ioneer Ltd (INR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome, and thank you for joining us in-person today. As the time is 10:00 a.m., we will now start the live broadcast for our online attendees. Welcome to the Annual General Meeting of ioneer Ltd. My name is James Calaway, Executive Chairman of the company. As we have a quorum, I now declare the meeting open. Today's meeting is being held both in-person as well as online via the Lumi platform. This allows shareholders, proxies and guests to attend the meeting virtually. Online attendees can watch a live webcast of the meeting. In addition, shareholders and proxies have the ability to ask questions to submit votes. Our first order of business is to provide instructions for our online attendees. I will ask our Company Secretary, Ian Bucknell, to walk us through these instructions. Ian?

Thanks, James. So there's a couple of slides that we're going to bring up, and for those online, this should help you. [Operator Instructions] When it comes to voting, Shortly, the Chairman will declare the voting open on all items of business. At that time, if you're eligible to vote, a new voting tab will appear at the top of the screen, selecting this tab will bring up a list of resolutions and present you with voting options. To cast vote simply select one of the options. Your vote is automatically recorded. There is no need to press a submit or enter button, and you do, however, have the ability to change your vote through the meeting up until the time voting closes. And for those in the room here, great to have you here. Great to be back in-person. At the registration desk, you will receive a card. If you have a green card, it means you're a shareholder, special welcome to you, and that means you can vote on that card. We will collect those cards at the end of the meeting. If you have a yellow card, your nonvoting and if you have white, it's a visitor card. Please raise your hand if you're in the room and you don't have one of the cards and one of the boardroom folk will help you. Good. Everyone's got a card. Only people holding a green card will be eligible to vote in the meeting. And in terms of the way we will run the questions through the meeting, we're going to actually be quite structured. When we come to a point where we ask questions, we'll take questions from the floor here in the room first, then we'll take written questions, and I'll have those coming up on my screen, and then we will have any audio questions that have come in online as well. So with that admin pass, I'll pass you back to James. James?

Thank you very much. 2022 has been another year of great effort and significant progress by team ioneer. It is with pleasure that we present our accomplishments during the past fiscal year and look to the year ahead. As we move ever closer to FID and start of construction, the excitement builds in our growing company along with the enormity of the work required to ensure all elements of our plan come together in harmony. This year has tested our team and has required complete focus and dedication to realize Rhyolite Ridge. I'm proud of our team working with dedicated contractors and consultants that have delivered an environmentally sensitive way to develop critical materials for America's energy transition. ioneer Is delivering responsibly, leaving behind a positive story of who we are and what we stand for. No place is our dedication clear that our work to address the challenging permitting process in America. To be consistent with our purpose, and values we have had to listen hard to the concerns of the U.S. government and the environmental community. We have found viable solutions consistent with our dedication to environmental protection, preservation of plant diversity, low water usage, and low emissions, essential to combating climate change. United States is a great country to work, and a great place to own rare productive assets supporting the electrification of domestic transportation. Recent U.S. legislation emphasizes this point. Today, there is just one minor piece of domestic lithium production, and no project is as well positioned as Rhyolite Ridge to expand critically needed lithium and boron production. But America's environmental laws and regulatory processes are some of the most challenging in the world. And in our particular case, we have faced a great challenge to find a reliable solution that all relevant parties can agree ensures the successful coexistence of Tiehm’s buckwheat and our lithium mine. Our team has tirelessly worked with the key governmental organization and stakeholder groups to find a well-considered and responsible way to make this coexistence durable and economically viable. This has not been easy, but with detailed technical work and open collaboration with BLM and the U.S. . Fish and Wildlife Service, we are confident that we have found a solution to build our project while having no direct, and minimal indirect impact on the existing buckwheat populations. This extraordinary work is now a foundational part of the revised Plan of Operations submitted to the U.S. government in July. We believe the plan submitted; Rhyolite Ridge has been seen as a prime example of responsible mining. We are confident that work completed this past year will bear fruit in the coming year and allow ioneer to proceed with construction. As soon as the final permit is issued by the federal government, we will be fully ready to proceed immediately to construction of our important project. In today's presentation by our able and determined CEO, you will see with your own eyes the maturity of our work. At the same time that we were completing the Plan of Operation, our growing engineering and operational team, working with our EPCM, Fluor Corporation, an array of leading subconsultants and contractors, continue to drive towards construction readiness. One of the challenges we, and all other large sale construction projects face, is a volatile pricing environment. So we all know inflation is running hot, supply chains are challenging, and labor costs are increasing. Our team is monitoring macroeconomic information, focusing on optimizing construction and operational costs and developing manpower and input plans that minimize operational costs. We are also creating a very efficient and low-cost capital structure that brings down interest costs, structured in an easy-to-understand and durable form. But there is no escape from the fact that the material and construction costs are currently higher. While this risk exists, we are also beginning to see some early deflationary signals driven by a reduction in construction activities around the world. Fortunately, while CapEx will be materially higher than the DFS almost 3 years ago, so are the forecasts for both lithium and boric acid prices. These factors tend to offset one another, and we are confident will result in an overall positive economic outcome supporting FID. Our finance team has also had a productive year. As reported, we completed the agreement with Sibanye-Stillwater to provide the equity for the project. We have also made considerable progress with the Department of Energy Loan Programs Office. We remain highly optimistic that DOE will provide a favorable debt terms and conditions for Rhyolite Ridge. Our work with Department of Energy Loan Program Office has been serious and productive. The process has several levels, where projects either move forward or stopped or delayed until they meet each phases requirements. Our project met the requirements of the internal review process of DOE, and for the past 6 months has been in the formal due diligence phase where the DOE utilizes external engineering and economic experts to assist in very detailed review. We are encouraged by our engagement and anticipate completing this detailed review in the next few months. Assuming continued success, we would anticipate entering into a very detailed term sheet with DOE this calendar year consistent with our prior guidance to the market. Our finance team working closely with Goldman Sachs and our U.S. legal team at Vinson & Elkins, have tirelessly worked through the very detailed processes. The finance team is also completed the listing of our shares on NASDAQ under the symbol IONR. The listing utilizes the American Depository Receipt process, with each ADS representing 40 ASX shares of ioneer. Completing the SEC process and beginning listing on NSADAQ allows ioneer to continue its efforts to expand our shareholder reach and further the Americanization of the company. In the coming year, we intend to significantly increase the visibility of our company in the United States, as it becomes crystal clear that Rhyolite Ridge is the premier near-term lithium opportunity in America. Our commercial team has also had success this past year. Our production is sold out under detailed binding offtake agreements with major OEMs and critical participants in America's effort to domesticate the battery production process. This will allow America to address the goal of having a U.S. supply chain from rock to electric car, an independent of Chinese involvement. ioneer's strategic patients has allowed us to achieve this major milestone and as a result makes us a critical supplier of process lithium chemicals in America. The Ford agreement for 7,000 tons of lithium carbonate per year for 5 years, will support the Blue Oval-SKI U.S. supply chain, while the PPES agreement for 4,000 tons per year of lithium carbonate for 5 years will support the Toyoto Motor Company's electric car production in the U.S., among others. I feel it is important to emphasize that ioneer's offtake agreements are not MOUs or other nonbinding agreements. Our agreements are much more difficult to obtain, due to their binding nature and thus, utility and securing project debt on favorable terms. Many of the lithium industry speak about supply agreements, but few have binding offtake agreements that facilitate project debt like in everything else ioneer does. We may not be the fastest and most vocal, but rather work to deliver real progress that will provide all the building blocks for durable value to you, our shareholders. Over the year, we have also developed an effective working relationship with our strategic partner, Sibanye-Stillwater. I personally enjoy getting to know and work with Neil Froneman, Sibanye-Stillwater's able CEO, and the ioneer team has benefited from the collaborative effort on a variety of technical matters. We feel confident that this relationship will continue to boom and allow for the successful development and operation of Rhyolite Ridge. Looking to the industry as a whole, the year has, to some extent, been filled with conflicting messages. At the fundamental level, the year was filled with important OEM commitments to the electrification transition. This commitment resulted in a dizzying array of announcements for multiple supply chains, new factories and stunning cumulative demand requirements. It is now no longer possible to say that the electrification of transportation is not real. ioneer experienced very strong demand towards upcoming production has been able to place its production squarely at the center of the emergency U.S. supply chain. We are pleased by the quality of our key agreements and are excited to be able to focus our attention over the first 5 years of production, on developing optimal production processes and serving our core customers without distraction. We also believe that industry participants as a whole have once again, overestimated expected production into all the critical -- into the all-critical 2025, '30 period, with many industry analysts taking unwarranted liberty concerning technical risk and implementation time frames. If there's one thing, I have learned working for 15 years in this industry, it is that all lithium projects are harder and take longer to deliver than expected. This will increasingly be true as the underlying reserve quality of projects deteriorate and the processing sequences become more challenging. For these reasons, we anticipate a very good market in the coming years for our production and are thrilled to have by far the most mature project in America. We have high confidence that we are approaching implementation to support major domestic demand needs in the 2025-'30 period. As for our share price during the year, we have been impacted first by a general decline in sector stock prices. In addition, I believe our shares have been negatively impacted by a lack of clarity concerning the major progress we have made on our environmental work stream. I feel confident the year ahead will be favorable as progress as reported and work to finalize permitting. I'm thankful to be the Chairman of our able Board. At the end of this fiscal year, Julian Babarczy has decided to retire from our Board. We thank Julian for his excellent service on our Board, and welcome his replacement, Stephen Gardiner. Steve has taken the role of Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee and is a member of the Nomination and Remuneration Committee. I also want to take a moment to thank the team. First and foremost, I want to thank Bernard Rowe. One never knows for sure, if you have a the person needed until you get into a tough foxhole with them. Bernard and team have lived in a foxhole for the past year, and what we know is that Bernard is the calmest and most resolute when incoming fire is raining down. Our work to overcome the environmental matters represents major incoming fire. Our Board thanks him for this. I would also like to say that all direct reports are to Bernard delivered. The scale of the workloads has been intense, and yet across the core functions the leaders united with Bernard's courage, and never quit. And while the coming year will again test us on difference such as expanding our internal team and putting in place the systems to build, I feel confident to say that the team's cohesive and a good position to succeed. And finally, thanks to all our shareholders that have stood with us through this long and challenging process. We are confident that your patience will be rewarded in the coming years. Thank you very much, and I now turn it over to Bernard Rowe to give his MD presentation.

Just a point of order, Mr. Chairman, we might just go back in the run sheet to declare the voting open. Did you [indiscernible] get back to that point?

Yes, so I think that, that would be a good idea. Let me find it. I'm sorry.

Page 3 of the run sheet.

Yes, I'm sorry. Yes. Okay. And for some reason, I apologize, I don't find it. Page 3?

I think if you just say, I now declare that voting open.

And I now -- thank you very much. I now declare voting open, the meeting as -- so you can now vote.

And so those that are online, you'll see a voting tab will soon appear. And so therefore, please submit your votes at any time through the meeting. And James, the Chairman will give a warning before we move to close the voting. And with that, we'll go to the Managing Director's presentation.

Thank you very much, Ian and James, and welcome, everyone, pleasure that you are able to be with us in the room today after a few years without that luxury, and also a very warm welcome to everyone who is joining online. I would also just like to take -- and just before I get into the presentation, a very quick moment to acknowledge the other members of the Board who are with us today. So you've already met Stephen, who is our most recent Board member and a great addition to the team. And you've heard from James, we also have online today, the full Board Rose McKinney-James, Non-Executive Director; Margaret Walker, Non-Executive Director; Alan Davies, non-Executive Director; and of course, myself as the Managing Director. So again, thank you, and thank you for the team being with us today for the important shareholder meeting. So I'm going to pop up a presentation, which is already up. And I'll got it here in front of me as well. So I don't have to be turning my neck all the time. So I'm going to ask the slide manager to move forward to the next slide, please. Please read that disclaimer before making any investment decisions. It's -- I'm not expecting you to read it on the screen. It's available on the ASX and under our website. So -- what I want to cover today very briefly, I'm going to keep it brief so we can have questions as well, but milestones achieved for the year. I want to talk just very briefly about the lithium and boron markets. I know most of you know a lot about that already. But I just want to point out a few important things there, particularly in the context of the U.S. supply chain. I'm going to just again spend very brief time on recapping on the Rhyolite Ridge project and more importantly, then talk about what we're doing moving forward and give people an opportunity to ask us questions. Next slide, please. So at times, projects like this deliver lots of news in short periods of time. And other times, you toil away, and it doesn't seem that there's much happening on the outside, but I can assure you our team are working hard every day of the week year-round. And that what happens then is at times, there's also a concentration of achievements. And I think this last year, since our last shareholder meeting is one of those periods where we had quite some time where we were just working away in the background, and then you started to see the fruits of our labor delivered. So one of those was an important thing that we've been working on for some time, and it's a step towards the Americanization of our company. We think that's a critical part of our strategy. That's why we're having Board members who are based in the U.S. It's our Reno office, where all of the employees are working out of as we grow the company. And we wanted -- and obviously, our project, we expect to become a cornerstone supplier into the U.S. critical mineral supply chain, not only for lithium, but also for boron. And a part of that strategy was the U.S. NASDAQ listing, which commenced trading around the 30th of June. So that was a great milestone and a huge amount of work that goes into doing something like that. The next couple of things actually are all linked -- very intimately linked. We completed the binding offtake agreements that James mentioned, bankable binding offtake agreements with the Ford, Blue Oval joint venture with Prime Planet, the Toyota, Panasonic joint venture with our partner, EcoPro, the second largest cathode manufacturer in Korea. So we completed those, and the importance of those was not just about being able to say that we had partners that we're going to take our materials and that they were obviously meeting their criteria. It was actually critical to us securing debt to finance the project. And that's why we put so much effort and they took time, they're very detailed agreements and they underpin the economics of the project when it comes to arranging debt. The engineering work that we've been doing, also critical to securing debt for the project, a Bankable Feasibility Study completed by Fluor 2.5 years ago. More recently, we've awarded contracts to ABB, FL Smidth, Veolia, Caterpillar and our other partners, bringing in Sibanye-Stillwater was an instrumental part of that as a provider of the equity component of the financing. So all of that work fed into what we've been doing with the Department of Energy Loan Programs office. And I can assure you, we would not have got to where we are in that process, had we not done all that hard work over the 2 years prior to going into the due diligence, which is exactly what we've been doing this year with the Department of Energy. Permitting, I know this is an area of frustration for many people, and I can assure you, for me also. It takes a long time to permit mines and processing plants, et cetera, anywhere in the world, and the U.S. is no exception. And we've had our challenges, but we went away, and we engineered and worked with the agencies to come up with solutions around the areas of sensitivity, particularly the protection and conservation of Tiehm’s buckwheat, and we came up with solutions, and we've resubmitted those to the government and what was the feedback we've been getting is it's been extremely well received. Next slide, please. I want to talk about the changing political narrative, and this is something I was chatting to a couple of our shareholders before meeting about this very point that I think, this year, there has been a paradigm shift in that political narrative at least through my eyes, and I spent plenty of time in Washington and other parts of the country as does, James. And what we have been seeing and hearing is that the focus has changed from sort of really more focused around the electric vehicle takeup incentives, stimulus commitments from the car companies to meet those goals. That's where the focus has been. But particularly this year, we've seen that focus shift to much more towards the complete supply chain. So everything from raw material to an electric car. And the realization that you can't stimulate one end of that supply chain without stimulating all of it. Otherwise, somewhere there is a bottleneck. And I think there's been a huge realization around that, and that's also come at a time when there's been additional focus on the two things around the supply chain: One is the long distances, okay? They're involved in those supply chains today and the need to shorten those supply chains for a variety of reasons, security being one of them, but also just decarbonization. The other point is the diversity of supply needs to be addressed as well. So we've seen that really changing narrative around that. We've seen the Loan Programs Office, Jigar Shah, who we have a lot to do with. You can see a quote from him there. The critical minerals part of it is just one part of it, but it wasn't something that was being particularly focused on until fairly recently. And perhaps even more recently, we've seen the Inflation Reduction Act, which contains many things that are aimed at stimulating critical minerals supply -- domestic supply chains, all the way through to the manufacturing of electric vehicles. So these are really paradigm shifts in the narrative and also in the strategy. Next slide, please. Global lithium markets. I'm not really going to talk much about this slide. Happy to talk about this later. But I just want to put something into context. We've been working on this project for 6 years. When I started with James on this project back in 2016, the global lithium production was around about 300,000 tonnes a year, plus or minus a bit. If you look at that chart, what that shows you is that that's going from 300,000 to 3 million tonnes, okay, 10x increase in a very short space of time, like we haven't seen perhaps for any other commodity. So the demand growth is unbelievable. And what we're seeing, and James mentioned this, that -- is that the supply struggles to react to that demand. And how do we sort of measure that? Well, look at the spot price of lithium today, $70,000 a tonne. Will it stay there? Certainly not. Where -- will it go higher? It may. Will it go lower? It may. We don't know. We're not trying to predict prices. But what we do know is that even in expansion of brownfields has historically under delivered, let alone greenfield developments, which there is only a handful of them in the entire world. So you're going 10x increase in demand and you're not -- certainly not getting a 10x increase in supply, and that means higher prices for longer. Next slide, please. Around boron, and I deliberately wanted to put this slide in today to remind everybody that Rhyolite Ridge is just much -- as much a boron deposit as it is a lithium deposit. And in production, we will become the third largest boron supplier in the world. And I mentioned before about this change of focus in the U.S. around the supply chain. Well, I think boron is a classic example of that. So do we have long supply chains? Yes, we do, absolutely. U.S. and China are the world's two largest consumers of boron. However, 70-plus percent of the world's reserves are in Turkey. So you've got very long supply chains. Is there issues around concentration of supply? Absolutely. Are there any other boron mines coming on stream anywhere in the world? No, there are not. There's just a couple of potential new deposits. So it really meets the same -- ticks the same boxes of concern as does lithium. And again, we're aiming to address that and become a cornerstone supplier of boron into the world's second largest boron market. And then the other thing I wanted to point out about baron is that it's an incredible material. And I mean, lithium is an amazing material in what it can do with lithium-ion batteries, but it doesn't come close to the diversity of application that you see in boron. And I was just thinking about this morning and what I wanted to say was, well, how diverse is it? Well, it's actually in the fibers in the carpet and it's also used in nuclear reactors and on rockets. It's used for treating timber to stop termites. And it's also used as a micronutrient to grow food. It's used in a Pyrex cookware in your microwave, and it's also used on the glass screen on your telephone and your computer. And if you look at the slide here, in electric vehicles is actually used as permanent magnets in the motor. It's used as boron steel, which Ford are now using in the chassis. It's used in the breaks. It's used in the glass. It's used in the batteries, and it's used in the airbags. So it has incredible application, particularly in the areas of energy transformation and energy conservation. So it makes -- obviously, I'm sort of fairly passionate about this, but it makes for a wonderful, wonderful co-product with our lithium in this project. And I think our customers recognize that. Next slide, please. Okay. A snapshot of the project. I will stress these are from the now 2.5-year-old Definitive Feasibility Study, but they're incredible numbers, 22,000 tonnes a year of lithium, which is about 5x what the U.S. currently produced per annum. 174,000 tonnes of boric acid, which would take us to being the third largest producer in the world, EBITDA of around $288 million and the rest of the numbers you can read for yourself. But like this they're significant numbers. They were 2.5 years ago. They are today. I sometimes get asked by people, why don't we update because we've used $13,000 a tonne lithium, people ask them that in fact regularly. And my answer is, well, you can't just update one number and not update the others. So there's no reason for us to be updating a full feasibility until we're ready to make a final investment decision, and that's exactly what we will do. A complete and wholesome update of that estimate before our Board is considering the final investment decision. Next slide, please. Around the commitment to sustainability, we've got an amazing deposit that ioneer and our shareholders, we own. It's -- there is not another one of these deposits anywhere in the world. And as someone who's looked at them and worked in the mining industry around the world for 30 years, someone wants them to challenge me on that, I'm happy to debate it, because there isn't another one of these, not the same mineralogy. And at the end of the day, it's the mineralogy then that means that we can process this like we can and that we can produce boric acid and 99% lithium carbonate at the mine site. And we don't have to roast it, we don't have to transport a concentrate. We don't have to do any of those things. But it also has major implications for our sustainability ranking or criteria. It means that we are low in emissions. We're using a sulfuric acid plant, which I'll show you shortly, that produces 0 CO2 power. We're using low water quantities because we can -- don't need to solar evaporate in ponds our water. We actually do it all in contained vessels and we capture and reuse the water. We don't have tailings dams. So we have a very small mine footprint relative to other mining operations. We use extremely equipment efficient. We will be using extremely efficient equipment. And an example there is our partnership with Caterpillar to be the first greenfields. So new mine -- greenfield mine in the United States that's using a fully autonomous mine haulage fleet. That's safety and sustainability or conservation of energy that come into consideration. I mean, when you look at those sorts of programs to automate and a strong commitment to sustainability. It means sustainability throughout our organization and that direction is set by our Board and every member of the team is aware of that, and we will strive for that every day. And you look at all of our work, and you'll see the evidence in that. Okay. Next slide, please. So looking forward, what are the goals to get to a final investment decision? So we needed the binding offtakes in place. We've completed that. We need to be fully funded where we've completed half of that by our partnership with [indiscernible] for $490 million. And we're very advanced with the Department of Energy Loan Program Office and we've said that we're expecting by the end of this calendar year that we will have an outcome on that. And obviously, we are confident because of the high-quality work that we've done over the last several years, in particular. We're aiming to be construction ready so that once we are permitted and we've got the debt and equity in place, where our engineering is ready to go and break ground. So that engineering work is just continuing on in the background all the time. And finally, fully permitted. As a key part of that strategy was around further protection and conservation of the buckwheat, which involved moving our starter pit. We did that. We've resubmitted it to the government, and we're expecting it to now to move forward. Okay. Now the next slide, I think, is a video. And I'm just going to take you through this. Okay. So this is a rendered engineering model of our plant. So this is the full detailed engineering model, okay? We don't use paper drawings anymore at this stage, but we can extract one of this. I'm going to step through, through key parts of that plant. Firstly, the sulfuric acid plant. So we bring in either liquid or solid sulfur. If it's a solid, we melt it and we bring that as a liquid into a storage tank. We then convert that sulfur into sulfuric acid through this process plant. And there's a few elements to that. But basically, we mix the sulfur with oxygen. The oxygen comes via the -- it's going to show up here in a minute, this main blower unit. So that's just big fans, pumping huge amounts of the air through this system. We combine that with the sulfur that creates a chemical reaction that's exothermic. It gives off huge amounts of heat. We have water there, which then we use that heat to boil and create steam. All of that steam then goes into our process plant for use in the evaporating crystallization. But we also put some of that steam through a steam turbine, which then allows us to create electricity. The team is passing through and the sulfuric acid is passing through the rest of this part of the plant. And what we're really doing, particularly here is we're taking the heat away from the sulfuric acid. We want the heat separated from the acid. The acid doesn't need to be superhot. Just needs to go into our wet leach tanks, and we want to recover as much of that what's called waste heat as we can. And this -- by the way, this plant means that not only do we have all our sulfuric acid, we don't need to be connected to a grid and we're not. We don't have any gas pipeline. So we are completely off-grid, off gas, no external energy other than for backup generation for safety, et cetera. So now moving into the process plant -- part of the plant. We mine, we crush the material, so ROM, as it's labeled, is a Run of Mine material that's straight from the mine. We go through a 3-stage crushing process to take the material down to about 20 millimeters or 3/4 of an inch. We load that into the series of vats, water and acid get mix and they flow through those vats. Coming in one end and out the other over a period of about 7 days from when we load it to when we unload it. We end up with lithium and boron in solution as a pregnant leach solution along with a number of impurities. And then our challenge is to separate the lithium, the boron and the impurities from one another, so we can end up with high-purity end products. These are some of the control rooms and electrical rooms. But moving into the key part of the processing plant, we have a series of evaporators, crystallizers and other chemical vessels. What we're doing here is we are using either the concentration of the material, the chemistry of it or the temperature of the solutions to actually remove impurities and produce the boric acid in the lithium carbonate. So we're using all 3 of those in combination to actually separate these in stages -- in controlled stages. The crystallizers are where we would cool solutions down and crystals drop out particularly at the beginning of boric acid the evaporators that we use. Well, once we've taken as much of the material out as we can by changing temperatures, we then use the evaporators to drive off water and reconcentrate everything so we can do that process again. And as we drive off that water, we capture it as steam and we condense it, and we reuse the water. So about 50% of our water gets treated like that. And as the solutions pass through this fairly complex plant, we're always looking at taking out boron, taking out waste material or other sulphate salts and washing them, filtering them, recovering water, recovering our lithium and boron, so we're minimizing our losses, and we are moving these sulphate salts residue materials out of the process, and then we wash and filter those as well. And ultimately, we end up in a lithium carbonate circuit, which, as you can see, is much, much smaller than what we had at the outset because the volumes now are much, much smaller. All the borons gone, all the sulphate salts impurities are gone. And we're just purifying that lithium carbonate, and we've dropped it out finally as 99% pure lithium carbonate and that gets loaded onto trucks and out from the site it goes.

Very good. Thank you.

I think I need to drink after that. And I'll settle for a water and excuse my throat, by the way, because I've been talking nonstop for the last week. So last couple of slides. So in terms of some key milestones, I mean, some of these have already mentioned, so I'm not going to dwell on them the things that are completed are there. More importantly, what are we looking forward to second half. So we've only got a couple of months left now or less publishing of the notice of intent, that's the stage that it's the start of the need for Process, the final stage of the permitting for our third and final permit. We have the other two. So we're expecting that before the end of this calendar year. We're finalizing the debt, I mean obviously, the primary focus there has been around the Department of Energy Loan Program, but we also work -- and have been working for a long time, pre-COVID. In fact, with Goldman Sachs on other alternatives around debt funding, if we're not successful with the DOE, we're also doing the engineering construction work, so that we're ready. And ultimately, final investment decision comes with a record of decision. And that would then allow both our Board and [indiscernible] Board to make that final investment decision and move forward into construction. We're talking about a 2-year construction period for this project. So first production sort of late 2025, and into 2026. And finally, last slide, please. Why ioneer preaching to the converted, I hope. But the right commodities, lithium and boron a fantastic combination in the energy transformation space, particularly in the context of U.S. domestic supply, addressing those key issues that I mentioned around diversity and security of supply and shortening supply chains, the right location, second largest vehicle fleet in the world. We've got a highly experienced team from the Board all the way down through our team and all the disciplines that are required to build this project. Everything we do is aimed at we're building this project. And I think that really differentiates us from a lot of our peers in the earlier stage or preproduction part of the sector. We've got good near-term news flow with the notice of intent, the permitting moving ahead, the DOE line program coming to a combination and a very clear path to production. And the next slide, please, which is questions. But just before I throw it to questions, I just want to say a couple of things. So firstly, I'm very privileged on it, in fact, to serve on a Board like ioneer has led by James, but also Rose, Maggi, Alan and Stephen. It really is a privilege to be working under the direction of that experience board and not just under their direction, but alongside them as well. And I really do appreciate their support and guidance as we move this project forward. To my own team, I can't mention everyone because it's a growing team. But I do want to say, Ian, our CFO, Matt, Ken, Yoshio and Chad to all of the VPs, who will all directly report to me, thank you, guys, for an amazing job that you've done this year. And the rest of our team, we've just got this amazing growing team. We find it actually really -- it's been quite an interesting thing, something that actually haven't done much of in my career has been involved in recruitment process over the last couple of years. And one of the things that sort of stands out to me when I look at that process over the last year or two is that how excited people are when we put our interviews and do the job interviews and selection process. And it's because they like what they see, obviously, in ioneer. But I think a key part of it is the sector that we're in, this energy transformation that's going on and people want to be working in that sector versus other places where they've worked in the past. And it's wonderful to see that excitement when you're interviewing people. And lastly, although I'm not going to mention all the names of the people, there is one member of our team, which I really must call out because I think they're the most important of all. And that is a special mention to one of the ioneer family, Paul and [ Kate Fink ], who yesterday celebrated the arrival of their son [indiscernible] William Fink and he has got the payroll yet. But we really do welcome him into the ioneer family, and thank you, everybody. I'm going to throw open for some questions. Okay. So on question. So I remind all shareholders and proxy holders that you have the ability to ask questions via the Lumi platform or from the floor of the meeting. We will hold questions specific to the resolutions for later in the formal part of the meeting. So please keep those questions until then. But are there any questions on the Chairman's address, my presentation, the video or more generally on the management of the company that anyone would like to raise? Yes. And when you do ask a question, please identify yourself if you're in the room, wait until we get a microphone because I can hear you, but the people on the call will not be able to. So please wait, and then -- and direct your questions and introduce yourself, so we know who you are, please. Yes, please. And if we get the microphone?

Do you want my shareholding details or...

No, no, no. Just your name. Thanks.

Just some conversation really about the buckwheat. First, how's the U.S. Environment Protection Agency and the Fish and Wildlife Service actually lifted this buckwheat as an environmental protected species?

No, it has been proposed to be listed, and it has not yet been listed, but the indications from the Fish and Wildlife Service are they -- is that they are preparing to list it. So it's not listed today, but we are anticipating it will be very soon listed, but exactly when? We're not sure.

And will the fact that it's going to be listed delayed this project at all?

No, it will not. So the buckwheat was proposed to be listed now I think, 2 years ago. And so a plant or any other species that is proposed to be listed has exactly the same protections as one that is listed. So for the last 2 years, everything we've been doing is on the basis that it's listed. And whether it gets listed or not, it actually doesn't change anything with us, because, as I say, proposed is the same as listed in the context of what we've been doing. And actually -- so that's the last 2 years. But really, if you look what we've been doing over the last 6 years. We knew -- I knew and our team knew that the buckwheat was there right from the outset. And everything we've been done -- everything we have done has been designed around the conservation of that plant. We did apply initially in the first mine plan to move some of the plants and the administration -- the Biden administration didn't support that. So we had to go away and redesign our quarry, our pit, to make sure we avoided all direct impacts to the plant. And that was not an easy undertaking. I mean it took time and money, but it was certainly very doable. It just meant that it delayed us, and we had to go back and redo some of the work we've already done. But we're committed to the conservation of the plant. I'm 100% certain that ioneer is doing far more to conserve that plant than anyone else is and have been doing that for now the last 4 or 5 years. And we're very confident the 2 can coexist. We're very confident that our mine will have no direct impact on the buckwheat and we can easily and readily mitigate with proven methods, any indirect impacts to the buckwheat such as dust or weeds, et cetera.

So that really, there should be no environmental objections at all?

There shouldn't be, but I can't anticipate, or I can't offer a view. I don't know whether they will, or they won't, but if -- what I'm saying is on the grounds of the buckwheat protection and conservation, then we think there is no basis.

And just to extend this a bit, it is the only place in the world is it not where this plant actually lives or exists?

There is something like 140 different species of buckwheat in the Southwest of the U.S. This particular species only grows in this area. That is correct. And it grows on about 10 acres, which is on the edge of the deposit, not over the deposit. So hence, by us needing to come up with a mine plan that did not involve moving any of the buckwheat. All we have to do was really and it sounds simple, and it wasn't. But all we had to do was move the wall of the pit, some hundreds of meters from the west to the east, and then we weren't touching any of the buckwheat. So it doesn't grow over our resource, it grows beside it.

Is there a sufficient buffer zone in your view?

Yes.

And what is that buffer zone?

It varies anywhere from about 50 up to 300 meters.

And is that going to be sufficient to satisfy the environmental objectives, do you think? I mean, I've read that they might want to be up to a mile, I think.

I would say there's no scientific basis for that. So everything we do is backed on the basis of scientific information. And yes, our buffers are designed in accordance with best practice and scientific -- backed by scientific data to show that, look, if you're within 300 meters, will there be dust? Yes, but you mitigate for that dust.

And then that would be the indirect effect that James mentioned.

Correct.

So I suppose this is my last question on this subject. Do you think the process, which will culminate in the record of decision, hopefully positive, might actually take less than the currently anticipated 12 months?

We have no say in that -- the length of that process. So I can't really comment on that. There is a very well-described process, which involves environmental impact statements. It's called the NEPA process. There are two periods of public comments, there's drafting, et cetera. So the guideline that we've been giving is 12 months. So -- I mean on our side, we will do and have been doing everything we can to do all the work that's required as quickly as possible, and we're very well prepared given we lodged this originally 18 months ago -- nearly 18 months.

Conservation work includes a glasshouse or from size and storage of seeds and all sorts of things.

Yes, it's all described in our reports. But yes, we've got extensive conservation efforts going on and have done since coming back 4 years, and it does include the construction of a dedicated glasshouse. We've grown thousands of these plants from seeds. We've grown them in soil that's got lithium and boron in it, and we've grown them in soil that has no lithium and boron in it, and they grow in all soils that we've try to grow them in, so they don't seem to be difficult at all to grow, and we will have that ongoing program. And the conservation of the plant will be incorporated into, and it already is being incorporated into our mine plan.

Bernard, excuse me, if I could just -- Bernard, can you hear me?

Yes, James. Please, James.

Would you mind -- I think it's one thing I'd like for you to cover is the importance of the notice of intent, because the notice of intent means that the government agencies that are responsible have reviewed our work and studied it and looked at it and they think that it's sufficiently robust okay, to moving it forward. Isn't that correct?

Yes, that is correct. And actually, taking a step back, why -- we lodged -- it's called a plan of operation. We lodged a plan of operation in -- early in 2021, so 18 months ago. And that did not proceed, okay? It got stopped in Washington. And the reason given to us was because we asked to -- we applied to move the plants, okay? But that was the only thing. There was nothing else raised. There were no other explanations given that was it. So we're not asking to do that now, and we have gone through a process. We lodged it -- re-lodged it in July and of course, it go to an assessment process, and we're fully anticipating that the notice of intent will be published and that it will move forward into that NEPA process.

And do you know how long the public have to lodge any comments in relation to the notice of intent? I mean, I know that once that comment period, which is not specified in the legislation is finished, then there's a 45-day period for an EIS, and then there's another 30-day comment period, but the first period is just I don't know what that is. Do you?

Well, for a notice of intent, there is no common period. Basically, a notice of intent is the federal government publishing a notice saying this process is starting. So it was putting everybody on notice that the process is getting underway.

And then the government does the EIS?

Yes. The government and the government contractor.

At whose cost?

ioneer's cost. And we -- by the way, the BLM, Bureau of Land Management, Department of Interior, they appointed that EIS consultant for this project in -- I think it was towards the end of 2019 or thereabouts. So they've been in place for a long time. We've been working with them for a long time.

I know you're on top all of this.

Yes. So I've got to really move on, sorry, and I'm happy to take...

I had one other question then is the Caterpillar fleet by eletric or diesel?

Which Caterpillar -- if you're referring to the one that we're using because they do have some electric trucks, but no, the automated fleet, the mine haul packs, they are diesel engines. And there is very few electric alternatives around all trucks at the moment. But the reason I said which trucks, Caterpillar are developing electric haul trucks, but -- and so are other companies, but they're not ready yet for this scale of operation.

It was only a question for amusement.

Yes, thank you very much. Okay. So anyone would like to ask a question, please.

Bernard, are you able to speak to the expansion potential of this project beyond the DFS, please?

Yes, sure, briefly, I can. So the DFS is based on a 60 million tonne reserve. And we already have drilled and quoted under [indiscernible] 146 million tonne resource, so -- which includes the 60 million tonne reserve. So there's 2.5 more of the -- 2.5x the reserve is in the resource. The resource is very large. The 60 million tonnes of reserve is sufficient at 22,000 tonnes a year for 26 years. So you're talking plus 50 years. So just that alone, there is plenty of expansion potential from the existing resource and reserve. Is the deposit open? Yes, it is, at least in 2 or 3 directions, and we have plans in the future to drill that as we receive our permits. So there's opportunities to grow the 146 million tonnes of resource. And then there's also other -- our focus on the lithium and boron mineralization in the deposit. There are other parts of this deposit that contain lithium with lesser quantities of boron. If you like, we call it, the low boron mineralization. And we have not incorporated that at this point into our resource, but we are looking at that in the future. Some of this material is going to be mined. And so it's actually in the mine plan is waste currently, but it does contain lithium and we think there are pathways to get -- some of it will involve different pathways, but there are pathways to a traction, some of that to say all of it. And then we also have other exploration areas so within about 5 or 10 kilometers of Rhyolite Ridge, including our North Basin. So there's a lot of exploration potential. But even leaving that aside, there's actually plenty in the existing resource to expand. Sorry, just if you just wait one minute for the microphone.

Alexander Dawson. Can I just ask a question about the offtake agreement? What percentage of your annual production is covered by offtake agreements? And is the offtake agreement that you talked about, does that include boron? Or is that solely lithium?

Happy to answer those questions. Thank you for the question. So approximately 80% of the lithium is under a binding offtake agreement, so 18,000 tonnes out of a total of 22,000, and we're not doing any more at this point in time because the 80% -- 75% or 80% was sufficient for what we needed to secure the debt. So the offtake agreements for us are all about the debt. And we've done enough to underpin the debt. Will we do more in the future? Well, let's see, but no intention to do anything now. On the Boron, yes, the boric acid is also under binding offtake agreements with a variety of parties. And again, not 100% of it, but large part. And they all vary because some of them are for 3 years, some of them are for 5, some of them have difference of terms. So -- but the bulk of the boron is also under offtake agreement. Yes, Freddie at the back, please.

Thanks. Just getting back to the question about future expansion. Given the share price -- not the share price, given the lithium price as it is and the demand that's expected and really looking to peak probably around a 2-year period. Does it make sense to be a little bit more aggressive with regards to that, that exploration, you have the resources. It's only the South zone that you've touched even for going to North zone. There's still a lot of resource there. And the plant as it is as you've gone through quite detailed, there must be economies of scale with respect to that. So to go from 22,000 tonnes and when there's so much demand, can you actually without a lot of complexity, expand that to 30,000, 40,000?

Thanks, Freddie, for the question. So I mean there's clearly lots of exploration upside potential. And a lot of it is not in resource category. We have a resource, as I said, 146 million tonnes. So -- but there's a lot of material that we're going to be working on to try and convert that into resource, no question. I think though -- our strategy has been very much stay focused on delivering what's in the DFS. Stage 1, 22,000 tonnes a year of lithium and 174,000 tonnes of boric acid because what we didn't want to do was lose sight of that objective, okay? And we acknowledge that there is that element of our project that is still there and untested. And we absolutely intend to test it and increase the resource. But we didn't want that to be a distraction for a variety of reasons from the main game. And I think if you look at our last quarterly report, we started to talk about that we are doing work on the North pace, and we've actually just completed a detailed gravity survey, so that's the first step and sort of defining the parts of the components of the basin in preparation for a future drilling program, and we're also doing some leach test work there as well. So we are starting to do it, but I think it has been the right strategy to not go at that too aggressively because that would have been a distraction away from the main objective. I don't know, James, do you want to add anything to that?

No, I basically agree with you. I mean, look, I think you just saw the video of the engineering. I mean we're build out in the middle of nowhere an enormous facility and bring up a big operation, both in lithium and boron and we're a young company. And I think that prudence get this done and do it really well and focus, focus, focus. But I agree with your sentiment that there is a great future and a great opportunity for growth. And look, the people around the world that come to us and beg for us to sell them some materials, they would all like to be involved in expansion because they all need a lot more than we or anyone else can provide. So the opportunity is there, but I think that until we get this first plant up and operational. I think to divert other than research and development type efforts to expansion would be probably not something that we would do because, quite frankly, having built one before and have to go build the second one. These are -- these take tremendous focus to be successful. So I think that's probably the answer.

Very good. Yes.

Just asking a question. Just with the -- I guess, looking back a couple of years ago, we took the Sibanye-Stillwater deal, which at the time seemed great because we needed to have some underlying way of getting the funding, which was difficult. But the environment has changed significantly since then. And now what you're doing with the DOE, the likelihood of us actually requiring as much effort and wait for their deal. We're giving 50% of the company away for basically them helping us to get the funding. But yet the primary amount of that funding now to come from the DOE. Is there a way for us to restart like we look at that DOEs? Is it the deal is always going to be the same? Is it dependent upon how much they bring to the table versus what we get from other people? It just seems at the moment in the current state of affairs, we're giving a significant amount of value away for a lesser amount of value that we're going to be receiving, may seem unfair and not gracious, but that's just, I guess, as a shareholder, the way that we look at it.

Bernard, I'd like to take that one first, if you don't mind? So look, Sibanye-Stillwater is our partner. I mean, we entered into an agreement with them for them to be our partner and provide the equity capital for our project. And you can say if things go bad or things go good, you can always relook at agreements, but I think that what our company is committed to is being honorable in our agreements and to be honorable in our agreements and do the right thing by those agreements. We don't look at it like that. We look at it as Sibanye-Stillwater is our partner, and they bring a lot to the table. We're working very hard to build on that relationship. And it's more complicated than that, but they are our partner. And so I mean the answer is, we made a deal and we're going to honor that deal because if you're a company, doesn't honor your deals, you're in trouble. And look, there's a future opportunity, ioneer is a company trying to build a capacity to be a great provider of materials for the planet. And the future could be quite significant and other partners could be a part of that. But at Rhyolite Ridge, this project, the South Basin, they are our partners.

Yes. Thank you, James. And if I could just add a couple of things as well. Let's not forget that, that deal is what has enabled us to be where we are today. So it's easy to look back in hindsight and think differently about it. But the reality is, had we not done that deal, and we actually think it was an excellent deal and we did then, and we do today. They are an excellent partner for this project because of their experience in mining and plate noise and the whole energy transformation space as well. They're a very experienced miner. So they bring a lot to the table other than just money. But at the end of the day, we wouldn't be where we are with the DOE loan. We wouldn't have the binding bankable offtake agreements. If we didn't have an answer to how are you going to fund the equity component of this project. And last thing I'd point out is, there are very, very few greenfield projects anywhere in the world that actually have their equity funding in place. So yes, the market for lithium and the pricing is a whole lot higher, but it hasn't translated into equity funding into greenfield projects. So I don't think it's quite as simple. And so, as James said, they're our partner and they're a good partner, and we're going to continue working with them. Yes. Yes, please, Barry.

Sorry, [indiscernible]. I did not realize that question was going to come up there. But I did have a question just in terms of what's the significance of the DOE component?

Yes, that is a good question. I'm glad you ask me that. So it's hugely significant, okay? And actually, it sort of feeds as you pointed out, it sort of feeds on from flows on from the previous question. So the DOE loan program has -- I think it's $18 billion in this bucket that we applied for. But in total, it's sort of more like -- into the 30s of billions of dollars. And it's not just for critical minerals. It's for renewable energy. And in fact, some of the early money from this Loan Program Office was lent to Tesla when they first started manufacturing cars. So it's been in there for a long time. The money is available. It's not conditional upon approval of the Central Congress. It's allocated funds. In terms of what it would mean for a project? You're talking about 10-year treasury rate money for a 10-year term. So there's nothing that compares to it in terms of low cost of capital. So it's hugely significant, and it's the U.S. government, and we've got a project, which we think and strongly believe is the #1 lithium project in the country and having the support from the U.S. government in any form is incredibly valuable to us. So yes, this is hugely important. And the last thing I'd say on that, the , if we are successful, okay, this will be the very first mine that the DOE has provided debt funding to anywhere, anytime. So it's hugely significant.

It's Patrick Sheppard. So does the DOE funding automatically receive permitting?

It's -- so -- and thank you, Pat, for the questions. So the DOE funding will have a number of CPs, conditions precedent. And of course, one of them will be permitting, I mean if we're not permitted, obviously, we can't draw on the loan. But the way that they typically work and if you look at a company like [ Sara ] is a good example because they did not for the mining, but they did provide [ Sara ] with some money for reprocessing of graphite in the U.S. And so it's a binding term sheet is the next thing that comes in the process and that binding term sheet has a number of CPs on it, including one of them will be permitting. Another one will be, of course, a final investment decision by the Board of our company. And now, of course, our Board is not going to make a final investment decision unless there's a number of boxes ticked, permitting is just one of them.

You are confident that the funding is a possibility before the end of this year?

Yes, yes, and we indicated that in the quarterly report. So yes, here we are.

Jeremy Harden, just a quick one. The midterm election is about to happen. Do you think any changes in the House or the Senate may affect the outcome of permitting or anything like that?

Let me...

Yes, James, you take that one.

Yes, not significantly. I mean, there is certainly support in certain parts of the Republican party that won't have a reform of these very long processes. But -- and I think that perhaps that will happen over time, but I don't think that it's going to have a material impact on our process because we're at such an advanced stage. We expect by the time they get into office and figure out what they want to do, and then figure out how to get over 60 votes in the Senate, I'm pretty confident will already be finished. So I mean, I think it may have an longer-term effect perhaps, but that assumes that, of course, that they take the house and the Senate, which it's a toss-up right down the Senate and most likely they're going to take the house, but they're not going to have the white house. So I would say that as it relates to us, I'd say it's going to be very relevant.

Okay. So we haven't had any online questions, but are there any questions that are -- sorry, yes, Richard.

We needed to DFS. I think there was an amount of capital expenditure for hydroxide part.

That is correct. Yes.

Can you tell us whether we are still proceeding with that? Or we're sticking with lithium carbonate is the only product we're going to make and that the buyers of the lithium carbonate to the hydroxide themselves?

Sure. And so firstly, you're correct in the definitive feasibility study from...

How much was that? Like, how much, $100 million?

It was $100 million, but it wasn't upfront CapEx, it was in year 3. So it was out of sustaining CapEx. But yes, there was approximately $100 million to add a conversion from carbonate to battery-grade hydroxide in year 3. And so no, we have changed our position on that. And if you look at our offtake agreements, which we've disclosed this information, we are selling a technical-grade lithium carbonate to our partners. However, where the pricing mechanism is tied to battery-grade hydroxide. So what we've actually done is we've sort of locked in at those battery-grade hydroxide prices. I mean, it's not lock price but into battery-grade pricing, but we've taken away all the risk of actually doing it. So...

Same price?

They're roughly the same price. So that's right. It's not about the price, to be honest. It's about the risk. And maybe, James, do you want to speak to this because you've done this before as well.

Yes. I think it's just one of the things that probably a lot of people don't think about, but the -- getting into the business of producing the final purified hydroxide that goes directly into the cathode. First of all, it's a highly technical area, and it has choked many, many big players in this industry for years trying to figure it out. That's number one. So the big question we had was how much of a discount would we actually have to take in order to not have to take on both the exposure to providing materials that go into batteries that go into cars. That's a big one to not have. And also to not have to burden our team with trying to figure it out while we're bringing this whole thing up and being very good at carbonate. And what was amazingly important, and this is why we dropped it is that the discount on the price that we had to take didn't even cover really what we thought would probably be the marginal cost to try to do it. And they were willing to take on the risk of taking our material and doing the conversion and meeting their specific and dynamic requirements for their cathodes. So from a risk perspective, this is a wonderful thing for our company that we were able to put away our material for those first 5 years. And as technical -- high-quality technical grade carbonate. By the way, technical grade, we're talking about 99% pure material. So this is not low-quality materials, very high-quality material, but we think we can produce this very consistently deliver a very reliable product to our customers that they'll be satisfied with, and we don't have to take on more demanding work than we already have. And the profitability we would have gotten from this is low. So I think that -- look, that doesn't mean that we settle down. We get our production facilities up. Everything is running smoothly. Everybody can say, wow, we're really successful in what we're doing. At some point, we could always add on a hydroxide facility. That's not a problem. We're not precluding that in the future, but we're not having to do it started very early when we're bringing everything else up. So I think it from a risk and economic perspective, this was a big win for us. And the only reason we got away with it, quite frankly, was because the markets are so tight. If the markets hadn't been really tight, I think we had more trouble, but we were able to get that done contractually.

Thanks, Richard. So I don't think there's any online questions. Is that correct?

There are not written questions.

Not written questions. Great. Okay. So anyone who's listening in, are there any audio questions? You can ask a question just over the voice. So if there is anyone? There were none. So with that, I'm going to hand back to Ian, and we can move on with the rest of the meeting. Actually, I'm passing to James. So thank you, everyone.

Thank you very much for all of those great questions. The notice of meeting was lodged with ASX on 30 September, 2022, and has been sent to all members and can be found on the ioneer website. I will take the notice of meeting and supplementary notice as read. All voting today will be conducted by way of a poll. If you are eligible to vote at this meeting, click on the pole icon in the Lumi platform and select one of the voting option or submit your paper -per proxy form at the end of the meeting. Polling on the resolutions is now open. The company's secretary will display the total number of valid proxy votes received in respect of each resolution. In accordance with the proxy form, which formed part of the AGM pack, I intend to vote all eligible undirected proxies in Resolution 1 through 6. We now will move to the first item of business as set out in the notice of meeting, to receive and consider the consolidated financial statements for the financial year ended 30 June 2022. The company's financial statements and reports have been taken as tabled. Ian, are there any questions or comments on the company's financial statements and the reports or questions for the company's auditors?

Mr. Chairman, there are no written questions. Are there any in the room? No questions in the room. And Andrew online, there are no audio questions online.

Okay. Thank you very much. There being no further questions, we move to the next order of business. The second resolution is to consider and, if thought fit, pass the remuneration report for the year ended 30 June 2022. The remuneration reports contained in the annual report. Note that your vote on this resolution is advisory only and does not bind the directors or the company. Proxies. The number of proxies received on this resolution are shown on the screen. Should 25% of the vote be cast against this resolution, this will constitute a first strike for the company for the purpose of the Corporation Act of 2001. Ian, are there any questions or comments in respect to this resolution?

Any questions in the room? No. No, we have no questions, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you very much. The next item of business, Resolution 3(a) is to consider and, if thought fit, pass that Alan Davies is reelected as a director. The number of proxies received for this resolution are displayed on the screen. The directors, other than Alan unanimously recommend this resolution. Ian, are there any questions or comments in respect to this resolution?

No, there are no questions, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you very much. The next item business, Resolution 3(b) is to consider and, if thought fit, pass that Stephen Gardiner elected as a director. The number of proxies received for this resolution are displayed on the screen. The directors other than Stephen, unanimously recommend this resolution. Ian, are there any questions or comments in respect of this resolution?

There are no questions.

Great. Given my personal interest in the next item of business, I will hand over to Bernard, take over the chair of this resolution. Bernard?

The next item of business, Resolution 4(a), is to consider and, if thought fit, pass that shareholders approve and authorize the issue of performance rights to James Calaway or his nominee in lieu of directors' fees, on the terms and conditions set out in the Explanatory Memorandum. The number of proxies received for the resolution are displayed on the screen. Ian, are there any questions or comments in respect of this resolution?

None.

There are no -- being no questions. I will now hand back to James to chair the meeting.

Thank you very much, Bernard. The next item business Resolution 4(b) is to consider, and if thought fit, pass that shareholders have proven authorized the issue of performance rights to Alan Davies or his nominee in lieu of directors' fees on the terms and conditions set out in the Explanatory Memorandum. The number of proxies received for this revision are displayed on the screen. Ian, are there any questions or comments in respect of this resolution?

There are no questions.

Thank you very much. The next item of business, Resolution 4(c) is to consider, and if thought fit, pass that shareholders have proven authorize the issue of performance rights to Stephen Gardiner or his nominee in lieu of director fees on the terms and conditions set out in the Explanatory Memorandum. The number of proxies received for this resolution are displayed on the screen. Ian, are there any questions or comments in respect of this resolution?

There are no questions, James.

The next item of business, Resolution 4(d), is to consider and, if thought fit, that shareholders have proven authorize to issue performance rights to Rose McKinney-James or her nominees in lieu of directors' fees, on the terms and conditions set out in Explanatory Memorandum. The number of proxies received for this resolution are displayed on the screen. Ian, are there any questions or comments with respect to this resolution?

No questions.

Thank you very much. The next item of business Resolution 4(e) is to consider and, if thought fit, pass that shareholders approve and authorize to issue performance rights to Margaret Walker or her nominees in lieu of directors' fees or on the terms to set out in the Explanatory Memorandum. The number of boxes received for this resolution are displayed on the screen. Ian, are there any questions or comments in respect to the resolution?

There are no questions.

Great. The next item of business, Resolution 5, is to consider and, if thought fit, pass that shareholders approved a grant of 1,400,209 performance rights to Bernard Rowe and his -- or his nominee on the terms outlined in the company's 2002 Annual -- 2022 Annual Report and under the Equity Incentive Plan on the terms and contents set out in the Explanatory Memorandum. The number of proxies received for this resolution are displayed on the screen. Ian, are there questions or comments in respect to this resolution?

There are no questions.

Thank you. Given my personal interest in the next item business, I will again hand over to Bernard to take over the Chair of this resolution.

Thank you, James. The next item of business, Resolution 6, is to consider and, if thought fit, pass that shareholders approve the grant of 682,194 performance rights to James Calaway or his nominees on the terms outlined in the company's 2022 Annual Report under the Equity Incentive Plan on the terms and conditions set out in the Explanatory Memorandum. The number of proxies received for this resolution are displayed on the screen. Are there any questions in relation to -- in respect of this resolution?

There are no questions.

Thank you. I will now hand back to James to chair the meeting.

Thank you very much. That concludes the last item on the agenda and the formal business of this Annual General Meeting. I will shortly close the voting system. If you have not done so already, please ensure that you cast your votes. And thank you for your attendance today. I wish I will be there not promise next year, I plan to be there. I really miss seeing all of you and getting to hear your great questions. We look forward to working hard on your behalf to ensure the development of Rhyolite Ridge and the success of ioneer Ltd. And voting is now closed. The results of these votes will be released to the ASX later today. Thank you very much.