IGO Limited ($IGO)

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the IGO March 2026 Quarterly Activities Report. [Operator Instructions]. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Ivan Vella, Managing Director and CEO. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Kylie. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Lots to cover today, and I want to get to your questions, so I'll try and keep my remarks as brief as possible. That said, I do want to provide some color on the performance through the quarter. Let me start just quickly with a summary and then we'll sort of dive into a bit more depth on each area. Firstly, on safety performance. So look, that's been a continual focus through my time with IGO and I'm really pleased to see that continual improvement that you'll see reflected in our results. That is the outcome from a lot of focus on it, strong leadership, and I'm really proud of the way that the team is operating at Nova in particular, including our exploration team as well and the broader footprint, very strong focus on safe production and to ultimately translate into great results. And that's clearly linked with Nova's operational performance as well, but two definitely go hand in hand, and that's been exceptional this quarter. There's nothing else to say about it. It was just green lights everywhere we look through the results. So again, I'm really proud of what the team is achieving and it's all the more impressive given we're at the final stages of that ore body where there's little room for error. They are managing a very complex period as we approach the end of mining later this year. There is no optionality. There's no room for error the ore flow through the mill to our customers, it's all literally synchronized. And they're doing a great job to keep that strong focus on safe operations and make sure there's a very proud finish to mining of this world-class ore body. Greenbushes is a tough quarter. We'll get into it. But equally, you see the standout even though we have some lag in the way, our pricing works still 75% EBITDA margin is just outstanding and shows the strength of this fantastic -- this mine. There were a number of safety and operational challenges through the quarter, which we'll talk about. And the Greenbushes, the team there at Greenbushes are working extremely hard on those. They have been, and we've talked about it quarter-on-quarter. And while this is obviously not a great quarter for the team, that it shouldn't take away from the hard work and the good progress they are making driving both strategic improvement but also underlying productivity improvements. And then lastly, just a quick comment on our financials, very positive, and we're starting to see both the benefits of that positive shift in the lithium market flow through, that's only going to get stronger next quarter as those prices start to roll through. And also very strong production performance and cost discipline at Nova. Overall, excellent EBITDA margin at Greenbushes, as I said, 75%, and then for IGO stand-alone underlying free cash flow of $36 million taking our cash balance to $327 million. Let me jump into safety and talk a bit more depth about that. As you know, Safety performance is fundamentally linked to operational performance, and we see this at Nova as we worked hard to implement the programs and changes and work with the team to improve our safety performance and the way that we manage safety, we've seen that very much connected with productivity and the operating performance across the site. We're now, as of today, 115 days of that recordable injury. We've gone 6 months without a serious potential incident. For at least from the records, I can see this is an all-time record for the business. So it's no surprise that we're also seeing record levels of productivity in the mine, fantastic performance. The team just finished a shut on the plant, no injuries, no incidents. Just really, really strong in control and well managed in their activities. Safety Greenbushes was concerning, it deteriorated from the prior quarter, and there were a number of serious incidents that the team are working through. while we don't ordinarily report on Greenbushes safety performance, I think it's important context in the broader operation and the challenges that Rob and the team are managing through that. And I'm so pleased we've got someone of Rob's caliber there, managing the business through the shift and this change. He's got a deep pedigree in operations and in safety. And he's, as you'd expect, putting enormous focus on safety. I'll come more to that in due course, but he's got a structured plan. He's working through around addressing these issues on safety, and I'm confident just as we've seen that focus and improvement at Nova, I think we'll be talking about that steady improvement with the work he's doing at Greenbushes in due course. Let me move on and I thought I'd start with Nova as we get into the operations. It's a very good news story there. The mine is performing exceptionally well. And I think I've said a few times, it would be great to have another 10 years of ore in front of us. It's probably the most frustrating part of the situation. They're really hitting the stride, demonstrating fantastic levels of productivity, spatial compliance, the recoveries in the mill, everything is in hand and being well managed. And as I said, it's at a time when there are limited options. We don't have the ability to blend and to do anything different if something changes. So the performance and that discipline and that execution against plan is absolutely critical. The plant reliability has been really solid, recovery is strong, nickel production increased 11% through the quarter, and copper was increased up 7%. Naturally, this is on some lifting prices for nickel, and we're continuing to see various bits of news that encourage that, and that's obviously favorable. And I guess the copper price, while it's been a bit volatile, still is giving us some positive byproduct credits there. I also wanted to call out Barminco, who is our mining partner at Nova and just recognize the huge contribution they've had around improving safety and production performance through the year. You can imagine as you get to the end of life and they're planning their role and what comes next in a place like WA where there's really hot demand for talent retention and maintaining stability in the workforce is tough, and they've done a really great job at managing that and dealing with any change we have had to make sure we've got strong stable leadership. We've got real focus on safety and production, and we're getting the performance and productivity. And as I said, when you translate that through to actually a lift in productivity, a lift in performance across the Board, and just fantastic safety results. In fact, for them, this is -- it's a real standout, and I did want to just call out and thank their leadership for the close partnership and support as we bring Nova to the end of its mining life. Overall, these results are a real highlight and the high levels of operational and technical capability that we see from our team and our mining partner, Barminco are translating to this performance, very disciplined in the line management team. I'm very proud of what they've achieved through this quarter and it sets them up well to finish off later this year with the operations. On to Greenbushes. Let me talk a bit just to the results first, and then we'll get into guidance and more of what's going on, on the ground. First of all, production was pretty much flat at 351,000 tonnes. And that result is disappointing. The team, they feel that. They had a plan above that. They didn't hit it. They have had various challenges and issues. But I don't want that to take away from the work that they're doing and -- or reflect any broader concerns. This is part of a large-scale change. Rob and the team dealing with a lot of systemic challenges through the business that he's working through to set us up for a really high-performance mining operation as we look forward into the future. What we did see was underperformance predominantly out of our 2 large plants, CGP 1 and 2. Equally, the tailings retreatment was also down from its usual performance. And collectively, these factors delivered that outcome. Lower feed grades is a key contributor. And while the team were expecting to be moving into a high-grade feed zone earlier, there has been some delay, and that certainly flowed through to their production that naturally affects recoveries. But we've also seen further challenges around recoveries in the plants, and that's linked with some increased downtime from maintenance shutdowns and some delays around that through the quarter. Talking about CGP 3, while the production did move right from a schedule point of view, the ramp-up is actually or and commissioning is progressing well. And again, I want to give credit to the team. It's a big plant, a lot of complexity. And when you mix that in amongst some of the other challenges that they've had, they've done well to maintain a disciplined commissioning and to really hit their milestones and performance both in recoveries and throughput. We had a bit of a pushback in January in terms of really getting momentum, strong February, which we talked about at our half year results and then a mixed performance through March. But by the end of the quarter, we're pretty well where we expected to be and very confident with the way that plant is ramping up and its ability to lean into this lifting market for lithium, spodumene as well. The unit cash costs have increased, no surprise. The part of that that's related to CGP 3. Those operating costs are now rolled from February rolled in once commercial production was declared. But naturally, the bulk of the cost -- unit cost change is a function of the lower overall production. I mentioned that the safety incidents that we've seen through this quarter. And as you'd expect, Rob, has and will always take decisive action. He's conducted 2 site-wide major safety stops, where all production on the site has stopped. And given the team a chance to stop, reflect, reset and refocus on our most important priority of safety. And while there is an impact to production and that is clear, our priority around safety is unquestioned. The entire Board and Rob's whole leadership team don't blink. They will always lean into that and focus on that first. And I think that strong commitment that Rob carries around safety is exactly what we want to see. And I know that he will deliver a turnaround, and we'll see that steady improvement with the programs that he is putting in place. Despite all of this, these challenges to safety, the various issues, we still saw our business, mining operation delivering a 75% EBITDA margin, and that's with the trailing price. I mean, it's just an extraordinary asset in that sense. And so plenty of upside in front of us. Tough quarter and tough to deliver that news. And I'm the one who is facing into it, of course, and had a lot of conversation with Rob about it. Naturally, he doesn't want to be in the space where we're not hitting expectations. They're working really hard, and I wanted to get into that further in a minute. But first of all, let me talk about the guidance revision. We, as you know, in the last quarter gave you directional guidance that was trending marginally below the bottom end of our guidance in that December quarterly update. And that has included assumptions around the ramp of CGP3. As I guess where we're standing today, CGP3 is performing, commissioning is going to plan. We're not seeing major issues with the asset. There's nothing there that's a point issue that we're worried about, but some of that production slid right. At that point, when we were talking about it, I guess we still saw another half of the year of a normal production in front of us. And we certainly had a view that the team would still be able to get there to the bottom end of guidance. At this stage now with this quarter, we need to make that revision. And hence, you see that update in the materials that we've released this morning. There's a large-scale pushback, which I think I've talked about in a couple of quarterlies on the western wall, and that's well progressed now. That will allow the team to get back into that high-grade core of the ore body from this quarter on. Now that's a bit later than expected. So there's a factor there. And I talked about the feed grade that they've had through the last couple of quarters. Once we access that, I mean, that lasts for some time as well. So this is not just a quarter-to-quarter thing. We'll see that translate through our business in FY '27, and we'll come to that next quarter. I guess the broader challenges though, we don't see any real opportunity or likelihood of being able to recover a lot of additional tonnes in Q4, and hence, why we wanted to make the guidance update and reflect where we think we'll land. Cost guidance is really a flow through from that volume outlook and some fuel, but that's pretty well contained at this stage at least, and who knows where that ends up. It's also worth noting that we have reduced our CapEx guidance quite materially. And that reflects 2 things. One is that continued discipline that Rob is applying with the team around our CapEx projects, where they're spending and how they're spending and also the timing and scheduling of some projects. So ultimately, that's quite a bit of flow through. Just digging into Greenbushes and giving you a little bit more color on what we've seen, as you know, I'm somewhat constrained by our arrangements. But I want to be as open and transparent as I can with the kind of challenges that the team are facing down there and how they're dealing with them. I'm absolutely convinced that they have the right focus and pathway forward. The changes that are taking place as part of the strategic options review and the broader productivity uplift are fundamental and systemic. Those results will not be immediate. And I've said that before, they also won't be linear. And while the production hasn't met plan this year, there is a lot of very good progress on the site delivering and offsetting some of these challenges and laying great foundations that will help this business to really hit its full potential. As the team makes more progress, we will see that positive impact start to flow through and the leverage it will give them in a broader productivity uplift. We're very committed to the process of improvements that Rob is leading with his team. I think they've got a good plan. They're making progress. They've had some setbacks and some challenges they're working through, but that's a quarter-to-quarter issue. It's not something that we believe is systemic or lasting. And I guess we'll get through some of the examples in a minute. Some of the positives that I think is worth really recognizing. First is that very strong alignment and relationship between the JV partners and Talison strategic direction. It's a complete alignment obviously, on safety and the conviction there, but also in the productivity and the focus to lift Greenbushes to really be the best it can be. Secondly is around the growth of Greenbushes and there's a great plan out there. The approvals and the strategy around those approvals has been improved quite a lot in the last 9 to 12 months. That continues to progress. There's a clear pathway on the key issues that we've identified and great engagement with the stakeholders that are party to those approvals and that growth. So overall, tremendous progress and alignment in the background. It's not something that shows up in the production quarterly, but it's fundamental to the future of the business. So really pleased with that. Cash preservation or cash management and capital discipline is another key area that I'm really pleased. The team are much more focused on their cost management. I think I've talked to this in prior quarterly. They continue to drive that discipline and that cultural change right across the organization. And as I said, that focus on capital and the discipline around it plays into that. Third -- sorry, the fourth key point or positive I want to call out was CGP3. I've mentioned it already, but recoveries and product quality going well, the challenge of ramping up a plant of that size should not be underestimated, particularly the complexity in the scale of this broader business. It's a very significant operation, 3 major plants, the 2 other plants running in the background in quite a congested footprint and managing all of that effectively, the commissioning along with obviously where they've had some issues in CGP1 and 2, they're doing a really great job bringing that online. The next positive I want to call out was truck productivity. There's been a work in progress some time. Rob took early focus and interest in this when he started, and he's making great progress. So I guess, to give you an anecdote, haul trucks have reduced from 38 down to 23. And he's moving the tonnes, yes, okay, our strip ratio will come down with some of the changes in the mine plan and the steepening of walls, but ultimately, they're getting more out of our assets. And driving that performance on a continued basis. That's focusing on reducing cycle times, looking at congestion, the flow around the pit, better maintenance management, and so on. There's obviously an added benefit around diesel consumption. And that's particularly relevant at the moment. It does cushion some of the price impact from fuel. And look, they're far from done yet. There's still plenty more to do with the team as we think about overall mining productivity but significant progress. Q1 mining costs on an annualized basis are around 10% below 2025 mining costs on an equivalent basis. So it's great to see that step-by-step agreement. Finally, the run time and throughput improvements in CGP1 and 2 that has offset some of the challenges of shutdowns, overruns on shafts and the impact of the lower grade this quarter. The March quarter feed grade was down about 16% on 2024 on a like-for-like basis. Just to give you an idea, and yet production performance was only about 5% off. So you can -- while you're not seeing all of the detail in the background that Rob is working through, he's really managing to offset some of the headwinds that we had in this period. As I said, as we unlock that high-grade core again or the main core of the business, the mine, that shifts, but he's got to process what he's faced with at any point in time. He's also not got benefit or not drawing off large pit stockpiles were where the team might have had that in years gone in the past. On to some of the challenges, there's been a number of areas where progress has been a challenge and there's been some stalling or issues they've had to deal with. It's not to question the approach and the work that they're doing, all the plans. I think there's strong focus and commitment in the right areas, but we've got to face into the near-term issues. Firstly, safety, I've talked to that Secondly was maintenance. They had a number of issues through this quarter, shutdown planning, execution, asset integrity, reliability and post-shutdown recommissioning of the assets. So that's all work in progress. Grades, which we don't control the ore body and how it presents, but there is obviously work to do around mine planning, production drilling and reconciliation, blending strategies geotechnical understanding all areas in focus and all areas, which will give us an uplift both in improved planning and the management of the ore body, but also better execution. And the last one, I guess, I think it's worth talking to is recoveries. On a great agnostic basis, they are below expectations, and we've seen some variability. Rob and the team have got some external help in this space. Excellent, really, really top-class people in helping them. There is some work around a broader mine and mill optimization that's underway as part of the SOR. And all that will help them understand some of the issues and the variability and make sure they can implement sustainable solutions. What we've seen with CGP1 and 2 is when they hit their stride, they can deliver very, very strong recoveries. And what we need to do is get to a place so we can sustain that. And there's no reason to think that we can't consistently sit above the standard grade recovery curves and the testing for each of these plants. But the variability is the key challenge here. It is naturally linked with plant stability as well. And I think I've talked about that in the past. If you're having periods of instability with throughput plants up and down, issues with recommissioning. All of those things do flow through to recoveries as well. The last point I wanted to note around recoveries is also a product strategy review that he's going through and looking closely at what makes the most sense for the business. That work has progressed well, and that will also contribute to the way that he's operating the plants and the performance that he's delivering. So look, some short-term impacts there, clearly disappointing, we're fronting up to that. It's not where we wanted to be. I know that Rob is working on the right things, and that will translate but it's been a tough quarter for them on the back of 2 quarters, which also weren't running above plan. Compounding all of this, and I mentioned the 2 site-wide safety stops, that's -- take the whole production across the entire operation down. And we're all very supportive of that action. We have to make sure that safety is #1 and do whatever we need to do to make sure that we're in control there. But that has a flow-through impact. And of course, it's more than just a few hours of lost production or the day that's impacted given that you have to recommission or you have to restart plants and so on. There's also been some dust suppression measures focused or required through the quarter. It's a dry time a year and the winds were unfavorable through parts of this. And so when the team are blasting higher up in the pit as they've had to do for this part of this quarter, they need to manage dust carefully and be very cognizant of our community around the mine. And that means blast schedules have to move, truck movements are impacted, mine plans have to be adjusted, et cetera. They're near-term impacts, but they do flow through in our production results. Looking ahead, look, I'm seeing the progress they're making under the covers. I'm confident that they've got the right work underway, confident that we'll see the lift in productivity and ultimately, we'll get this site to a place where it is hitting its full potential. A couple of words on lithium downstream. So Kwinana a good production period relative. So it's the highest level of production in the quarter we've had in the 3.5 to 4 years since it was started, and that's positive. We touched just over 50% of nameplate through that quarter. The conversion costs obviously improved with that higher production, though total production costs still remain well above realized prices. The team are working through a big shutdown at the moment, and so that will impact volumes through the June quarter, and I'll give you more next quarterly update on that. Our financial results, look, I won't spend long because I want to get into the questions, and I'm conscious you'll have lots. The group results were great with increased contributions from Nova and Greenbushes, as I highlighted in my summary. Sales revenues increased 45% on the higher volumes and prices at Nova. EBITDA has benefited from Nova's performance, TLEA contribution due to Greenbushes and obviously the gain on the Forrestania transaction. Our underlying EBITDA was $119 million and underlying free cash flow was $36 million. We ended the quarter with a net cash of $327 million. So a strong balance sheet, a strong set of numbers there. And obviously, all ahead of us as Greenbushes both sees that price realization flow through given we have a lag in our pricing but also in terms of their production. With that, I might stop there and dive into some questions.

[Operator Instructions]. Your first question comes from Rahul Anand with Morgan Stanley.

Yes, thanks for the call. I have 2 questions. I'll start with the first one. Thank you for that detailed introduction around Greenbushes and safety. I'm not sure if you can provide a bit more color in terms of what the safety incidents were, but that's not really my question. I want to focus for my first question on the grade. So I guess on the grade, is the grade in line with your mine plan? And I guess you've highlighted that there's a bit of a delay in accessing the high-grade areas. But how is the mine reconciliation going? And once you do get to these high-grade areas, how should we think about the amount of CapEx you need to keep accessing the right grade in the future periods? So it's all around grade, I guess for my first question, and I'll come back with a second.

Okay. Thanks, Rahul. Look, in terms of accessing that high-grade core. And I mean, that's basically the core of Greenbushes, which we've been in, and we know well. We've been there for years. I think we have good confidence that we understand that part of the ore body, it's well drilled and been very consistent. Given the pushback where we were to open that up, we were in other parts of the mine, which weren't as favorable. And your question on grade and sort of how it presents, there was some negative reconciliation there in the way that presented and that some of that flowed through. And of course, that's where the team has been up against it in terms of what they expected to what they got. It's a different part of the ore body, and it's not something that we want to drag forward in a sense that we expect that to carry on as we move back into part of the ore body that we know well. So I think that's fine. And then in terms of the CapEx, in fact, the stripping is per our update last quarter, will come off quite a lot given the change to the pits design and the steepening of the walls. There's a lot of work going on around the geotech to make sure that's well managed, make sure we deal with the risks. But it's a huge value unlock in terms of surfacing a lot more lithium metal equivalent through the ore body with steeper walls, a lot lower stripping and obviously a very different cost profile. So that will come through in our stripping and therefore, CapEx as you're calling out.

Got it. Okay. And then the second one is perhaps around CGP3 itself. Are you able to provide a bit of color in terms of sort of where you sit in that ramp up as a percentage? Like what percentage of nameplate have you hit? How does that ramp-up look sort of going forward? What type of time frame are you expecting to get to nameplate in the asset? I appreciate the completely, but just want to understand what the plan is and where it stands at the moment?

Yes. It's -- look, it's going very well. I won't give specifics on exactly percentages throughput and recoveries. But I mean we've hit all our numbers and a typical ramp up in this plant is actually very steep in that first 3, 4 months, and we're seeing that. We've put in chart. I know we didn't put all the detail around it. But look, it's progressing very well. And if you use, I guess, McNulty is a guide, I mean it's just one industry way of thinking about it. We're sitting in the right place in those ramp-ups. The key is not that first 80%, let's say, it's all about the tail, and that's where there's a lot of value that can be gained because that's the hard part. And the second issue in commissioning on a new plant like this is then getting the maintenance tactics and that maintenance performance working so that we get into that rhythm in the right way. But overall, the team are tracking to plan their milestones are hitting on recoveries, on product grade and on throughput. So we're really quite pleased. As I said, it did shift right timing-wise, which has cost us a bit in terms of production, but that doesn't phase us or it doesn't affect us as we look forward into this quarter and beyond.

Yes. And with the CGP3 plan, I think you were also going to put the Life of Mine plan out which is expected in the first quarter. How much has that shifted right? Just we know what is expected?

Yes. I mean we put out obviously our MRE/ORE update early this year. What Rob and the team are working through, we call it SOR or strategic options review. They're tracking through that. I think there's an expectation, I'll finish that in this quarter of this calendar year or Q2 of this calendar year. And then that will go through the Board and the appropriate governance and independent review and be something that I expect that we can then share in Q3 this year or Q1 of FY '27. That's sort of where they're pointed at the moment. But look, I'm in Rob's hands, he's got to do the right work and make sure that he's finished that well. He's really got something that he's got solid can present to really lay out the changes and improvements that he's driving and what the schedule and time frame of that is we did want to get out the update on resource early this year because I think that's a significant shift, but there is a lot more good work going on across the business.

Our next question comes from Levi Spry from UBS.

Thank you, Ivan. Thanks for your time. Maybe if we could just focus on Page 6, I feel like the market probably deserves a little bit more granularity, a bit of detail on some of these physicals. So can you just talk through the mining tonnes, the grade the process throughput and the recoveries? And maybe just a delta on what you're expecting if you can give us the absolute numbers.

Yes. Look, I mean, Levi, as you know, we don't provide that level of detail in our quarterlies and reports. I mean I've given you, I think, quite a lot of color on my opening remarks on the kinds of issues that they're facing. So talk to feed grade being down on expectation. Talked about recoveries, obviously, as a factor of that, but also some other instability I talked about throughput or plant run time being affected by maintenance shutdowns, some overruns there. I think I've given you the color that I can. I'm not in a position to give you a detailed plant by plant reconciliation of those numbers.

Okay. And then I guess moving on to the capital. So $200 million is a pretty big number with there's only 2 months left in the year. So how much of this is just deferral into next year? Is it all about stripping? I assume it's not all about the cost savings.

No, that's why I said there's two reasons. One is that continued filtering and discipline and focus on the list of projects and the timing of those projects. And so any large mine site, the wish list is always long and multiyear, and Rob is trying to manage that, both in terms of execution timing, when is it really required? How much should you spend and how do you execute to get the best capital intensity for the relevant project. And so he's filtering that and squashing it from both sides. Clearly, stripping is also a factor. And you can see that in the truck fleet, you can work that back in and the mine plan with the update that we gave last quarter, there's obviously a material shift as that starts to flow through. But I think it's probably something as we get into FY '27, and we've also got a bit more of the SOR work done that Rob is going to be able to give us, I think, a better clarity on what that long-term CapEx demand will be or steady state aside from the one-offs that you naturally have on some of the big issues or the big items. It's probably all I can say at this point. But I've given credit for continuing to manage it, and it's all about cash as well. There's a strong focus, despite within price being up, we want to make sure that we're converting as much as we possibly can.

Okay. And so maybe let's just talk about cash. So no dividend from Windfield. What happened to cash at the Windfield level?

Yes. Look, yes, it's starting to flow through, as you can imagine, with the prices that we're seeing. It's very favorable. There was a big shift in receivables, which we don't report on. I won't give you specifics, but I guess you can pretty easily work out when you look at the numbers that we give you that the money had to go somewhere and that will obviously unwind through this quarter now, and I think we've put us in a very good space.

Your next question comes from Matthew Frydman with MST Financial.

And look, I don't want to labor the point excessively on grade, but I do think it is worth talking about further in the context of the fact that grade at Greenbushes has declined almost every quarter for the last 3 years in effectively a straight line. And you mentioned the pushback timing and the high-grade core that you previously expected would come online in the second half of the financial year. Whereas clearly, grades have actually gotten materially worse and your guidance kind of implies the fourth quarter won't get any better. So I guess the questions are firstly, what exactly drove that unexpected delay to accessing the high-grade core that you've talked about now expecting will come online in the current quarter. I'm not sure that we've really had a clear answer on that. And secondly, what can you point to that will give shareholders some comfort that there isn't some fundamental or systemic issue with grade at Greenbushes and that you've got sufficient visibility on the mine plan and reserve reconciliation and so on to be able to properly guide the market.

Okay. So in terms of just where they're at with the mine plan, I mean, the team have worked through significant pushback, and it's a case of -- if you think back to quarter 1 of this financial year, we had a lot of wet weather and they've, I think, being affected with access to ore in the pit plus, obviously, just impacts on access in the pit moving different parts of the mine around. And as you obviously higher up in the ore body or in the mine, you're also dealing with clay and other sort of transition material, which can be a challenge at that point. So that's flowed through together with a suite of changes and work that Rob is doing around trying to get that mine plan stable and get the mine performing at the level. So there's nothing systemic in terms of ore fundamental in terms of the timing of accessing that. He's had some issues. They've worked through it. They're getting to it now, which is great. The pushback is behind us. Probably it's more about your -- the second part of your question, which is more fundamental. And I think we've obviously been mining different parts of the ore body for a period while we get back into this, as I said, a significant pushback. We've just released our resource reserve and there was a lot more drilling that had been done right across the business. that underpins that. There's a lot of scrutiny that the team put through on that. And I think as we get back into the core where the business has mined for a long time, I mean, they understand the reconciliation that very well. So we're not sitting here with any forward concern or doubt or uncertainty around that. We've had a tough year, but it doesn't really reflect in terms of our view or confidence looking forward.

Okay. Maybe as a follow-up then, and you spoke about wet weather as a driver to the delay there. I guess, outside of some of the reconciliation issues that cropped up. I suppose in the context of weather, I mean, you knew about those impacts in January when we sort of set guidance at that time that the grades would improve in the second half. And I suppose with all respect to my view is that rain is not really an appropriate excuse when there's so much value at risk of this operation. I mean every well managed operation that I've ever seen or worked out understands that you need to take preemptive steps to manage rain events like water diversions and culverts, weatherproof roadways and so on and so forth. So I guess the question is Rob's had more than 18 months to put in place some of those sorts of improvements operationally. Why haven't we seen evidence of these sorts of steps being taken? And is that indicative of, I guess, a broader approach to the way that Talison is running the operation?

No. Look, yes, a fair comment, I agree with all of the kind of mitigations or strategies, and they are the things the team are working on the things I see when I'm down on site. And Rob is absolutely clear on that and doing the right work. But it's -- there's a lot of change as well. And it's probably about trying to -- it's very hard for me to try and characterize where they've come from to where they're going to on that journey. They've had a tough quarter and will not finish a great year, but there is significant improvement in the mine, if we take the mine is just one part of the business in the productivity, in the disciplines. But there's work to do. I was down there earlier this year, and the pit floor was still pretty lumpy, and so that's back to drill and blast and some of the improvements that they still need to make there. They're working on powder factor. They're working on stemming height, they're working on their blast designs, trying to get that right. Now that clearly affects mining and mining productivity. It affects injuries because if you've got a really bumpy pit floor that creates musculoskeletal risks and hazards for our team. But what it also does is affect fragmentation and throughput. And you see blocking material around the pit. So I'm not standing here saying we're done. We're far from it. And Rob, if he was on the call, he'd be sitting next to me, giving you the examples. He's doing the right work. I think your callouts are all right. We absolutely accept there's more to do and we need to get in front of these kind of things. But I remain confident he's -- and he's got a very capable operating team around him. They're doing the right work, we will get through this period and deliver the stability that the market expects.

Got it. I understand there are pretty broad questions, which are sort of hard to answer on the analyst call. So thanks for your comments.

Your next question comes from Austin Yun with Macquarie.

Just a question on the CGP3. My estimate is that your recovery is sitting at around 60% at the moment, and it has been bouncing around a bit. What's the sort of the scope of improvement should we anticipate in the next 2, 3 quarters? And do you need to see more investment to improve the recovery?

It's a bit hard to hear Austin, but taking CGP3 recoveries where we're at and how we're improving will that need a lot of capital. No. I mean they've put in a very, very comprehensive assets. It's got a great flow sheet. They've got online analyzers. They've got all the right toys to drive the very best out of the ore feed, and they're on track. So there's nothing more to spend as such there or some big sort of next step we need to do. And I said, they're already making the milestones from a commissioning point of view. We'll see that continue to ramp up. And I think the challenge is, as we lay out that grade recovery curve and we get stable feed in front of these plants. What we've got to do is continually be challenging the team to be beating that grade recovery curve, which we've seen the plant's ability to do. So we have hard evidence. We can see how they behave when things are run smoothly and we get a consistent ROM feed and so on. We've got to make sure we're doing all of the operating tactics to get the very best out and not be sending more material to tails than we have to. But the quick answer is yes, no additional capital or extras there that are looming.

Sure. That's clear. Just a quick follow-up on the downstream for the Kwinana operation, it has hit the over 50% utilization rate, it was still loss making. Is this results with the discussion with your joint venture partner, have they changed their view on future of this facility?

Look, you have ask Tianqi on their view. Yes. It's not something I can comment on. I mean our view is clear and it's not a comment on the -- even the asset for that matter. I mean, yes, I think we've got some challenges in the ramp-up. That's evident. But it's just lithium refining competitiveness. And we saw Albemarle obviously take the hard decision around Kemerton recently. When you do the bottom-up maths with the cost of electricity, gas labor, maintenance, chemicals, et cetera, waste disposal. It's a very, very hard bar to reach. And so you need pretty high lithium prices for that to work out in the West Australian context. That's obviously why we've gone through and impaired it over a year ago now.

Our next question comes from Kaan Peker with RBC.

Just to continue on with the question with Greenbushes. You've listed a large number of drivers which drove the miss. Simplistically, which issues are fixed today and which still persist into June and expected to persist into FY '27 mean it seems like whether access to pit seems to be still a concern, maybe grades plant variability. If we can get a bit more detail around that would be great.

Okay. Thanks, Kaan. Yes. It's a great question. I'm going to try and do it on the run, something I could be able to reflect more carefully on. But the mining -- it's back to Matt's question around the mine, make sure you're set up for winter, make sure you don't have wet weather impacts, make sure you control access to your ore all those kind of things. Look, I think that's still a work in progress. Nothing is new, it's same in any mine. I mean we get a bit more wet weather down south and it's probably a bit more of a difficult environment, but very known, very well understood, and we just need to make sure we've got all of the right controls in place. I think this winter will be a good tell. Rob's made a lot of changes with the team, the new mine manager in there. Scott's is doing a great job lifting working with Macmahon. So I think that's just a continued work in progress and that goes with the mining productivity, which fundamentally will affect cost. I think the piece that sits around it on the mine that I've got a lot of focus on, which I don't think we're there yet, but we know the work in front of us. And that I talked about mine to mill optimization, making sure our production drilling grade control, reconciliation and the quality of our blast designs is on point is absolutely critical. And I did talk a bit to that in my opening remarks. That's fundamental because that creates, obviously, the right discipline and spatial compliance, following our plan, good reconciliation, making sure we're on point with feed grade and then also presenting the right feed to the different plants and getting the very best out of them. That sets you up for good recoveries. So I think that piece is still a work in progress, but it's got -- they've got the right team on it. They're doing the right work, and we'll see those results. The next piece I would say is plant reliability. And I think they made some headway. There's still plenty more to do. And that includes shutdown management this offers up a lot of opportunity. Run time is a real factor in this and it's compounding because you lose the tonnes for that period of run time where you're down, but you equally -- you lower your overall recoveries because of the yo-yo, the up-and-down nature of the plant. So that's a big piece. And feed is also part of that, having nice consistent ROM feed, get that blended well and make sure the grades are consistent, all helps the team to do their best with the processing. Then there's obviously the fine-tuning recoveries, which again is in focus, and I think that's probably still a piece of work that's open, they're looking and studying. It's about sustainability because we've seen periods of really strong recovery. So they've got it, and then we see some dips there where we lose it, understanding what's causing that, making sure we can get it and make sure it's sustainable is critical. So a big piece of focus there. That's probably just a very quick touch, Kaan, on where we're at through the value chain. There are then obviously, a suite of broader strategic projects going on around the SOR that will flow through. But I think to really point to your question, that's how I'm sort of seeing the different segments of work that are in front of ROB.

And maybe the second one, it might sound a little simple, but just wondering how you set guidance? I know there's only a few months of it. Just if you can step through that process, that would be great.

Yes, naturally we're guiding on a financial year, we get a calendar year budget from Greenbushes. We see out that second year. So we take a view on that. And then our team, when we go through that, we sit with the Talison team to make sure that our understanding is clear, and we've risk-weighted that. So there's a lot of work that goes into that. I think you probably -- some of you might recall, some you gave me a hard time when we put the guidance out saying it was a bit low. And we said, no, look, we've been through this very thoroughly. And we had a view that, that was quite achievable. And look, as of the end of this last quarter. We still thought that the team was on track to come in either just on or just below guidance. They've had a tough quarter. And that's compounded. And as we look forward, the finish of the year, we just don't think we're going to make that up. So that's -- I guess, it's very disappointing. It's certainly not something that I want to be reporting back to you and Rob either. We've talked at length. It's something I take very, very seriously. So it's not going to translate though to a change in our methodology or just trying to pad it more. I think we're very thoughtful and careful about how we prepare our guidance.

Your next question comes from Daniel Morgan with Barrenjoey.

Ivan, in your release, you've got some very strident or forthright commentary at GB. Just wondering how is it systemic if improvements are being made? And also, I guess, what is the motivation to be so strident in public? Is there a specific change that by being public and strident you're looking to bear more influence. I mean, I'm just -- I guess the motivation of why being so strident is something I'm asking about.

Well, I didn't think it was being strident. I think I was trying to front up to, obviously, a tough quarter and a downgrading guidance, which is a really serious issue. I mean, none of us want to be here. We want to deliver. We want to do the best. And there's a real passion right across the whole all of JV partners and the team at Talison to get the best from Greenbushes and we're not there. So I wouldn't take it as trying to be strident or anything more than that. And maybe you misreading the point on when we say issues are systemic, I mean, there's a lot of history that Rob is working through if you look at where we're coming from. And I don't think that's new news I've talked about it. I've shared some of my observations when I visited the sites around the legacy and the opportunity, I guess, that he's working through. He's making progress. The team are doing good work, but we haven't hit our marks. So I guess we're fronting up to that in an open way. There's nothing more to it than that. But it's not something that says, hey, this is a lasting problem. We've got some issues that we've worked through. We've got some more to do, but equally, I'm very comfortable and confident with the plan that's in place and the performance and the improvements that are starting to flow through. So maybe that's just the way you read it, Dan, but that wasn't my intent.

No, no, I appreciate that extra context. And maybe just on -- I think one of your broader aspirations is product change. Is this still live? And can you just remind us of the process to contemplate a change to the product mix?

Yes. Look, that's work that Talison is doing. I mean, they're looking at their ore body the mine plan, the plants, the recoveries, I mean, that's what that end-to-end review of the entire business is. And you will always go right back to your ore body and you go right forward to your customer product and say, let's make sure we consider it all. They're doing that. They're not done yet. And I'm sure that as they work through that process, they will optimize and find the very best value. And as you can appreciate, we're in a really unique situation where we've got customers who are also shareholders, which is fantastic because you're going to get very clear feedback from them on what matters and what the right technical value is in terms of the product. And ultimately, that means we get the very best out of the ore body. Ultimately, what we're trying to do is get more lithium units out of the mine and onto the ship and to our customers and finding that sweet spot is something that I think Rob's going to work through and he'll absolutely be able to put his finger on that exact point.

Your next question comes from Lyndon Fagan with JPMorgan.

Ivan, if I look at your share price, it's down 7% year-to-date. Meanwhile, Pilbara, Liontown up around 40%. So around 50% underperformance and Platts spodumene up over 60%. So there's been an out and out derating here the share price. I think one of the issues has been transparency and I guess, even before today, we're still sort of lapping in the breeze a bit on waiting for any detail around Greenbushes Life of Mine plan review. So I'm wondering if you can maybe give us some time line on that? And secondly, even after all the discussion today, I'm still confused what grade I need to model at Greenbushes for the next 4 quarters or so? So yes, just hoping you can perhaps help.

Okay. Well, I guess the first part on transparency. I mean, the joint venture has some constraints in terms of how we present and share information. That's something I take into account and work within those bounds and that discipline. So there's no intent behind that other than just being respectful of the terms under which we will work. So you talked about the broader strategic options review, the Life of Mine review that's underway. And I did mention it earlier in my remarks. I said that Rob is expecting to bring the bulk of that work to a close in this quarter and basically by midyear and then that will go through a series of review independently, but also with the joint venture partners to make sure everyone's comfortable. And then I'll be in a position to share more of that in due course after that into probably Q3 this year. So it's a bit later than we sort of expected. But again, Rob is working through these things in not a simple linear project. There's a lot of complexity and a lot of, in some cases, retracing a steps as they go through that full review of the entire business. I suspect the only time it's ever been done in its 130-year history. So I guess I'm trying to keep it short, Lyndon, but I don't want you walking away to think that there's any intent behind or lack of transparency. We're trying to be as candid and open as we can. We're very proud of the work the team are doing at Greenbushes. We contribute as much as we possibly can, fully supportive of the work they're doing, and we share what we can. But there are some constraints. And if you -- we had a conversation at Nova, I could talk more openly about that, and that's just the nature of the asset. On your point on grade, look, I don't think there's anything secret there. I mean we just put out our updated MRE/ORE, that's got a lot of detail. And I think there's plenty in Albemarle, S-K 1300 as well. we've had a period, as I've commented already that a lower grade given where we were mining. As we move into this high-grade core, we're going to see that increase and that will flow through. I guess the more important thing is we'll be back with guidance next quarter.

Your next question comes from Matthew Cost with CLSA. We will move...

Yes, given the timing, let's try and catch, Mitch, and then we'll wrap up.

Moving on to Mitch Ryan with Jefferies.

Just 1 today. I saw a recent press report that the ATO is conducting an audit of Windfield for 2020 to 2024 around their income and transfer pricing. Can you provide an update on that process and when -- if anything is happening there?

Yes. Thanks, Mitch. Look, it's just started. So I can't actually give you any more color on it, also not something we would dive into any depth on, but the Talison disclosed that in their report, and we'll work through the process and update you on anything that's market relevant.

Okay. Thank you.

Thanks, Mitch. Look, with where we are at time, we might just wrap up there and close off, thanks for the questions. I tried to cover quite a lot in my comments and replies. Hopefully, that's helpful to take the desire for more detail. I've given you, obviously, what I can given the guidance and the production for the quarter, and I look forward to sharing more as we go next quarter. Thanks, everyone, for joining.

That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.