BCI Minerals Limited (BCI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome, and good morning, everyone. I'm David Boshoff, BCI here at BCI Minerals and this is Steve Fewster, our CFO. Today, we'll cover 4 key topics of progress from the last quarter. We'll start with safety performance. Thereafter, we'll move into our operational ramp-up update. We'll cover the construction progress. And then lastly, Steve will take us through the cash and cost management. I'm happy to report that we've made solid progress in each of these areas but more on that later. I would like to cover at the onset the impact of Tropical Cyclone Sean. I'm sure many of you would be wondering about how that's impacted the Pilbara. I have to say that this has, of course, been a great test for our asset. This is the first Tropical Cyclone that we've experienced during either operations or construction ramp-up. And it's really reassuring to report that our levies and diversion drains has operated as designed. I'm also happy to report that we've had no material impact to any assets, either those assets that are constructed from civil works or the assets of our contractors. As always, we will take these as opportunities to learn as we progress towards operations and the rest of the life of the asset. I would like to make a note that this quarterly presentation is to be read in conjunction with the quarterly report that we published this morning. And also if you have any questions, please be sure to submit that in the chat function. We are very proud of our collaborative relationship that we have with our traditional owners. They are active participants in the multiple of environmental surveys that we conduct on site on a routine basis. These surveys included in this quarter, Turtle surveys. We also did surveys of mangroves, samphires, seagrasses, Algal mats as well as our mini Daisy. Our traditional owners provide very helpful ecological insights in our environmental efforts, and this contributes to the knowledge and the meaning of what we do. We've also helped them to build capacity, specifically for the Wirrawandi Aboriginal Corporation by broadening their contractual engagement as well as increasing employment activities. We are a values-driven organization and we are developing a world-class asset at Mardie. Our vision is to create long-term opportunities for our partners. Our purpose is to develop the Mardie project to deliver first-quartile cost performance for high-quality salt and SOP. Our values are unique to us and it's the foundation of who we are and what we do. The December quarter has been the first quarter that we've had continuous operations of filling the ponds. During this quarter, we've grown into an operating company. I've been encouraged to see really great examples of our team coming together with a passion to deliver on our commitments. Mardie is located in Western Australia's premier industrial salt production region. Mardie will be Australia's largest salt operation. This also makes us the third largest in the world with annual production of 5.3 million tonnes of salt and 140,000 kilotons of SOP. We are on track to enter the global salt market late next year. And I'll now step you through the highlights for the December quarter. So firstly, on safety, safety remains our first priority. We have continued to increase our performance in this area. We've done so by embedding fatality prevention measures. We've also further reduced our total recordable injury frequency rate and we've also implemented the second phase of our leadership in the field program. We've also had some changes to the team. Recently, Mr. Robert Mancini joined us as Chief Legal and Commercial Officer as well as Company Secretary. He brings with him extensive experience that will bolster our team and also position us well for our long-term growth strategy. I'd like to also take the opportunity to thank Stephanie Majteles for her contribution to BCI over the last 7 years. We continue to implement our groundwater management plan. As part of this plan, we track real-time data from our world-class network of ground monitoring boards. As part of our construction activities, we've also removed 716 hectares of Mesquite. This is a non-native invasive plant species that mainly occur at Mardie. We've also conducted our sustainability materiality assessment by engaging with our stakeholders. Now moving on to the operational and production highlights. First of all, during the quarter, we had a full quarter of operations by filling ponds 1 to 3. It was really great to see the team coming together to deliver on this. Also, the transfer stations has all been completed. So those first 3 ponds have been filled as you can see on the picture there. All our transfer stations also completed its construction all the way up to pond 8. We've also completed ponds 4 through to 9 in this quarter. You can see all the way up to pond 9 in this picture. Work has also progressed in the crystallizers as well as our second receiver intake and I've got more pictures on that later. We've also mobilized the jack-up barge. This jack-up barge will be used to install the Jetty head. Again, a great picture on that in further slides. During this quarter, the end of December, we are almost 60% through the project and we continue to target our first salt on ship for the second quarter of financial year '27. I'll now hand over to Steve to take us through the corporate highlights.

Thanks, David, and welcome, everyone, to another exciting year in the development of BCI. During David's introduction, he spoke about the importance of our values. This was another quarter where we've achieved major milestones that build the platform to create shareholder value. Achieving financial close, completing offtake agreements and then in January, having our first debt drawdown approved can only be achieved through collaboration across BCI. To achieve drawdown required key deliverables such as the approval of the groundwater management plan, executing our trans shipment agreement, a number of other major project contracts being executed, completing the equity raise, executing binding offtake agreements and importantly, keeping our costs and our plan to schedule. All of these deliverables rely on our high-performing people, independent experts and our contractors and also the support of our founding customers. Without the Win As One Team and finding away problem-solving abilities of our people, the Mardie project would only ever be a high quality project with plenty of promise. With the Mardie Salt phase now 56% complete and remaining on schedule and on budget, it has moved beyond promise to a project that has been substantially derisked. And we remain on target to deliver first revenue at the end of next year. The repeated delivery of our promises to our lenders enable them to have the confidence to financially back our team with a AUD 981 million project debt facility and then to provide access to this funding. During the December quarter, we drew AUD 68 million from our bank guarantee facility. And last week, our lenders approved our first drawdown of AUD 66 million from our main debt facility. Thanks, David.

Thank you, Steve. It's always exciting for me to share some photos and updates from the Mardie project. While this doesn't always do the real thing justice, I think it helps us to certainly communicate our progress to a much wider audience. Here, you can see a photo of Pond 3 and Pond 2 full of water, so Pond 2 in the foreground, Pond 1 and 2 in the foreground and Pond 3 in the background. It's been a privilege to witness how our contractors and the BCI team came together in this quarter to make this all happen. The primary seawater intake that feeds this system has completed 779 operating hours in this quarter and has also pumped 48 gigaliters of water through that system. During November, we also wet commissioned transfer station 2/3. So in this picture, that's the discharge point of that transfer station. As I mentioned in the previous slide, all our transfer stations has now reached practical completion. And I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Centrals and QETRA. They've been instrumental partners in delivering these transfer stations for us. This image is an image of Pond 3. This is now looking towards the sea. This is being filled, so a couple of weeks ago. And once the second phase of our groundwater management plan has been approved, we'll be able to start filling ponds 4 through to 9. And that picture to the right-hand side, that's Pond 4 ready for water. With Pond 3 now filled, we saw water arriving at transfer station 2/3, that's the transportation in the picture. Work commissioning is our next step there. We've also had the jack-up barge arrive at the jetty head. This is an asset that will be able to remove the traveler, that's the yellow structure in that picture as well as the crane that activities has commenced and then will move to the jetty to commence with a pile installation at the jetty head and conclude our port facilities. This 2.4-kilometer jetty forms part of our common user port. And as we've mentioned in previous quarterly updates, this provides us with a strategic advantage, particularly that it enables strong shipping that will help us to cost effectively bring our product to our customers and access to key markets. I'd also like to take the opportunity to acknowledge McConnell Dowell. They've been a great partner in construction of this asset and we're grateful for that relationship. Our secondary seawater intake has also had a big transformation across this quarter. And as you can see in the background, that's where the jetty that we just had a look at. So in the foreground, the secondary seawater intake. By the end of December, we've completed a number of key activities. As you can see, the switch room is in position. Also, the 40-megaliter holding pond has been completed and we're filling it with water. And also this will be used to be able to condition the crystallizers through the pipeline that you can see in that picture. During December quarter, we've also completed all the seawalls. This is a picture of the seawall at Pond 8 and the evaporation ponds has reached 97% completion. In this case, Q-Birt has been instrumental in delivering this work, and they are currently working on the crystallizers for us. I also would like to acknowledge the Pilbara Quarries organization. They are local indigenous organization from the Pilbara and they supplied all our rock for all our seawalls on the ponds. Our final construction efforts for this year will be focused on the Salt Wash Plant, the haul road as well as, of course, completing our port facilities. Our disciplined approach during previous quarters have meant that we are still on track and on budget. As you can see in this slide, during the December quarter, that's the quarter highlighted in green, we've made significant progress across a number of activities. These include the transfer stations, the brine production circuit. We've also completed the ponds. Crystallizer construction has progressed significantly. Rock placement along the gas pipeline, that's complete as well as on the seawalls, as you saw in the previous picture. The haul road work activity is also progressing really well. With this, we continue to target our first salt on ship in quarter 2 of financial year '27. Our team and contractors have worked diligently to keep us to schedule and to deliver some of these activities either on or ahead of schedule. I'll hand over now to Steve to take us through the all important financials.

Thanks, David, for that overview. The closing cash balance for the quarter was AUD 65 million, which combined with the undrawn debt of AUD 913 million means BCI Minerals is fully funded to complete the salt component of the Mardie project. At the end of December, we had invested AUD 898 million in the project with AUD 730 million of that spent on the CapEx. During the quarter, we invested AUD 102 million. Expenditure remains in line with our base capital budget of AUD 1.443 billion. [Audio Gap] is again a credit to both our team and our contracts. The quality of the Mardie project and the people that are delivering it. This gave me the confidence to personally participate in the equity raise and was pleased to see the ongoing confidence of our major shareholders. This is now the fourth quarterly update I've delivered alongside David. Each quarter the BCI team [indiscernible] and delivering construction of the salt phase of the project, again, on time and on budget. Whilst I'm frustrated by the share price, I'm also very confident that as we continue to deliver on our promises and progress towards first revenue, the market will rerate our share price. In terms of the salt market itself, I spent quite a bit of time during the December quarter in Asia with a number of our customers. Off the back of those visits, I'm feeling particularly bullish about the outlook for high grade industrial salt. During this quarter, we secured the final binding offtake agreements that we needed to be able to secure our debt funding. These agreements deliver supply into the China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea and Taiwanese markets. We now have committed volumes of around 62% for the first 3 years of our forecast production. The pricing on that supply will be set in the year prior to us delivering the product. And the term of those agreements is initially for 3 years with options to extend for either 3 or 5 years. We are targeting [indiscernible] of committed sales by FSOS. With 62% of the first 3 years sold, we are close to achieving that target. Our strategy, however, is to sell the remaining tonnes on the spot market. That will enable us to take advantage of the forecast rise in salt prices. We're also very excited about the amount of inbound calls we are receiving for the supply of salt. This interest is also reflected in the latest data released by Wood Mackenzie, which shows growing demand for salt in Asia but with little new supply expected to come online over the next 5 to 10 years. The forecast supply shortfall, which you can see in that shaded area in the above graph is positively affecting the salt price forecast. Some of the factors driving the demand for salt include the growth of GDP throughout Asia, the number of new chlor-alkali and soda ash plants in China and Indonesia, which combined with no other sizable projects coming being commissioned. We're also seeing reduced supply coming out of Mexico. This has been partially offset by new supply coming in from India. But there's structural changes happening in India, which we would expect to see India move from being a net exporter to becoming a net importer over the next 10 or so years. With first on ship targeted for late next year, I believe BCI Minerals is perfectly placed to launch itself into the market. Thank you. I'll now pass you back to David.

Thank you, Steve. During this presentation, we outlined 4 key areas. The first one we spoke about is safety. We updated you on our progress on fatality prevention measures as well as our improvement on TRIFR. We also covered the operations ramp-up. The construction progress has been very exciting in this quarter and then Steve covered the cash and cost management. A couple of Saturdays ago, I was sitting at my breakfast table with my family, and I was on my phone and rather frustrating or frustrating for my wife, she said, what are you looking at? And I said to her, I've got my first production report. And she said, here we go. This is going to keep you busy. I said, this is the super exciting part. I've been looking forward to this for a very long time. So it's great to be able to share with you these moments. And of course, the moment that we first have salt shipping out on that jetty that we showed you earlier will be another moment for us that we can enjoy and something for us excitingly to look forward to. And of course, that joined with the information that Steve shared about the market, and I've joined on many of those trips that he was referring to, certainly, the demand is there and bringing those 2 things together is certainly a very exciting future for BCI. We will now go into questions and Tammie, our Head of People and External Affairs, will cover those. If you haven't already, please submit your questions in the chat function.

Thank you, Steve, and thank you, David. We have a couple of questions that have been submitted. The first one being, could you provide an update on progress with our SOP design? Has the SOP flow sheet been finalized? And if not, when is it estimated to be completed?

Thank you for that question. Yes, certainly. So late next year, our FEED studies have been completed. And of course, we continue to do some piloting work. And when some of those work and I guess something material has been completed, of course, we'll update the market accordingly. And I have to say we are still and will continue to be fully committed to our SOP commitments to the market. Also I want to emphasize that we'll do so in a very structured and organized way to ensure that we are successful. So we are very excited about the SOP. Certainly, our visits to the regions that Steve referred to has confirmed and that this is a very exciting product. But of course, we want to make sure we do so successfully. So we'll take our time, and we'll update the market when there's something material to report.

Thank you. Another question, can you give us an indication of how the pond filling process is going?

Yes. So the pond filling process has been tracking to plan. As I mentioned in some of the previous slides, we've got water now all the way up to the operating heights of the first 3 ponds. What will happen from there onwards is we continue to top up these ponds as, of course, evaporation occurs. Our evaporation has been through the quarter in line or ahead of what we predicted for this period. And of course, we're also tracking our salt inventory in our brine and that, again, is meeting our plan. The next step for us would be the second phase of our groundwater management plan to be approved. And of course, at that point, we'll continue to pump water into Pond 4. That groundwater management plan has been submitted to the federal and state governments. And of course, we're working closely with them to ensure that, that process progresses as fast as possible.

Excellent. Steve, do you expect the salt First part of the project to come in or under budget?

Look, at the moment, we're very confident that it will come in on budget. I think there's a couple of pieces of the project that still need to be finalized before we'd be able to come out and confidently say it will come under budget. So in some of those key areas, we do need to finish the jetty. We've still got the salt wash plant to construct as well as the dredging component of the project. I think during the course of this calendar year, as we start to get a firmer view on what those 3 components, in particular, will cost us, then I think we'd be able to give better guidance as to whether it will come in under budget. But certainly, at this stage, we're very, very confident that it will come in on budget.

Excellent. Can you provide an estimate of when the approved Mardie quarry will be operational? Surely, this will provide significant savings for rock availability and costs.

Yes. So good question on the Mardie quarry. So of course, when we received our approvals from the federal and state governments, that allowed us to access the quarry. We are currently doing a process working with a preferred contractor to set that quarry up. My expectation is that will be happening in the next 6 to 8 months. That, of course, depends on that setup process. On the question of cost savings, the answer is, I guess, two sided. First of all, when you've got a dedicated supplier from the Pilbara [indiscernible] particularly from Karratha, where they're traveling from, certainly, you add cost in terms of transport. But where the significant cost savings is on the alternative products. If you run a quarry, you don't just produce the exact size rock that you require for the seawalls, you produce a lot of other types of products. So we will explore the use of those other products. But if you're only looking for large rocks, that's waste that you have to pay for as well. So we've done extensive studies. And if you're only looking for large rocks, it's actually more cost effective to supply from the quarry up at Karratha. But we still have other work to do such as road construction and other maintenance activities and other rock we've got to place. So I'm expecting that later this year, that quarry will be operational and we'll be able to produce a wide variety of products for use on site.

Thank you. How have you managed to stay on schedule given all the moving parts that have occurred over the last few years?

Yes. So I'll answer some of that. And of course, maybe for Steve to jump in as well. The primary thing is, of course, the focus of the team in finding a way. So we speak about our values. Yes, there's been some parts of that that's been moved perhaps against us but there's other parts that's moved in our favor. And I think the main difference is the way we think about these projects. So traditionally, projects and of course, this project was the same. The schedule is quite a sequential process. And what the team continuously works on is looking for opportunities to condense activities or to do activities in parallel. I also have to give credit to our contractors. Some of our estimates in earthmoving have moved a lot faster than what we anticipated. And part of that is because the more you do the same activity, the more productive and the more efficient you become. And we've certainly seen that in the earthworks, focusing with the same contractor and continuing to speed up our learning. So as an example, the first crystallizer took a couple of weeks. The fourth crystallizer took about 25% less time for the same activity. So that learning experience and working closely with our contractors and continuously looking for opportunities has really stood us in good stead to be able to get to that point. Steve?

Yes. I think we run a very strong, very disciplined cadence in terms of monitoring progress. And I mean, it's basic. It's weekly check-ins in terms of the things that we know need to be delivered over the next 90, 60 days over the next 12 months and then holding people to account and not just relying on what people tell us but actually validating that what is coming through to us as a senior leadership team is what's actually occurring. And I think as David said, those values, do what you say you're going to do, winning as one team, finding new ways. There's many examples I can think of as we've worked through, particularly within my area, as we worked through to being able to draw down on the debt facilities that we've had to come up with some quite novel solutions to be able to make our way and progress to that point. And I spoke earlier about collaboration. I think the success of BCI really, it really does revolve around a high degree of collaboration across all teams within the organization. I think there's a really, truly passionate commitment towards the project. And I think the other unique thing about BCI is we are not a large company in terms of the number of people in the organization. That means most of us know each other's names. It means the speed of communication is far greater than, say, some of the larger organizations. So I think BCI has a lot of unique components to us, which is enabling us to deliver this project on time and on budget.

Thank you, Steve. David, there's been a question about tropical cyclone Sean. Could you give us another update on how the Mardie Project will be done?

Yes. So the tropical cyclone Sean particularly dumped, of course, a lot of weather rain or wet weather. In Karratha, so a fair bit north of us, they experienced a bit more than 200 millimeters of rain on that Sunday. And then at Mardie, we received about 120 millimeters. What I have looked at is the pond levels of pond heights before and after the cyclone. And what was very reassuring is the increase of those height of the ponds has been almost exactly the same as the millimeters of rainfall that we received. The reason why that's significant is it means that we've received almost 0 runoff from the surface water into the ponds. And we've actually designed them in a way that all the water that comes from the surface runoff actually is diverted around these ponds and avoids running freshwater into saline ponds. So for me, of course, that's a great reassurance that the design has worked as it's been designed. Also through these events, you always experience erosion. And through this erosion, the team has gone through a very careful process to tabulate those, but there's been no material erosion that we need to report as well, the other good thing as well, of course, this particular event can help us to confirm that this design is meeting our expectations from a 1 in 100-year flood immunity. I also would like to include that the jetty, of course, that design is a 1 in 500-year design specification and there's been no impact to any of that infrastructure. There's been, of course, significant rain for that region. We haven't seen that amount of rain for the last probably 3 years in terms of annual rainfall but the site has really weathered it really well. I'm actually heading there today to go and work around with the team and to go and see exactly what some of these events, how we can continue to improve the project. But yes, no material impacts to report.

Excellent. Thank you. That concludes the questions that I have.

Excellent. Well, thank you, everyone, for joining myself and Steve. Of course, very exciting for us to engage with you and looking forward to chatting again with you in 90 days.