted by the lower sales and the consequential higher working capital, mainly in the form of inventory financing, as well as the ongoing capital expenditure during the quarter to continue supporting our growth and operational stability. We have made strong progress with our negotiations with Duferco on the conversion of remaining balance of $11.5 million with the convertible loan note to $5 million payable in November 2021 and the remaining $6.5 million to Bushveld shares. Demand for vanadium remains strong globally, and the aggregate ferrovanadium price for the quarter is up 6% higher than Q2 at $38.20. 58% higher than the same quarter last year, which saw the price sink to levels of about $24.20 per kgV. Before I close, I will discuss key milestones we are targeting for the coming quarter. We have extended the scope of work of the phase three TSF at Vametco in order to include the upgrading the concentrate section to a semi-autogenous grinding mill and life of mine of the open pit with higher production to supply both Vametco and Vanchem. We will, of course, provide further details once the TSF is completed in Q4. We anticipate the increase in production run rate at Vanchem from 1,100 to 2,600 metric tons of vanadium per annum by the close of 2022 as the kiln three comes online in H1 2022, delivering the same roasting capacity as kilns one and two combined. Bushveld's Upper Seam project, which is a reserve of 0.9 million tons in situ ore and a total resource base of 16 million tons continuous and has delivered initial ore to Vanchem already. The crushing units are now operational, and the magnetic separator will be commissioned by the end of October 2021. To conclude, I am proud and pleased to report the numbers for Q3 2021. They demonstrate our stable production and the fact that Bushveld is on track to meet guidance for the year. We continue to invest in sustaining and growth capital to maintain stability and to provide the platform for growth to support the volume increases anticipated in 2022. I look forward to updating our shareholders and stakeholders as we continue to advance our growth strategy, aiming for a run rate of between 5,000 and 5,400 metric tons of vanadium per annum by the close of 2022. Thank you for your time, and I will stop here now and take questions. Thank you. We can now take our first question from John Meyer of SP Angel. Please go ahead. Well done on the Q3 production numbers. Thank you, John. Couple of issues. South Africa always shuts down for the Christmas holidays because it's warmer in the southern hemisphere than it is up here. Can you just give us a view on how that might impact production in December, and also what do you expect to happen with sales? Because there's always a bit of a lag on sales, and this year we've got a certain amount of logistical disruption as well. Can you give us some idea of which markets you'll be selling your ferrovanadium into? I see that the ferrovanadium prices in China are picking up very nicely. Europe has softened a bit, so are you going to focus maybe more on the U.S.? Thank you. Thank you, John, for the questions. I am going to split these questions up between my team. I will let Francois talk to what we do. Yes, you're right that people shut down. Not operations shut down. We don't close our operations. It's summer holidays this side, and we need to make sure that we maintain the momentum of our production. Let me hand that to Francois, perhaps, to just provide a little bit more color on how we ensure that we can maintain the momentum in production. Francois? Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah, it's a little bit different than the mining industry of South Africa, where they go on a shutdown. Our processing facilities do not close. It's a full calendar operations, 365 days a year. The only component or assets that do close is the mine itself, the pit, but we're managing our stocks for the closure. We've got enough stocks before the mining guys go on break. Then we then, during January, for the processing facility to continue. From a mining and asset point of view, that won't have an effect. Obviously, during that period, and starting off now, safety becomes quite a high priority for us. This is the so-called silly season, as everybody says. I'm more concerned around our safety performance, and we've got various campaigns and drives to make sure that people come healthy and fit to work and are focused to continue their work as planned. I don't expect from an output point of view that the holidays will have an effect on us. Thank you, Frans. On the question of sales, you're right, there's been a bit of a lag, John. The things that have impacted on that, as we stated in the RNS, in addition to the COVID-related disruptions to the logistics supply chains, I think it's safe to say that part is a bit of a new normal that everybody who's exporting and has got to do with logistics has to plan around. We've learned how to do that and taken that on board in terms of how we plan logistics. In July, the disruptions that happened in KZN, those are ones that were not foreseen. They did have an impact because we export most of our production, our product, via the KZN ports. That that is behind us, of course, we're working to make up for some lost ground there and replenishing our inventories. I think the challenges associated with COVID, as far as logistics are concerned, we've had some time to work with that and adjust our planning around that. The once-off disruptions, like what happened with the unrest in KZN, there is nothing we could do about that at the time. Suffice to say that with that behind us, as I said, we are moving to try and replenish our inventories as much as possible. We believe that we should be able to make up for some of that ground. One other comment I'll make to that point also is that, of course, sales are important, particularly in terms of our income statement, performance, et cetera. We want to make sure at the same time that we've got the product there. I think as long as we have the product available to sell into markets. It's an easier problem to solution for from a working capital point of view than not having production. I'm actually quite pleased that the work that we've been doing in the plants to make sure that production is stable, that we have a product to sell, that has taken the kind of importance and priority that we have given it, and then we're seeing the kind of results that we are seeing there. You made the point, I imagine you are talking ferrovanadium, not ferrochrome. We do sell into, obviously, Chinese market, into the U.S. market. Very pleased to see the U.S. market holding up quite strongly, actually, in terms of prices. We are, I think Q2, one of the things that we did state was the fact that we were prioritizing operational stability at Vametco and at Vanchem. I would just say that I think building credibility is something that takes time. One of the things that we did say amongst ourselves is that we need to put our head down, make sure that we get our operations delivering on a consistent basis. As confident as we were at the time, and as confident as we still are now, as far as the market is concerned, we have to just produce those results on a consistent basis. I'm pleased that with these Q3 results, we've built on a strong Q2, and we continue in Q4, to focus on ensuring that our production performance, our cost performance is great. As we continue around that, I'm trusting that, I think the sense of confidence in us and in our production performance going forward will return. The only answer to the issues we had at the beginning of the year is to do exactly what we have just been doing, and we certainly look forward to continuing doing that. Yeah, on that note, I wanted to thank you all for your time. Look forward to speaking with you on the Q4 results in due course. Just also one final point I want to just highlight is you will see a strong focus in our operations, in this RNS that we put out. Work continues in our various energy initiatives, and in respect of which we will provide the market in due course with updates. The absence of mention of energy in this RNS should not be construed to mean that nothing is going ahead, nothing's going on in that space. We are working hard as well there to ensure that we deliver on our objectives. I look forward to providing an update to the market in due course on that. Thank you. Thank you for your time and have a good afternoon and a good day ahead. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.
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