Good morning, everyone, welcome to this first quarter 2023 conference call for Green Minerals. My name is Ståle Rodahl. I'm the Executive Chairman in the company, and I'm here with our CEO, Ståle Monstad, and our Sustainability Lead, Angela Maekawa. Before I hand it over to them, just want to make a couple of initial remarks. When we set out on this journey almost 3 years ago, our aim was to position Green Minerals for the opening up of the Norwegian Continental Shelf for Marine Minerals. My excellent colleague and geologist, Øivind A Dahl-Stamnes, at the time, pinpointed the second quarter 2023 as the best point estimate for the date of opening. Now, three years later, we have arrived, and surely, with the ruling Labour Party having voted for opening, the white paper that has been sitting on the OED's desk should be on its way, meaning a decision ought to come from the parliament before the summer break. Over and above this, we have also signed a memorandum of understanding for a really large license for polymetallic nodules in the Pacific Ocean. A considerable amount of work has been done on the license to date, with exploration data indicating more than 200 million tons of wet nodules over the license area. This, as you will understand, is huge, also on a global scale, putting Green Minerals in a position to become a key supplier of these metals globally for many years. From time to time, we get some questions from our shareholders about the mismatch between the better-than-guided progress in the company's journey towards license holdership and the share price. I don't think it is our job to comment on the price set in an open and free market, but if someone had told me three years ago how far the company had come at this juncture, and that the share price would have been down 70% over the same period, I surely would have answered with a question, and that is, "Why?" Lastly, I'd like to commend Ståle Monstad and the entire Green Minerals team for a job well done over these past few hectic months. With that, I hand it over to you, Ståle. Thank you very much, Ståle. I will start out with the financial highlights for the quarter. As you can see, the cash balance is around NOK 80 million, and the EBITDA is negative of just over NOK 1 million. The EBITDA includes NOK 1.4 million gain on the company share incentive program, so the underlying EBITDA was a negative of NOK 2.4 million, which is in line with previous guiding and run rate. I also just want to make a brief recap of what we achieved last year in 2022. We concluded our first research cruise with Project Ultra into the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. We also started out a metallurgy study on seafloor massive sulfide samples from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, just to bridge more into the processing side of the ore. We included the large database from NPD that were released last June into our database and have started working on using this data in our exploration strategy. We also is continuously working on partnership. We, Ståle mentioned, signed a MOU with the license holder in the Pacific, and we are working towards strategic partners also in Norway and internationally. This is a continuous process. The highlights for Q1. We are in Norway moving towards opening. We are expecting the white paper, the proposition, going to the parliament before summer, and the decision shortly thereafter. We also see really large opportunities in the Pacific, in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, and are working extensively with one of the licenses down there. We have started and continued the work on the actual ore from the seafloor massive sulfides, and we have secured ore from onshore copper mines to prove that these types of ore can be processed together. Finally, Last but not least, we are also working on the concept study for production system in the harsh environment of the Norwegian Sea, together with the partners in the OSI consortium. I will come back to all these a bit later. First of all, Green Minerals is working actively towards the opening of the Norwegian sector. We're not just waiting around, but we are working proactively with the authorities. We see that all the major political parties are in favor of exploration. We also have a very supportive ministry and agency that is responsible for this activity in Norway. We see that the offshore industry in Norway, and also abroad, is ready to take part in this substantial new industry. As an example of what we're doing, we are collaborating with NTNU in Trondheim on tax regime policies for the future industry. This is done as we are supervising several master's students. I also want to just to stop on this, these clips from The Wall Street Journal, stating that copper is potentially the new lithium. There will be a shortage of copper in a very short time if we are continuing the green transition. The Wall Street Journal writes here, "The next big bull market could be copper," and that the shortages actually threatens the green transition. Also McKinsey, in their report in February 2023, points to this supply gap for copper in the years to come. Copper is actually getting more and more critical and has been included in EU's list of critical metals, going forward with the green shift. At the same time, on the geopolitical side, we see that China is securing more and more control on copper resources, and the marine minerals offshore Norway and elsewhere could be independent part of this important value chain. We see that from NPD's report on the resource and the Norwegian sector, that there's a significant resource also on a global scale. The numbers you see here are from seafloor massive sulfides only, not from crust. As you can see, the estimate from NPD on copper is 38 million tons. It's almost 2 times the global annual production of copper today. It's a very significant resource sitting out there potentially. The study we are doing on together with the Geological Survey of Finland on material from the deep sea is continuing this year. We are building on what we did last year. To this year, we are also including land-based copper ore to prove that we can process this together in existing facilities. This is, as far as we know, the first of its kind study in the world, that we blend material from seafloor massive sulfides from the deep sea with conventional onshore VMS copper ore. This is done in the laboratory in Finland. The benefits for industry and for Green Minerals is actually to prove that we can use all these existing facilities that are present a number of places in the Nordic countries. Also, it's a launch pad for bridging the new industry of deep-sea mining with the conventional mining industry on land, which is also important as we see it. In total, we think we can build quite a low or a small carbon footprint value chain in the Nordic countries. There is a number of places where we can process copper or SMS material. Some of them are active today, and some of them can be reopened or slightly modified. We also know that there is a number of gigafactories for batteries in the North countries planned or existing or under construction, and the sailing distance from the Mohns Ridge to Northern Norway is, by comparison, quite small. We also have an extensive grid of railroads in Norway and Sweden, so the actual footprint from this value chain or the entire from production, from exportation to use in factories, is relatively small compared to the alternatives. This is the timeline that Ståle mentioned in the beginning, that was set out 3 years ago, and it still holds up. We finished the public consultation a couple of weeks later than what's on this plan in January this year, and we are waiting for the open decision to come. So far, the timeline has been unchanged since the beginning. I just want to touch upon again the partnership we have with OSI and the consortium. It's a consortium that's currently working on a concept study for harsh environment deep-sea mining system for use in Norway. We expect the first batch of results, yeah, any day now, towards the end of May or very early June. It's also worth mentioning that OSI, which is heading up this consortium, has already delivered devices that The Metals Company used in their test in the Pacific for nodules and also for the Japanese test that they did on SMS outside Japan. Likewise, SMD has delivered mining machines for previous SMS mining projects. These companies that we work together with are among the few companies that actually have delivered technology and equipment to the test that has been done so far. Marine Minerals, which is of course, it's bank for us. In this process, Ozar also becomes a shareholder in Green Minerals. A little bit on the Pacific. We have been working together with one of the license holder down there, and we have pre-qualified a structure for the actual merger with that company. We have also initiated discussions with the legal departments in ISA, and like I just mentioned, our consortium partners have already been involved in test production in the area. The timeline at the base here is very sort of rude and crude, but it just shows that we have come quite a long way, and we are working towards transfer of rights and final contract. Green Minerals can be a license holder in this in the near future. The resource down there is a bit different from what we see in Norway. It is actually more a battery play. It has, it's a unique ore, the nodules. Contains the 4 metals in one ore, which is copper, cobalt, manganese, and nickel. Unlike land ores, there's no toxic levels of heavy elements in the nodules on the sea. It's a very large area covering by the license, and the resource is really large as well. At least 200 million tons of wet nodules, which is, if you consider a production of something between 1.5 million and 4.5 million tons a year, it's many years of production of nodules already proven on the license. We are looking at 2 unique world-class resources. One is the seafloor massive sulfides off from Norway, and the other is the nodules in the Pacific. The SMS is mainly a copper play, also, have some interest in cobalt in some of the deposits so far. It's a three-dimensional deposit that covers a very small area, and mining is needed. You need to actually excavate to produce it. The nodules, on the other hand, is more like a two-dimensional deposit. It's sitting on the threshold on the seafloor, and it's produced through harvesting. There's no blasting, no excavating, no digging. It's just harvesting of the nodules. The commodity is different. It's a typical battery mix with nickel, manganese, cobalt, and also copper. If we look at the two areas and the characteristics that separates them, they are different commodities in many aspects. Like I said, the SMS is mainly copper. The nodules are mainly battery metals. Of course, there's different jurisdiction and legislation. In ISA, the exploration is active, and the Mining Code is in progress. In Norway, we are waiting for the opening for exploration. When it comes to exploration techniques and production techniques, there is a slight difference. It's a bit more mature on the nodule side. All in all, we believe that the production from the Pacific will happen sometimes before we start our production in Norway, potentially. This year, we are looking at a license win in Pacific. We are working towards a transfer of rights and final contract, and we're also looking into other opportunities internationally. We also have planned our next research cruise together with Project Ultra to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and this year it will focus on sediment coring for improving the exploration strategy and also to investigate if there's potential for actually producing metals from the sediments. Like I mentioned, we are also working with the onshore copper ore, together with Seafloor Massive Sulfides in the processing science, together with the Geological Survey of Finland, where the aim is to demonstrate the blendability between the 2 different ores. We are always working on alliances, partnerships, and particularly, it's getting more and more clear that the shipping industry is something that is also needed to be included in this business, and we have shifted or actually included shipping into our business development process going forward. I will hand over to Angela for the ESG presentation. Thank you, Ståle. Good morning, everyone. My name is Angela Maekawa, and I'm a ESG and Sustainability Lead at Green Minerals. I will present an overview of our ESG work. At Green Minerals, ESG work is based on responsibility, transparency, and efforts to continuous improvement to guarantee sustainable operations. How do we do it? By building a strong governance structure that focus on environment protection and social impact. After a materiality assessment, the company has identified the impact on the environment as material, due a general stakeholder's concern and consensus that more data is needed to ensure the least impact from deep-sea mining. Social impact is being addressed through the development of internal policies and procedures and will become material as we gradually expand our business. This structure is a starting point of an ongoing process that will suffer alterations, especially after the start of operation, as we gather actual data. To support the three pillars, we rely on three main process: stakeholder engagement, where we listen to their concerns. Due diligence on our own operations and partners, a process that can be complex and challenging on a large scope. Reporting, which is the tool to keep our stakeholders informed, a tool to measure our progress, and improve our process. Currently, we have just released, for the second consecutive year, our sustainability report, which is in accordance with GRI. We are participants of the UN Global Compact, supporting the 10 principles and with the mandatory yearly reporting. Green Minerals commits to act on the Sustainable Development Goals, is also participating on the development of an ESG handbook for Marine Minerals. That's it for me. Thank you. Back to you, Ståle. Thank you, Angela. Just also a quick look in recent industry developments. We know that the Cook Islands have awarded three licenses for exploration, and in that process, also, Transocean entered into one of the licenses together with Moana Minerals Limited, and that was press released last year. We know that The Metals Company has successfully completed an integrated product system test in the Pacific, lifting more than 3,000 tons of nodules through a riser to the surface, and that is where the consortium partners of Green Minerals participated with technology and equipment. Also that Transocean announced that they've taken a stake in GSR and their license in the Clarion-Clipperton. Things are moving forward in the industry. These are our aspirational targets. This slide has been unchanged from the previous presentations. It is estimated that for the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, the annual EBITDA is estimated of more than $150 million on the current metal prices. The aspirational target for production start is in 2026. For the Norwegian sector, the gross revenue in our economic model with the 1.5 million ton of annual production is over $800 million, with a EBITDA of more than 50%, in the case of 1.5 million tons production. To sum up, Green Minerals is a pioneer on the forefront in Marine Minerals in Norway. We are also working towards transfer of rights and a final contract on a large nodule license in the Pacific. The opening decision in Norway is expected to come before summer. The public consultation was completed in January, and the original timeline is still holding on, and we were happy to see that the Labour Party officially support an opening of Norwegian waters for responsible deep-sea mining. Both the U.S. and the EU have created their list of critical minerals, interestingly enough, EU just included copper and nickel also as critical minerals for national security. Finally, large oil and gas contractors are starting to position in the deep-sea mining industry, which is shedding light on the industry values. That was our final slide today, and we are now open for Q&A. Thank you very much. Okay, Ståle, let's just do this together, huh? I guess we have a little bit of questions here on the Q&A, and then also on mail. First question is: When do you expect to finalize the transfer of rights to Green Minerals on the nodule license? That is a good question. It's not a process that we are controlling entirely ourself, of course. It depends on negotiations and also on discussions with the ISA. We hope to do it as soon as possible, but it will take time. Inevitably, the ISA council is having their meetings three or four times a year, so there's a schedule to be followed when it comes to doing it. Okay. When do you think the ISA Mining Code will be ready? Another difficult question, Ståle, because that is something they're working very hard on, I know that. The initial, sort of target was this summer, in July session this summer. That has slipped. They're working as hard as they can, and it's actually anyone's guess when there will be agreement, total agreement in ISA Mining Code. Hopefully, it will come, this year, in the November session, but it's still a bit unclear. Yeah. Then there's a follow-up question that, when will production in the CCZ commence? I guess that is production for the industry at large. If that question is probably for commercial, not testing, but commercial production, it's again, difficult to say. As soon as the Mining Code is approved and passed, there will be a lot of action going on in terms of it. There are several licenses that are ready to start harvesting as soon as all the formalities and sort of legislation is in place. But it will take, of course, some time to qualify the production systems. Our best, I think the earliest commercial production in Clarion-Clipperton Zone, we will probably see that around at the earliest, in 2025. Okay. Let me see. There are some other questions coming in here, is the CCZ MOU public? The answer is no. Does Green Minerals now have a share of the polymetallic nodule license area? No, nothing else than exclusivity through the MOU. We need the final agreement and the transfer of rights before we can say that we legally have a share of the license area. Another question: When will Oil States Industries become a shareholder of Green Minerals? With reference to the MOU that was published, or the press release was published last fall. The answer to that is that that will happen as soon as as practically feasible. The work on the study has started, there is an agreement or a scale down for issuing these shares to Oil States. As soon as practically feasible, that will take place. There is another question here: Can you talk a little bit more about the potential opening in Norway, if any? Can you discuss what the potential pushbacks or delays could be? I guess I'll hand it over to you, Ståle. Yeah, that's gonna be, of course, speculative from my side. We think that the potential pushbacks could be or sort of, how should I put it? There might be another public hearing on the actually opening, when they put out the areas that they decide to open. That might be a public hearing that could take a couple of months. Again, I don't know, but that's a potential sort of pushback. We like I said, all the major political parties are supportive of this industry. The responsible ministry and agencies are supportive, so we don't really see anything, any show stoppers. We think it will pass in the parliament, but there might be, like I said, sort of an extra public hearing on the actual blocks that are put up for discussion. Yeah. That's after the opening decision, then the issue is around how will the licensing actually happen? There might be a hearing round around the actual licenses or the actual areas. The actual areas, that's correct. Yeah. We think the process is gonna be very, very similar to what we have for oil and gas. Exactly. Okay, then there is a question, I guess we've answered that. Do you still expect awards from NCS late in 2023? I guess we've gone through the timeline there in detail, so that has been answered. When will you publish a reserve report on the CCZ license? We cannot do that before we actually have legally, share of that license. Right. Then I can add, that a lot of exploration work has been done on that license so far. The way we see it, there is only a minimum amount of work that remains to be done before a reserve report can be published. Right. As Ståle said, first we need to have, we need to land the actual transfer of rights. After that has been done, it should, we should be in position to issue such a report pretty quickly. There is a question: Why has your EBITDA loss in the quarter been reduced? I think Ståle touched upon it in the presentation, I guess it's... It has been reduced from NOK 4 million to NOK 1 million year-on-year for the first quarter. The reason that for that simply has to do with gains and losses on the employee share incentive program as the stock in the company fluctuates. Whenever the share price goes up, there will be a loss, and whenever the share price goes down, there will be a gain for the company. In the first quarter this year, we had a NOK 1.4 million gain, so that the underlying EBITDA is NOK 2.4 million loss for the quarter. That is where we see it apart from this non-cash effect on the EBITDA, from the shared center program, we see the burn rate of the company around NOK 2 million-NOK 2.5 million per quarter as previously. Let me see. There are some more questions coming in here. Where does Green Minerals think their first commercial operation will be located? In the, I guess, it's referring to the CCZ, that is the Pacific Ocean, or the Norwegian Continental Shelf. Just quickly, you can derive that from the presentation, but provided that the transfer of rights and the finalization of the agreement goes the way it should, or without any delays, then actually the Pacific Ocean would be the area where we see production starting first. To add to that, so what we need is on our license, final agreement on the transfer rights, and then we also need a ISA Mining Code to be put in place. As Ståle said, it was originally expected, this summer, has slipped, but The Metals Company, who is sort of first in line to start production there, aims for production in 2024. Then there is a question here about explaining the business model in terms of how Green Minerals will make money. Okay, the business model of Green Minerals is the business model of a mining company. I guess that is a bit too lengthy to go through that in detail here, but I suggest looking then at you can look at onshore mining companies and understand the business model from that. It has to do with gaining license rights. It has to do with exploration. Cost come first, and then it has to do with production out of the resources that has been hopefully then found. Ståle also showed the expected numbers based on some assumptions on production levels and metals prices for Green Minerals. On the Norwegian Continental Shelf, our business model is such that on the 1.5 million ton annual ore production, we are looking to land above $800 million in annual revenue, with an EBITDA above $400 million. These assumptions are, of course, very sensitive to metals prices. I can say on the production, 1.5 million tons is what we learned from the consortium, working on the study there, is that that number is at least not very aggressive. So could actually be somewhat higher. The typical SMS deposit we're looking at would be around, probably around 3 years of production. Then, we simply move the equipment to the next deposit, and we start all over again. That is one of the advantages, also the cost advantages with this, with doing this mining. Offshore, we just pick up the equipment and go to the next site. Okay, what else? Does Green Minerals believe there will be consolidation between Norwegian deep-sea mining companies? I know, I guess we can both... I can just initially start. I think what I would like to say is that, I think at least what you will see is cooperation on licenses. That we will actually share in on the same license, very much from the same model as you see in oil and gas. I think that makes a lot of sense. Whether there will be consolidation remains to be seen. The deep-sea mining companies now are small players set up specifically for deep-sea mining, which is natural because of, well, various sensitive issues around this industry before opening decisions have actually been taken, of course. I think it's natural that this happens through independent small players. Then, of course, after the approved stamp comes from the authorities, the industry structure is probably likely to change, i.e., you will also see larger mining companies with onshore mining interests taking an interest in this industry. The same can be said for oil companies, by the way. ... I just can add to that, Ståle, I think the entire sort of industrial ecosystem around this industry is not complete yet. Like you said, there will be a lot of development as soon as the region sector opens and the Pacific opens, and new players will enter the stage, and then maybe some consolidation. At the moment there is in a way a lot of available area for every deep seawater company in Norway, because there's not too many companies at the moment that are set up like we are. It's more like you said, Ståle, the cooperation now in the beginning to join forces and make this happen. Right. Right. Okay, it will be exciting to see. I guess we have also talked at some length about this in previous presentations, where we have looked at the value chain, the sort of complete value chain approach that we have, our partnering approach. We talked a lot about how we partnered up on studies, on exploration, how we partner up on the production system. We also said that when it comes to processing, there is not yet the partner in place. Of course, we see the latter parts of the value chain, which of course is there, and you don't need to go offshore to put it in place. It's there, it's onshore. We expect that to be in place then as a consequence of what I said. I think this, when these players feel that the approved stamp is there through opening decisions, it will be interesting to see the developments that will happen there. Can you elaborate a bit on the potential you see in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge? I don't know, Ståle, anything to add to- Well- What you already said? We use the Mid-Atlantic Ridge more as an analog and laboratory for research at the moment. The legislation out there is, again, controlled by ISA, the international waters. We are focusing on seafloor massive sulfide exploration efforts in Norway, not on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. We use that to learn more about the deposits and to improve on our exploration strategy. It's more on the research side than commercials. Yeah. Okay, also a follow-up on the CapEx numbers, what to expect this year. Really, the company now is, you could, in a sense, say that all our costs are a CapEx in the form of R&D. This is really what we're doing. We are a pioneer in this industry. We're setting up this together with partners from scratch. If you like, you could think about our costs as R&D. Of course, we are very conservative. We're expensing it. These are very small numbers, by the way. As we have said, one of our targets is to arrive at license ownership at the lowest possible cost, and we think we're well on the way to do that. So that's really it, and otherwise, any CapEx or any meaningful numbers on CapEx will begin when we start our after having one license and starting exploration on that license. Then we'll see how we tackle that through our partners and ourselves. Okay, what are your thoughts on the possibility of Norwegian government buyout to create an Equinor-type organization? I don't think that's something we can comment on. What you need to have a strong, larger industrial owner partner, I guess I commented on it already. I think, what I can add to what I said is that look at the right-hand side of our value chain. I can add also in, if you look at the production system, as such, there could potentially be partners there. We have already, of course, announced OSI as a partner, but there could also be other partnerships emerging there. We're very happy to have OSI as a partner there, and the main issue for us is really, potential partnerships, further to the right in the value chain. Okay, there are questions coming in, but, we need to end it somewhere. Mineral processing sites in Norway, two potential candidates in this country. There are questions about where the battery manufacturers, as we all know, there are a host of battery manufacturers plants, where they will get the raw material from. I think that is a really good question. Provided that it's China controlling processed, finished processed goods to a large extent for many of the metals that they need. It's a really good question, one that should be asked to the battery manufacturers. We are here to help, and, as Ståle already went through, we have two world-class resources, that we are both in terms of quality, that is, in terms of grade and in terms of size, that we can help with. Hopefully we'll be allowed to do that. Yeah. There are other questions coming in, but, I think we need, we need to wrap it up here. Ståle, any final comments from your side? No, it's exciting times now going forward, and it's like a lot of things are more or less about to happen at the same time, so we're looking very much forward to next quarter. All right. Great. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much for your attention and for your interest in Green Minerals and some very interesting questions, and we'll look forward to seeing you again in three months. Thank you.