Good morning to everyone in the UK, and good evening to those of you joining from Australia. Thank you for tuning in. Before we start, I'd like to acknowledge and pay my respect to all traditional owners and First Nations people who host our operation and Arcadium's operations around in the world. We are operating in a complex but exciting environment, full of opportunities. I'm pleased to discuss one major opportunity today, Rio Tinto's acquisition of Arcadium Lithium. We have learned a lot about Arcadium, about the Arcadium team in recent months. It is clear that we have complementary skills, shared values, and a shared belief in the potential that can be developed from the Arcadium portfolio. I'm therefore delighted that the CEO of Arcadium, Paul Graves, is here with me today. I'd like to welcome Paul and his leadership team, and everyone at Arcadium to the Rio Tinto family, where I believe we can make Arcadium and Paul's vision a reality. Over to you, Paul. Thank you, Jakob. Good morning, everyone. I'm thrilled to be here with Jakob and the Rio Tinto team. Our team at Arcadium, we've worked tirelessly to create a valuable lithium company, and we have a very strong growth portfolio, and as we run this business, we're always guided by making the right long-term decisions for our company and our shareholders. Today marks an important milestone in our journey as we look forward to joining the Rio Tinto family. This transaction represents tremendous value for our shareholders, for our employees, our customers, and our communities, and host nations around the world. Rio Tinto's proposal offers our shareholders cash certainty today at a very attractive price against the inherent risks associated with the delivery of our business, and as a result, it has received unanimous support from our board of directors. Rio's vision for the energy transition and the importance of lithium as part of the solution really resonates with me. And when we put Allkem and Livent together to create Arcadium, we had our own vision. When I presented our updated strategy to the market last month, I didn't like cutting our capital and slowing down our growth. On looking ahead, we recognize that the best way to realize the vision is from our merger, is with Rio, with Rio Tinto. And it's in this new home that we will start accelerating our growth and bring this vision to reality. Together, we can unlock significant value and long-term success in the rapidly evolving lithium market. We're truly excited about the future, and we look forward to the many opportunities that lie ahead. So back to you, Jakob. Thank you, Paul. We will now give some more background to the transaction before we take Q&A. Lithium is one of the cornerstone materials needed to support the energy transition. It's heavily leveraged towards electric vehicles and energy storage, accounting for more than 80% of global production. Over the next 20 to 30 years, it is expected to remain the preferred material for battery energy storage. This is due to its unmatched energy density, efficiency, delivery at high power levels, and owing to its fundamental chemical properties compared to other elements in the periodic table. Beyond lithium, Rio Tinto supplies aluminum, copper, and iron ore for steel production, which make up over 40% of the materials content of the battery. Indeed, we are the Western world's largest producer of aluminum, and we are expected to account for 25% of the growth in global copper supply in the next five years, so today is symbolic, as lithium ions are moving, the moving parts between the cathodes, where the aluminum foil is used as the positive electrode, and the anode, where copper foil is used as a negative electrode in a battery. By shaping our portfolio with a focus on these materials, we are delivering on our purpose of finding better ways to provide the materials the world needs. We have been consistent in our belief in the long-term outlook for lithium, with an expected market deficit emerging from the end of this decade and a double-digit growth rate until 2040. Lithium is one of the fastest-growing markets today and is expected to reach an even greater scale in the coming decades. We have been saying this for many years, that we want to build a lithium business, but we wanted to build it at the right time and as competitively as possible, so we create maximum value to our shareholders. We have been patiently studying the sector for a long time, ever since, in fact, we discovered Jadar 20 years ago, to decide the best way to enter the market and develop a lithium business of relevance and scale. Applying our disciplined capital allocation framework, now is the right time to acquire a premium lithium business. Through this transaction, we are bringing Rio Tinto's scale, development capability, and financial strengths to an already very strong Arcadium portfolio. Arcadium brings leading technologies such as direct lithium extraction, that it pioneers, which, together with our investment in the technology, creates a world leader in DLE. They have proven downstream capabilities, delivering the highest quality products. They also have deep commercial customer relationships. Arcadium brings the world's largest lithium resource base from Tier One assets, large, long life, low cost, and expandable. We have complementary geographical footprints and share rich experience operating in Argentina and in Quebec, Canada, where we plan to establish world-class lithium hubs, benefiting from economies of scale and deep local knowledge. We believe that inside Rio Tinto, we can improve and accelerate Arcadium's development pipeline with our project delivery capabilities, while offering strong and stable financial backing, enabling us to plan for the long term to deliver the optimal growth pathway. This transaction gives us the platform to create the world's leading lithium business in the next few years. Rio Tinto already have one of the highest growth stories with copper. With Arcadium, we believe we are positioned to have the world's biggest growth story for lithium. Paul will now tell us more about the business. Paul? Thanks, Jakob. So let me provide a quick reminder of who Arcadium is. We were formed from the merger of Allkem and Livent at the beginning of this year. This merger created a unique global, vertically integrated lithium chemical producer with the widest offering of lithium chemical products. Our world-class resources and manufacturing network is backed by a broad technology portfolio, with expertise in all major forms of lithium extraction and processing. In Argentina, Arcadium has a vast network of low-cost lithium brine operations with long resource lives, which are expected to remain operational for generations. These operations are supported by downstream chemical processing plants across the globe, making Arcadium one of a handful of truly integrated producers of lithium chemicals. Additional brine resources are under development in Argentina, close to Rio Tinto's Rincon project, and hard rock mines are under development in Quebec, close to Rio's Canadian operations, and these assets will benefit from Rio's existing footprint. Our technological leadership in direct lithium extraction is also extremely attractive. It complements Rio Tinto's technology development at Rincon and its Bundoora technical development facility in Australia, and one of the strengths our customers value is that we look to develop processes and products that are aligned with their own strategic plans. We're investing in next generation process and application technologies to stay close to customers and to maintain market leadership. We strive to improve the efficiency, the cost, the flexibility, and the sustainability of our existing and future operations, while creating new applications and market opportunities for lithium. Good examples of this work include our continued investment in LioVix printable lithium and the Li-Metal lithium metal technology, both of which are focused on the future trend of increasing lithium metal content in lithium-ion batteries, and ultimately, the move towards solid-state lithium batteries. We're also investing in next generation DLE technologies through ILiAD. Deploying IL technology in the future will allow us to improve our sustainability footprint, using less energy, less water, and less land, while recovering a significantly higher proportion of lithium than conventional technologies, and this investment supports our customers' desire for the most responsibly sourced lithium possible. We have well-established commercial relationships with blue chip customers, including Tesla, Panasonic, BMW, General Motors, and Ford. Our deeply embedded customer relationships have been built over many years. The diversity of product range and our proven reputation for producing high quality product, and the fact that we have a more diverse and therefore more robust supply network, makes us a partner of choice for major lithium consumers globally, and it is these relationships that have allowed us to develop the long-term customer contracts, which have helped us to outperform in challenging markets like today. Thank you. Back to Jakob. We have been developing our lithium strategy for many years. We have carefully evaluated how we can find better ways to deliver the lithium the world needs, in a manner that is supported by society, that respects local communities, minimizes environmental impacts, and delivers values for our stakeholders. Arcadium brings the number one lithium resource base in the world. Rio Tinto helps unlock it. Arcadium has deep downstream and commercial experience. Rio Tinto has deep upstream and project development experience. Together, we have the foundation to create the leading lithium business. As you would expect, we continue to maintain our disciplined approach to capital allocation, which has led to our very robust capital structure and strong balance sheet, enabling us to undertake this transaction and fund this growth. This transaction will grow our earnings and therefore grow our dividends through the cycle, creating value for shareholders over time. Our dividend policy is unaffected, and we remain committed to honoring our current policy and practices. A few details on the transaction itself. We are acquiring 100% of Arcadium for a consideration of $5.85 per share to be paid in cash. The transaction has been unanimously approved by both companies' boards of directors. Given Arcadium's legal structure, the acquisition is to be implemented via a Jersey Scheme of Arrangement and is subject to both Arcadium's shareholders' vote and customary regulatory approvals. We expect the transaction to complete in the middle of 2025, subject to the receipt of regulatory approval. It will be funded from existing liquidity, and the availability of Rio Tinto capital from closing will allow for the acceleration of project delivery. In summary, at Rio Tinto, we have been finding better ways to provide the materials the world needs for more than 150 years. We look forward to applying our learnings and experience to Arcadium's base of Tier One assets as we continue our journey to be the best operator and excel in development, with impeccable ESG to maintain our social license. Together with Arcadium, our combined technological capabilities position us to become market leaders in DLE and lithium processing, and we see value in creating lithium hubs in Argentina, where Arcadium's assets are located near Rincon, and in Canada, where we have significant presence through our aluminum, iron ore, and titanium businesses. Our financial strength and project delivery expertise will enable the acceleration of Arcadium's growth pipeline, creating significant value. Rio Tinto is the right home to unlock Arcadium's incredible potential. This is how you create a truly world-leading lithium business, with the right assets at the right time and with strong capital discipline. This transaction will ensure a reliable, low cost, and sustainable supply of commodity that is critical to the energy transition. We'll keep you updated with key information as the transaction develops, and I welcome the opportunity to answer your questions, or both Paul and I. The operator will now take the first question. Thank you. Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. We will now take the first question. One moment, please. And your first question comes from the line of Liam Fitzpatrick from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Good morning, everyone. I'll stick to two questions. The first one is just on the growth targets. Just wanted to understand if Rio is supportive of, and will it stand behind the targets that we recently heard from Arcadium, including the EBITDA target out to 2028, or could these change quite materially post-completion? And then also, if you have any comments on what this means for your own, organic, lithium projects. And then the second question, just on the dividend, I heard your comments there, Jakob, on the policy, but the policy is quite a wide range of 40%-60%, and you have paid out a minimum of 60% for a number of years now. So can you confirm that you'll maintain the 60%, or is there a chance that it could drop below that for a period? Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Liam. Let me take your second question first. Every year, twice a year, the board of directors makes a discretionary decision on dividend, of course, but if you listen very carefully to what I said, I said we want to honor the policy and practices of the dividend distribution. So yes, I would very much like to honor that, but obviously it's subject to individual board decisions. And then back to the lithium business. It goes without saying, when you say EBITDA, EBIT targets, that Arcadium has certain price assumptions. We might have different price assumptions, but it's really key for me, and maybe Paul wants to comment on this as well: How can we get the project schedule back to the accelerated path at the time of the merger of Allkem and Livent? Because lately, of course, Arcadium have had to preserve cash and therefore not accelerated as fast. Sure. Yeah, look, I think there's clearly within Arcadium, two projects that we've elected to move more slowly, and if we were to accelerate those projects, it brings about another 50,000 tons of lithium product in the form of spodumene or carbonate online, two years quicker than was in our plans on Investor Day. We also have additional expansions, which I'm sure you'll recall from our wave two, that can also be brought forward into wave one. And so we clearly are extremely keen to find ways to accelerate the projects that within Rio we can, that as a standalone company, we cannot, but within Rio, we will be able to accelerate them. And all other things being equal, of course, that will significantly enhance profitability over the next five years. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. We will now go to the next question. And your next question comes from the line of Alain Gabriel from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Yes, good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. Firstly, I have a question on your, Jakob, that's for you, on the broader lithium strategy. Now that you've got the scale, as you combine Arcadium's assets with your own assets in Argentina and Serbia, how much do you need to spend on lithium growth CapEx from now until 2030, give or take? And how does that tie into your $10 billion CapEx budget going forward? Is there some upside to that $10 billion envelope, in light of today's announcement? That's my first question. Thanks. Yeah, yeah. A couple of important points. First of all... Livent's, sorry, Arcadium's, apologies. We all make that mistake, don't worry about it. Arcadium's CapEx is actually only around 5% of the CapEx of the total. So it's not something that materially changed the overall ceilings or guidance we have given on CapEx. So I'm not coming up with new guidance. We stick with our guidance. And then actually, and I apologize, I should have answered that in the previous question. Our existing assets, we got Jadar, and we got Rincon. Rincon is progressing extremely well and will produce first lithium this year, and we believe that well, the feasibility study is also progressing very well, and we believe that we can get to a sanction decision by the end of this year, which will be another material investment into Rincon to bring it to full scale. Now, the timing of the development of Jadar is a little bit more uncertain, and you might have seen that there is a parliamentary debate this week in Serbia about lithium extraction. We are very committed to the project, but we also have to accept that it's a societal choice, so let the public debate happen, and we are there to develop it. It's a tremendous resource. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for that. And my second question is that you're placing nearly a $10 billion bet on lithium. If you included this acquisition and your CapEx plans for Rincon and potentially Jadar, how much confidence do you have in today's cost curves, and how much flexibility do you have to scale down your spending if the cycle proves to be or if the cyclical downturn proves to be longer or deeper than what you had expected? I would describe Arcadium's business as a business full of optionality. I don't think too much about the, you know, impact on the short term, because we really think long term about this around this development. We have actually during the whole year, and I'm standing here with colleagues who have worked extremely hard the whole year to try to look at every single lithium project in the world. That has given us the confidence about what we want to be part of and what we don't want to be part of. We became more and more clear that we were very keen on not just developing a spodumene business, but rather produce battery-grade lithium. We also realized that in Latin America, you probably find the lowest part of the cost curve, and therefore we like the brines, we like the more exposure to Argentina. I would say the hard rock opportunities in Canada are very attractive to us as well. So it was not kind of us looking at Arcadium, we were actually just looking at the whole industry and find out what are our criteria, and then suddenly we realized Arcadium had the perfect match for us, and therefore I'm super happy where we are today. Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Tom Pepper from RBC. Please go ahead. Good morning, Jakob and Paul. Just wondering, with the acceleration of Arcadium's growth pipeline, how do you consider the market implications or the impact on volumes? And I'll circle around to the second one. Yeah. Maybe, I'm actually very curious to hear Paul's- Yeah View on this, but I would say one thing that is very important, that's the mantra of Rio Tinto through decades, is we believe in the cost curve. And what we believe is we are bringing things at the low end to the market of the cost curve. And then, there might be others who are bringing more expensive in, and it might be difficult for them, but we feel very comfortable with the projects we have looked at. Sure. But it's, like, I think you've got to kind of get some sense of scale to the question. Lithium demand globally this year is probably about 1.3, 1.5 million tons. By the end of the decade, it's going to be 3, 3.5 million tons. The expansion needed to meet that cannot all be done from low-cost production, and so there has to be high-cost assets being added to the market. I know it's easy to think that accelerating our projects is in somehow or some way gonna add more supply. This market is gonna be undersupplied by the end of the decade, particularly when prices stay where they are today. And the cost curve, we believe, is only gonna get steeper. It's incredibly difficult to bring low-cost resources on from scratch. We're fortunate that we're not doing it from scratch. We're up and running in three different resources and very soon, four different resources. So the advantage we have to bring on low-cost, while the rest of the industry is gonna have to bring on high-cost, we feel very confident there's plenty of scope for more rapid and larger expansion of low-cost resources like ours. Sure. Thank you. And the second one, given the premium paid, could you provide guidance on synergies you're trying to achieve? And where do you see those synergies really being generated? Is it in Canada or Argentina? Thanks. Yeah. The way I look at it here is value, and premium is a little bit of a strange concept because the premium is high compared to the share price last week. It's actually a discount if you go to the beginning of the year or you go a year back. It's just been a very volatile journey, the share price of Arcadium. What we have been discussing, and it has been a very robust discussion, I have to say, until late yesterday, has, of course, been what is the intrinsic value? We pay a full and fair value. It's good news for the Arcadium shareholders, but we can really create over and above that, and... I didn't lay it out in numbers, but I laid it out in terms of structure in the presentation I just gave. I will just say to you the full potential of this portfolio, if it's executed well. I have no doubt that it will generate a lot of value to the Rio Tinto shareholders. It really doesn't come down to. In fact, if you think about it, it grows so much that actually a lower price right now might actually be good. What really matters is that the cost curve kicks in and gives the right cost, the right price over the next decade or so. We are very confident about that. We have spent a lot of time analyzing this. Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Rob Stein from Macquarie. Please go ahead. Hi, Paul and Jakob. Thanks for the opportunity to ask a few questions. The, look, the main question I have is really around synergies relating to technology. So Rio's invested a lot in, DLE, as has Livent, and, well, and Allkem. And when you sort of put that all together, what does that realize in terms of production synergies or cost synergies, at the three brine operations in Argentina, or four brine operations, I should say, in Argentina? First of all, I'll let Paul talk about the technology because he knows more about it than I do, but I've actually studied it quite a lot and spent enormous amount of time with our people. I spent a week in Argentina looking at it firsthand this year as well. If you just take a step back, you are having a small lithium industry today, and you still have a lot of the traditional pond solution. If you want to scale that up in Latin America, I mean, you're gonna destroy the Andes if there's gonna be ponds all over it. The DLE technology is a way of reducing your environmental footprint, and the technology is developing all the time, and it is actually the solution to provide the lithium that the world needs. And don't forget that it was really Arcadium that started this many, many years ago. You're the pioneers of it, and we are the fast follower, and bringing our research people together with your people, we already had a first little event last week. There's a lot ahead of us, and we haven't explored it fully yet. There's the right technology, but there's also a tremendous technology development journey ahead of us. Yeah, just... Look, I think it's important to understand that extracting lithium carbonate from brine is not a single-step process. Easily 20-25 steps in that process, and DLE fits into a flow sheet, into a process. So it's really important to have the know-how, how the entire process works and how the different DLEs interact with specific brines, specific environmental conditions. The key to unlocking initial implementation of DLE tends to be that know-how plus infrastructure. But once you have unlocked it, it's incredibly quickly replicable, and so it allows you to expand much more quickly. And so when you think about synergies, I think this opportunity to bring our know-how and our DLE with the, if you will, the unlocking potential of the ability to invest more quickly in the infrastructure. It just makes a massive difference to the ability to bring resources on. And most importantly, it's not just bringing them on, it's the ability to then just, we call it copy-paste, just copy-paste, copy-paste, and you can expand as quickly as you need to once you have that flow sheet running and once you have the infrastructure in place. Maybe just a quick follow-up, this is my second question: With, I guess, a lot of that IP and technical know-how sitting inside people, so to speak, Rio Tinto, like, how are you going to maintain the workforce, the know-how, the capability within, you know, Arcadium's footprint, and how do you create a culture that Arcadium has and Livent and Allkem had before it, in a structure of a big company? Yeah, look, that's our mutual challenge. I would help. This is not a kind of a merger where you bring two companies together and talk about synergies by taking out a lot of people. No, this is we need everyone here together to actually accelerate development, accelerate technological development. People find that exciting. I'm absolutely convinced about that, and I think when we look at each other, we believe that people really wants to work in this future entity. Yeah, Livent's been through this a couple of times. First of all, spinning out of FMC and then merging with Allkem to create Arcadium, and now stepping into the Rio Tinto family, and every step of the way, the employees are excited by what it provides for them. They love the business. We have people that have been in the organization for 26, 27 years. We've been operating in Argentina for 27 years. We still have employees number, I think 2, 3, and 4, still work for us. We still have people in Bessemer City that have just retired after 45, 50 years there. They don't. They just want to be able to do their jobs. They're passionate about lithium. They're really excited about the growth in front of them, and I, I am highly confident that they will all be super excited by what opportunities Rio can afford for them. So I, like, clearly, every individual is different, but I think this is a great opportunity for the Arcadium employees. I really do. Thank you very much for that color. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Glyn Lawcock from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead. ... Good morning, Jakob and Paul. I've just listened to you explain the deal is pretty compelling in what Rio can bring to Arcadium's assets and I guess the resource base. Was any consideration given to using scrip, not cash? I guess, so Arcadium shareholders can come along for the ride, but also so where the dividend potential of Rio shareholders is not put at risk as well. I must say, we didn't discuss that much because it just adds a layer of complexity, and Glenn, it's a very good point, but at the end of the day, it's 5-6% of the market cap of Rio Tinto. So at that level, normally you don't make a scrip, and we have such a strong balance sheet, so it's not gonna make a material difference from my, our point of view. So we, when we became clear about that, the perfect match for us was to get into Arcadium. We focused in on a cash deal, and we focused discussions very well around the cash deal and therefore didn't choose to open up for further complexity. But you should be- I appreciate that. We are happy to get Rio Tinto share issues. But look, you know, anybody who really wanted that can just take the cash and buy Rio shares. Not difficult. No, I appreciate that. I appreciate that, but it feels like one side wins and gets cashed out, the other side has to play for the long game. Is there any thought, though, Jakob, you are gonna be at 12 billion net debt pro forma from the acquisition. Mm. You know, you haven't been at that sort of level since two thousand and sixteen, so eight years ago. Right. You know, would you consider... I know you've got your wagon wheel that you use- Mm. for capital management and dividends as one, but what about issuing shares as well if you need to? Is that, I guess, another consideration? No, it's. I mean, it's a super good point. It's a little bit beyond this transaction. I should probably have said on this transaction, we never know where we are in the cycle. I would argue we are not at the top of the cycle of lithium right now. Assuming that we are lower end of the cycle, if you want to do anything countercyclical, you actually have to use cash to get that countercyclicality into it. But you're making a very good point, and we have some optionality because we got the DLE. So you start getting me thinking, and to be quite frank, I have been thinking a little bit before, but I don't think it's necessarily is that related to this deal. Glenn, the thing I would like to just highlight as well is Rio is getting much, much more cash generative now. Of course, we have the enormous cash generation from our iron ore business, but don't forget, we have, for a long period of time, invested heavily in copper, in Oyu Tolgoi. That investment has been done, and now it's ramping up, so we see every quarter more and more free cash flow there, and therefore I actually feel very comfortable with the balance sheet post-closing with Arcadium. Yeah, and could I squeeze a second one in, Jakob? Please, please. So just you mentioned you're purchasing it through Rio PLC, not Limited, and I guess Arcadium has an interesting tax structure where, you know, 'cause of where they do it through Ireland. Yeah ... they have a very low tax structure for their Livent business. Is there something along the lines of doing it through PLC and the Jersey scheme that- Yeah enables you to hang on to that tax structure? No, there's nothing in that. And the reason why we use PLC is just the general policy of our dual listing is that Australian assets are kept in Limited, and international assets are in PLC. Okay, and the tax structure, you can't hang on to it then, potentially, or that's to be decided? We have not counted any particularly tax advantages into this deal. Okay. Thanks very much. Other than I should say, that actually gave me an opening to say we are super delighted with the new RIGI legislation in Argentina, the RIGI legislation. That is actually, you really should study that. That's super attractive, and that's gonna help us, not just in terms of an attractive tax scheme, but also in a downside scenario, it provides a lot of protections for our investments in Argentina. Thank you. We will now take the next question, and the question comes from the line of Ephrem Ravi from Citigroup. Please go ahead. Thank you. I just wanted to ask, in terms of how you're thinking about complexity in Rio Tinto going forward. The Arcadium deal brings in about sort of 10-12 different assets, and some of them would be kind of relatively small by a typical Rio Tinto asset scale. So, you know, in terms of managing so many different assets together, you know, is do you think the management is going to be fairly stretched? The second question, if I can squeeze in that as well. Within Arcadium, there are some assets which are higher cost, you know, especially Mt Cattlin and Galaxy, and they are not typically the first or second quartile cost assets that Rio Tinto typically operates. In the medium term, you know, in the next five to 10 years, would there be a focus towards kind of cutting out the tail? Look, we actually believe that the vast majority of the assets are real Tier One assets. We are quite excited about the two projects, one being developed and one to be developed in Canada, and it's still for us to look deeply into it, but I have no reasons to dispute the decisions by Paul on Mt Cattlin. But do you want to comment? Yeah, Mt Cattlin's not a, not a low-cost asset, is also basically going on care and maintenance next year. We'll take a look at whether there are any market conditions that justify bringing it back online. But it's a. It was always a short mine life asset, and it's getting towards the end of mine life anyway, so it's not a meaningful part of the portfolio. Galaxy is a low-cost asset. It stacks up extremely well in the spodumene concentrate world. Some of the cost depends if you're measuring it on a carbonate or hydroxide basis on your conversion costs. But I think I'd encourage you to go take another closer look at Galaxy, because it's certainly first quartile in the hard rock space, and even in the total space, including low-cost brine assets, it's a second quartile asset, so it's a good resource, very good resource. Thank you. Thank you. We will now take the next question. And your next question comes from the line of Patrick Mann from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Good day, and thanks for the opportunity and the presentation. I just wanted to ask, you made the point about, you know, what Rio also brings to the table here is balance sheet and project delivery and the potential to accelerate some of these projects. So I suppose there's two parts to my question. One is, has capital been the main bottleneck to this? Or, you know, how are you thinking about managing the human capital side of it, or are there any other bottlenecks that could, you know, slow you down, whether it's regulation or approvals? And then, just in terms of the synergies with Rincon or maybe scheduling, does it make sense to kind of change now that you have an enlarged portfolio, does it make sense to sort of move these things around? Or is the goal gonna be, you know, as fast as possible development? Of course, if it makes the hurdle rate, accelerate development and deliver as fast as possible, or is there an opportunity to optimize scheduling of projects here? Thanks. Yeah, I'll let Paul talk about the constraints he's living in right now, but I do think. First of all, I am so excited about what we have built, and we're just small compared to Arcadium, but what we have built in Argentina, very... I mean, it was a great project we took over Rincon. We have built a great workforce there, and the project execution is just going so well, and that gives us a lot of confidence. Obviously, I've spoken a lot with our technical organization, our global project delivery organization, and we find it very doable. You see, you actually rather have a couple of smaller projects than these kind of giant projects. We are doing the giant projects like Oyu Tolgoi, like Simandou, but these ones we find quite digestible. And the beauty of that is also you learn from one project to the next project to the next project, so we have a very good feel about that. But, Paul, maybe your reality today? Yeah, look, I think the primary constraint for us clearly has been capital, clearly. You just have to look at the size of Arcadium relative to our, what our ambitions are, and you understand what a challenge we set for ourselves. But I think a second piece is, you know, the lithium industry, ourselves included, expanding resources, we're very early as an industry in our knowledge and understanding of how to do that. And so building those capabilities has been a real focus, and there's no doubt we will massively accelerate those capabilities. And you can even take that down, particularly with brine resources, that as you look at where you're developing them, bringing on a significant amount of experience across different projects. So whether it's sequencing or timing them, what you're really doing is building world-class capabilities focused on the high Andes, which is where we're developing these. And then the final point, what people miss and what often trips people up, is the handover from construction into operations. And if you don't have operational expertise, you've now got another learning curve to get up, and we have that operational expertise, both conventional pond and DLE. So de-risking the move through engineering, through construction into operations, I think it's a huge benefit down there. When you think about the network of Argentina assets, that we'll all face the same challenges, there will be nobody as capable as we will be together of de-risking and accelerating those projects. Thanks very much. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Richard Hatch from Berenberg. Please go ahead. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, morning, Jakob and Paul, thanks for the call. Look, I know we've talked a bit about the CapEx profile, but I'm just sort of looking at this phase two CapEx. Sort of on the upstream, it looks about, like, $3 billion. You're kind of talking about looking to potentially try and bring forward some of that. I know you've mentioned, Jakob, that about 5% of your CapEx budget is what Arcadium are currently guiding to, but clearly, you could push the accelerator if you're that bullish on the market and push that up a bit. So just for complete clarity, you know, some of these wave two projects, is there a view that you are gonna bring them forward, and when are you gonna tell us about that? That's the first one. Yeah, no, thank you. I mean, we obviously have an opportunity to now start, within legal boundaries, be able to talk more together. And, therefore, it would be natural for us to give you an update at our capital markets day that we plan towards the end of the year. But obviously, everything needs to be crystal clear when we get to closing of this. And if you think about the Rio Tinto CapEx profile, then you, we have just tailored all of our investments in Oyu Tolgoi. We are right now at peak levels in Simandou, but it's a very fast-developing project. So, when we get to closing here and start working on accelerating, you will already start seeing we are at the end of that project, et cetera. It actually fits quite well. You know, $10 billion is a huge pipeline, and it will always be tailing off, and that will make space for what we believe very, very profitable investments. I deliberately decided not to be too specific today on precise CapEx guidance, because I think both organizations will benefit from spending more time together and really make sure we get the growth journey absolutely perfect for the benefit of the shareholders. Yeah. Okay, fair enough. And then, perhaps just a follow-up on that. This is just a question for Paul. Like, obviously, Rio comes with a pretty defined view on capital. Generally, the asset's very well built, good quality, et cetera. Can you just give the market confidence that, you know, your CapEx guidance and such like that you've put in your presentation, you're comfortable that there's, you know, no room to run on that? And then just in terms of cost... Sorry, pricing, Jakob. I just wonder whether you might just be able to give us some form of a steer as to what kind of price forecasts or views you're taking on this? I mean, clearly, the market is poor at the moment, but you are very bullish on the long term. So, I think looking at the Arcadium presentation, long-term consensus is about $19 a kilo for carbonate. You know, is that something you feel comfortable with, or is it feel more bullish, more bearish? Thanks. So just again, what number did you mention? I couldn't hear the number. It was now 18.6 in the- Okay. Arcadium presentation long-term consensus, yeah. But what... Paul, why don't you take the first, Yeah, look, we just sort of, you just referenced the investor day. You can imagine before going out there with capital numbers, we spent a lot of time making sure we were comfortable they were the right capital numbers. We absolutely have a high degree of confidence in those capital numbers. Thanks. On the pricing, you know, we always refrain from giving any price guidance. Our focus is the cost curve and how the demand will develop. But I will say to you, we're dealing with a portfolio of low-cost assets, and we think as well they can be implemented at a decent level of capital intensity. And therefore, the real focus is how low can it be robust? And then we happily take all the upside, because I do think it's gonna be very difficult to project the lithium price. But if you think about it, the lower it goes in the next short period of time, the higher it will have to go later on. And in a way, that's not necessarily, that is probably in our interest. Yeah. Understood. Thanks for your time. Thank you. We will now take our final question for today, and the final question comes from the line of Mitch Ryan from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Morning or afternoon, Jakob and Paul. Thanks for your time. We've seen the Canadian government take an increasing degree of national security reviews whenever there's been mergers or transactions around Canadian assets. Can you just talk through any concerns you might have on regulatory approvals, either within Canada or with regards to the entire transaction? Yeah, look, obviously, we have to go through the process, and that will take time, but we feel very confident that this can clear from a competition authority. And specifically on Canada, we are by far the largest miner in Canada. We have a very good cooperation with the government. I would find it very strange if there could come up arguments that this should be against any, neither any competition arguments nor against an interest of Canada, because, in fact, what we are saying is let's get on with it and let's unlock the opportunities in Canada. Investment in Canada normally is welcome. Yeah. Thank you. And my second question just relates to Bécancour. Just, Jakob, what degree of due diligence have you conducted on that asset? I guess we've seen quite a lot of Western-made hydroxide refineries not being able to ramp up relative to nameplate. What due diligence have you been able to conduct on that asset, and what's your confidence that that will be able to meet nameplate? Which asset was it you referred to? Bétancourt. Oh, Bécancour. Yeah, yeah. Bétancourt. Yeah, of course. I mean, we have been sitting in a room a whole day together, and technical experts has been meeting, but Paul- Yeah. Why don't you talk about Bécancour? You know, it's a, it's a question we get all the time, right? And the question is, a couple of Western hydroxide plants, spod to hydroxide, they don't work. We knew that when we designed the plant. People forget that every other hydroxide plant built in China does work. And Arcadium, in a previous life, actually operated spodumene to hydroxide capabilities in the past. We started off that way in North Carolina. And we also have significant technical expertise and partners, both in the engineering world, but also in China. So you can assume that we've spent a huge amount of time studying what is behind the conversion plants that are struggling, and we've made sure that we've tackled all those challenges. There's never any guarantees. The truth is, that actually, the process for converting spodumene to hydroxide is not a fundamentally challenging one. It's about getting the engineering right, getting the construction right, and having good practices in how you put those together, and we're super confident that it will work. We have no concerns at all. None at all. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate the color in the answers. Thank you. That concludes the Q&A. I will now hand back to Jakob. Nothing else than saying thank you very much for calling in with short notice. We think this is a really positive piece of news today for Arcadium Lithium, for Rio Tinto, and for our respective shareholders. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Well done. Thank you.