ioneer Ltd ($INR)

Welcome to the Annual General Meeting of ioneer Limited. My name is James Calaway, Executive Chair of the company. I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome all shareholders and guests to the 2026 Annual General Meeting of ioneer Limited. The meeting is being conducted virtually through the Lumi online portal. I note that a quorum of shareholders is present as required by the company's constitution, so I declare the 2026 Annual General Meeting open. I will ask our Company Secretary, Olga Smejkalova to provide instructions on both how to ask questions and how to vote during the meeting. Olga?

Thank you, James. For all shareholders and proxyholders online, I will quickly run through a number of slides explaining how you can participate in a meeting. [Operator Instructions] Online voting. Shortly, the Chair will declare voting open on all items of business. At that time, if you're eligible to vote at this meeting, the resolution and voting options will appear on the screen. To cast your vote, simply select one of the options. Your vote is automatically recorded. There's no need to press a submit or enter button. If you change your vote, you can change your vote up and until the time the Chair declares voting closed. I will now pass back to the Chair. James, over to you.

Thank you. Thank you, Olga. Please also note that while you can submit questions from now on, I will not address them until the relevant time in the meeting. Your questions may be moderated or if we receive multiple questions on one topic, amalgamated together. Finally, due to the time constraints, we may run out of time to answer all of your questions. If this happens, we will endeavor to answer them in due coarse after the meeting. I would like to remind you that online attendees who have submitted their proxy prior to today's meeting, who have now logged on as a voting shareholder will need to resubmit their vote online. You will have the ability to change your vote up until the time I declare the voting closed. Voting today will be conducted by way of a poll on all items of business. I now declare voting open on all items of business. The voting tab will soon appear on Lumi. Please submit your votes at any time. I will provide you with a warning before I move to close the voting. I propose to take the Notice of Meeting of the 2026 Annual General Meeting of ioneer Limited dated 20 April 2026 as read, and I will now proceed with the items of business. The agenda for today is on the screen. We'll have a number of presentations before undertaking the formal business of the meeting. Time will be provided during the meeting for questions. Before the presentation, I'd like to introduce your Board: Bernard Rowe, our Managing Director; and our nonexecutive directors, Alan Davies, Rose McKinney-James, Maggie Walker and Tim Woodall. Thank you all of you for your service. Also at this time, our Siobhan Hughes of E&Y, the company auditor and our Company Secretary, who I've already introduced. I will now provide the Chairman's letter to the meeting. I am pleased to report that ioneer is in a favorable position to move the Rhyolite Ridge Lithium-Boron Project to final investment decision. Since we last spoke, our sole focus has been on achieving our critical financing milestones and doing it in a way that maximizes the potential risk-adjusted return for shareholders. Because Rhyolite Ridge is shovel-ready, we continue to see considerable interest in our project. The project is uniquely positioned to contribute to onshoring U.S. critical mineral production and creating U.S. jobs at a time when both are urgently needed. General market conditions are bringing new support for large construction-ready greenfield projects like ours. With prices higher, the case for making large capital investments like Rhyolite Ridge are easier to support. We are deeply engaged in working with the private sector, the U.S. government and critical trading partners to secure the resources to build our project and lead the effort to build end-product production for both lithium chemicals and boric acid. Our work will help reduce the world's reliance on China for processing and support the necessary geographic diversification of the critical minerals supply chain. By the middle part of this year, we believe we have favorable prospects for closing the financing of our project. Our strong cohesive team is leading the technical effort to build end-product production for both lithium chemicals and boric acid and finalizing plans to maximize our ability to deliver Rhyolite Ridge on time and on budget. We are also encouraged by the recent Nevada District Court decision to fully uphold the federal permit for Rhyolite Ridge, rejecting all arguments against. Our project opponents have filed an appeal, but we are confident that we will prevail once again and do not believe their efforts will delay commencement of construction. After years of successfully growing Tiehm's buckwheat, one of your favorite subjects, and in our dedicated greenhouses, we are pleased to receive a federal permit to outplant our buckwheat plants into the wild. We look forward to demonstrating that they can be grown on public lands outside the Rhyolite Ridge project area, Establishing self-sustaining populations will enhance redundancy, representation, and resilience of the species. Our team continues to aggressively work to reach FID. I want to thank Bernard Rowe for his remarkable and sustained energy and the team he has built for their optimism and persistence. I also want to thank the Board of Directors for their guidance and counsel. They are always asking the right questions and freely providing invaluable knowledge and experiences so critical to our continued success. I'd like to now hand it over to our able Managing Director, Bernard, for the Managing Director's presentation. Bernard?

Thank you, James. Thank you, everyone, and welcome. I'll run through a quick short presentation for everyone's benefit. Next slide, please. Please read the disclosure and disclaimers there before making any investment decisions. Next slide, please. Some key investment highlights relating to ioneer and Rhyolite Ridge. Our project has strong and resilient economics from both the lithium and the boron with our updated and shortened leach times our NPV for the project stands at USD 2.3 billion with an internal rate of return of 23.2% levered. So that's taking into account the $1 billion loan we have closed with the Department of Energy. Those project economics are based on a 265 million tonne ore reserve proven and probable. That equates at a production rate of 3.4 million tonnes per annum to about 77 years of mine life. And we say it's Phase 1 operation because we firmly believe on a large project like this, it makes perfect sense in the future as demand growth plays out that there will be additional phases to this project. The all-in sustaining cash cost of $4,628 per tonne of lithium carbonate is in the bottom quartile of the global lithium cost curve. And that number is largely in that bottom quartile because of the boron that we produced that offsets a large part of our costs. Approximately 5 to 7 tonnes of boric acid are produced for every 1 tonne of lithium driving that lithium cost down to that low number. It's fully permitted. It's shovel-ready, as James has already mentioned. Our binding bankable offtake agreements are in place, and we have a very low cost, long-term 20-year term U.S. government loan through the Department of Energy. Proven expansion potential. So I mentioned that Phase 1 is likely to be followed in the future with additional phases, the different additional trains to increase production. And that's made possible because we have a 540 million tonne mineral resource that includes the 265 million tonne reserves. So the resources roughly twice the size of the reserve measured, indicated and inferred. And as I think all the audience knows, we're actively working through a partnering process to secure the equity required to sit alongside the government debt to allow us to make a final investment decision and commence construction. Next slide, please. So Rhyolite Ridge is very different than any other lithium or boron deposit globally. And the reason we say that is that the unusual and rare mineralogy that's in the rock pictured here on the left allows us to do something that no other hard rock mine in the lithium world does today and that is make refined chemicals at the mine site, and that is purely a function of the unique mineralogy. We can take this rock, process it and make these 99% plus or minus pure chemical products, both lithium carbonate and boric acid powders at the mine site, and that makes it a very, very rare project in the lithium world and the boron world. Next slide, please. So it's the boron that really makes it special because it's that -- I mentioned the mineralogy. Well, it's the boron mineralogy that really drives that. It's the -- it makes this project the only known VAT or heap-leachable lithium deposit globally. And we can do that by crushing the ore and leaching it in 1.5 days, which is an extraordinary short time for acid leaching when you compare it to other mining projects, including copper, for example, or gold that are leached in a sort of similar way. So this leach is very fast. And -- but the other thing it does is as it leaches the lithium and boron from the rock, the rock does not disintegrate. It does not break down. It remains fragments of rock. So it remains -- retains its integrity. And you can see this in some of these photos where we say this is the Searlesite ore, the boron-rich ore before we leach it and then after we leach it. And apart from some slight color changes, it remains pretty much the same. And that means that we can leach it, drain it and free drain it. We don't have to worry about filtration. We don't have to worry about clays. It's a very, very porous material and that makes it very, very simple to do this acid leach process. Again, there is no other lithium deposit that's known globally that can make those same claims. And that's what makes this deposit so special. Next slide, please. A quick snapshot of that processing plant. So this is something that we've developed as we've been working on this project over the last nearly decade. It's all proven and known technology. There's nothing new in any of this process. It's putting them together and applying the same methods to a very unique. But it's all been done before, and there's no new technology. It's a VAT leach system. Those open tanks that are shown there are loaded with crushed ore that's about 20 millimeters. The VATs are loaded, they're leached with a mixture of sulfuric acid and water. It takes 1.5 days to leach. And then that material is washed to make sure we keep our recoveries very high, and then we unload the VAT. Now that whole process takes about 5.5 days, of which 1.5 days is leaching. The rest of it is the unloading, loading and washing. Again, no other lithium deposit in the world can use the same method that we know of. And it's all because of the unique mineralogy of this rock. You've got a sulfuric acid plant that sits alongside the project that allows us to convert sulfur -- elemental sulfur, either liquid or solid into sulfuric acid. That generates a lot of steam, a lot of heat, so we can run a steam turbine, generate our own electricity. That means that this project does not need grid power or gas or any other form of external energy. It's all self-generated. And we use that asset, as I mentioned to leach, and then following the leaching process, we then have a liquid that doesn't require filtration. That's very important. So again, clay deposits as a comparison require extensive filtration once the leaching has happened. This does not need that because of this course material and unique mineralogy. We then use a series of evaporators and crystallizers to remove the boric acid, remove the impurities and ultimately produce a lithium carbonate. So boric acid comes out first, then impurities and then lithium carbonate. And that's the design of the Rhyolite Ridge flow sheet. This entire flow sheet has been piloted by us. And over a period of time where we ran that pilot plant a couple of times, took learnings made adjustments and very much derisked this process plant. And as I say, no new technology involved here. Next slide, please. So I'm just going to take a minute just to talk about, particularly in the context of the U.S., the demand drivers for lithium and boron in the United States. And it's actually not electric vehicles that's going to drive the demand growth, particularly in the short to medium term. It's actually Gigafactories and data centers that are going to drive U.S. demand. The U.S. already consumes approximately 100,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate -- or lithium chemical equivalent to carbonate per year for electric vehicles. But it's projected that by next year, there's going to be more than that, around about 125,000 tonnes required just for the energy storage, BESS battery energy storage systems, so Gigafactories and data centers. And hence, there's going to be a total demand of in excess of 200,000 tonnes, and that's going to grow quite rapidly, particularly driven by that usage in data centers and energy storage solutions. Now you put that in the context of domestic production as of today in the United States, it's 5,000 tonnes. So there is negligible domestic production of lithium and yet there's hundreds of thousands of tonnes of demand. And that's not future demand. That's demand today. So Rhyolite Ridge is going to play a really important part in providing a stable, secure, long-term supply for domestic U.S. demand. That's only going to grow and grow strongly. Some other information that I'll leave you to read at your leisure, but there -- as I said, there's strong growth projected and Rhyolite Ridge play an integral role in supplying that. Next slide, please. Whilst boron is used for various different applications, the story is slightly similar in that there is very strong growth projected both globally but also importantly in the United States. And the reason for that is boron is used in -- unlike lithium, it's actually used in over 300 applications. So it has very diverse use. But about 70% of all boron produced is actually used for industries that need large volumes. So the glass industry, borosilicate glass, the ceramics industry, glazing on tiles, detergents and fertilizers. It's a micronutrient and agriculture. They're the large users, large volume users, but it's also got a very like lithium but very strategic component to its use as well, even though the tonnages are smaller. And that includes the nuclear industry, the defense industry, it's used in armor plating. It's used in Kevlar body vest for soldiers. It's used in communications. It's used in missiles and aerospace systems. It's used in the semiconductor industry. So it's a very strategic material that the United States needs to ensure that has a very stable long-term secure supply of domestic supply. Today, the U.S. consumes about 350,000 tonnes per annum of boric oxide B2O3. And Rhyolite Ridge will produce initially around about 100,000 to 150,000 tonnes of boric acid, but we will ramp that up about 200,000 tonnes of boric acid over time, which is about 100,000 tonnes of B2O3. So it's a very strategic material just like lithium and the U.S. consumes a lot of it, and there's very little domestic supply outside one mine in the United States, and there's actually very restricted supply globally. It's 73% or 74% of all reserves of boron are found in Turkey. And there's no other large producing mines anywhere in the world other than Turkey and the one mine in California. Next slide, please. So how does Rhyolite Ridge or how is it positioned to take advantage of that growing domestic demand and need for secure and stable supply for defense and national security? Well, it's because it's how advanced it is, has a large part to do with it, the fact that it can supply two critical materials, of course, is also very important. But don't underestimate the advantages that come with having invested more than $230 million in this project over a decade. It's absolutely the most advanced critical minerals project that we're aware of, preproduction in the United States. So it's fully permitted, federal permits, fully permitted, state permits in place as well. It's shovel-ready. The engineering is at its maximum level that you would do prior to actually commencing construction. There's always some engineering that gets done once you're in construction. But we're at the maximum level at 70%. That's been done by Fluor and a number of other industry-leading partners in the project. Our offtake agreements are in place. They're bankable binding offtakes with Tier 1 customers like Ford, EcoPro, the large Korean cathode maker, Prime Planet, which is a joint venture between Toyota and Panasonic and Dragonfly, a local Nevada company. We've also got sale agreements signed on our boron. And the low-cost debt from the Department of Energy, a 2-year due diligence process that we did several years ago now. That loan closed last year -- early last year. It's for just under $1 billion, low interest, long tenure, 20 years, U.S. treasury rates, government loan. And that obviously is a huge advantage to a large project like Rhyolite Ridge that backing and support from the federal government. Next slide, please. I talked about expansion potential, and it is an important fact here because, in fact, I was giving a presentation earlier today and someone asked me, well, why did we pick 3.4 million tonnes per annum throughput. And the answer to that is pretty simple as Phase 1 is because that's the design, the sensible design for one train of including those VATs and the evaporators and crystallizers. So if you wanted to do more, you wouldn't make them bigger, you would simply build a second parallel train. And the reason why this project can contemplate doing that in the future, is because we have a very large resource in the South Basin. It's shown there shaded, but you can see the South Basin is not completely covered with resource. That's because we haven't drilled it yet. So we expect that 550 million tonne resource in the South Basin there shown, will grow as we drill out the rest of the deposit. And we'll be doing that once we've made the FID decision and going into construction, we will also then go out and drill the rest of that area. In addition to that, we have a second deposit, the North Basin, which we own 100% of as well. And that was drilled in the 1980s, and early '90s. And we have all of that drill hole data, there's no resource calculation, but the same style of mineralization, lithium and boron is present there. It's at the surface. It's a very thick layer of both lithium and boron mineralization, and that will also then provide significant tonnages for extending the mine life even when we build a second and third and fourth train on this project over time. Next slide, please. The partnering process. There's no question that the backdrop during which time we've been working on this partnering process has become increasingly favorable. And so I just wanted to sort of point out what we mean by that beyond simply commodity prices. So there's no question that lithium price has moved up strongly in the last 6 to 12 months, but it's a lot more than that. So first up, boron was listed as a critical mineral by the United States government in November 2025. The military at the time came out and said that they intended to build refineries to convert boron materials such as boric acid into boron carbide for use as domestic supply of armor plating and body armor. Around the same time, the U.S. and Japan and the U.S. and Korea were in trade negotiations. And that has culminated in agreements that we'll see the U.S. -- sorry, Japan invest up to $500 billion commitment into projects in the United States and Korea are approximately $350 billion investments as part of those trade agreements. And that's of interest to us because part of that funding for projects that are eligible -- potentially eligible for investment include critical minerals projects, both mines, but also downstream processing and we've already seen several deals announced that involve that funding. And so we're certainly in that process and see it as a viable option for funding of Rhyolite Ridge. The U.S. government also announced late last year or mid to late last year in the second half anyway, direct investments into critical minerals projects starting with rare earths, but also indicating that they would look to expand that into other critical minerals, but not all at once but working through a priority set and we believe that boron is in that priority group and hence, that makes this project of significant interest to the nation. We also have seen that there's a strategic sale process going on with the only other producing boric acid in the world outside of Turkey, of significant size. So that's also going to have implications for the future of the boron supply chain ex Turkey. So we're watching that very closely. I mentioned that lithium price has done very well tripled really over the last 12 months from lows of down around $8,000 a tonne, which are completely unsustainable, but they've rebounded strongly. But we've also seen a very stable pricing continuing for boric acid of around about $1,000 a ton. And you pull those things together, and that's obviously has worked in our favor with our timing and that we've been -- as we've been working through this strategic partnering process. Next slide, please. And I'm just going to finish with a couple of things that I'm actually extremely proud of ioneer and my team because really, this is critical when you're bringing new projects, new mining projects through the permitting and ultimately through the execution phase, that is to have strong engagement and strong support from the local community because really, if you don't have that, then projects are going to struggle. And we're fortunate we've got a wonderful community to work with down in Fish Lake Valley in Dyer, in that area, and the Esmeralda County. And we put a lot of effort. My team puts a lot of effort into working very closely with that community and all stakeholders, tribes, farmers, people. We've got strong governance measures and practices in place to make sure we adhere to those and we make sure that our team adheres to those strong governance to ensure consistency and integrity and transparency with everything we do. We've got a great team of people. They're very well known in the community. We're down in community and we interact a lot with the community. We're very supportive. We hold regular sessions to keep the community aware of everything we're doing, to listen to the concerns that they have and try and address them as best we can. And we've made very strong environmental commitments to safeguarding not just flora and fauna but things like water efficiency and conservation efforts. And that's at the core of everything we're doing. And I think that has paid huge dividends that approach and that the level of integrity that we use when we're doing these sorts of -- this sort of work, and my team deserves a great complement for all of those efforts. Next slide, please. An important part, of course, it's not just about supporting various local endeavors and communication. It's also about the economic benefits that projects like this bring with a longer term. And just we're highlighting a few of them here, employment opportunities, $800 million in direct local investments, 1,400 indirect and direct jobs, $247 million in salaries and wages, tax revenues of $33 million per year on average into the state and local government tax coffers through taxes and regulatory fees. Economic activities and numbers are mentioned there. Obviously, it's a very long life project. So there's $23 billion estimated in regional activity over the first 25 years of operation of this project. And again, something again that I'm extremely proud of that we've been involved in this is the charitable support in the community, which includes scholarships to local students from high schools, including those from nearby tribal nations, who -- for young people who are studying and they want to continue those studies. We've been very supportive of that by issuing these scholarships, and we have lots of interest in it, and we've been doing it for a number of years now. Next slide, please. So just to finish off, key takeaways. It's a unique deposit. I hope everyone appreciates that. It's the unique mineralogy. It's the combination of lithium and boron and it's the ability to make those end products outside and do a lot of that value adding, which other lithium deposits hardrock ones simply can't do. The dual revenue is a huge benefit. Roughly 30% of our revenue comes from boron and 70% from lithium. It's shovel-ready, and I've mentioned the advantages of that, particularly at this point in time, having a critical minerals -- two critical minerals from a project and being shovel-ready. So that's something can -- so that construction can commence immediately is a huge advantage for us. It's got very robust economics and it's got a wonderful long life with expandability, all really critical things as we take this project forward. Equity financing. We're obviously working on that with the partnering an FID decision. Construction will take us about 36 months. We plan to kick that off towards the end of this year and first production then based on that 36-month time line would be 2029. Next slide. So I just want to thank James Calaway, the Chairman, for his guidance and friendship as we close out another year or have closed out another year working on this amazing project to the support from the Board, the full Board. Thank you. And again, to my wonderful team who do an absolutely amazing job in having done something that not many companies have been able to do, that is take a project from first drill hole through to fully permitted and ready to commence construction. I'm very, very much proud of my team for being able to know that we've done that and done it successfully and responsibly. Thank you, James.

Great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Bernard. I remind shareholders and proxyholders that you have the ability to ask questions via the Lumi platform. We will hold questions specific to the resolutions of the -- to the formal part of the meeting. Are there any questions on the Chairman's address, the Managing Director's presentation, more generally on management of the company, or questions submitted online ahead of the meeting. Olga, do we have any questions?

Thank you, James. We have received a few general questions. Question number one is from Christopher. Is Goldman Sachs still being paid a retainer in the search for an equity partner?

Bernard, do you want to take that one? Why don't you take that?

Sorry, Olga, I didn't actually hear that properly is who being paid retainer?

Goldman Sachs.

No, there's no retainers. There's success fees. Our partnering process is based on success fees. So there are no returners being paid. And there's not -- they're not being paid now and they have never been paid. It's entirely success-based.

Thank you, Bernard. Next question from Christopher. Have there been any offers made by potential equity partners? And if so, those shareholders being notified of the offers and why they haven't been rejected -- sorry, why they have been rejected?

We're not in a position right now to discuss the discussions that we have right now related to the partnering process. Those are highly confidential conversations, but they're very active.

Thank you, James. Next question is from Andrew. Will the first drawdown on the DOE loan be taken before the deadline that it has?

We certainly anticipate. Bernard, do you want to take that?

Yes. So, yes is the simple answer to the question, and we have plenty of time to do that. We have to spend the equity before we have the first drawdown on the loan, but we don't see that as an issue. So yes, we will draw down within the time frames that are allowed under the loan conditions, which is the end of next year.

Next question is directed to you, Bernard again, and it came from Bowman Assets. Could you please expand on why you believe that our deposit is so important to U.S. supply chain for both lithium and boron? If it is so, why is the partnering process taken the length of the time it has?

Yes. Thank you for the question. So firstly, to expand on what I've already said in my presentation, the U.S. consumption of both lithium and boron is actually fairly high already, and it's going to only grow rapidly in the future. And so -- and against that backdrop of demand, strong growing demand there's actually very limited production. So for lithium, it's 5,000 tonnes of production versus about 200,000 tonnes of demand. So there's a big gap. For boron, there's more production today, but it's from an aging single mine. And so we're talking about decades, multiple decades into the future, then that demand is going to only grow for boron and there needs to be additional sources developed to allow the stable, secure domestic supply. And the reality is there's just very few options. There aren't other boron deposits of any significant size being developed in the United States for the longer term that can compare with Rhyolite Ridge. And there's very limited lithium deposits being developed -- there are some, but they're limited, and there's growing demand, as I've outlined. So secure, stable domestic supply is critical for defense and national security. And that's very much the focus of the current administration. And hence, we are part of those conversations. And why the strategic partnering process is taking some time? I sort of touched on that as well because really, we started it in the sort of second half of last year, but that was against a backdrop of low lithium prices. It was against a backdrop of active trade negotiations between the United States and various countries, including Japan and Korea. And Japan and Korea is where our offtakes are with. And so they're very much involved in our project and have been for many years because of that. And we also saw the addition of boron onto the critical list, and we saw the rising price of lithium. So there was a lot of moving parts around that were directly relevant -- changing and moving around directly relevant to our project in the back half of last year. So I would say the partnering process really did not get fully underway until a lot of those things were sorted, which was basically the early part of 2026. So really, the process hasn't been running that long at all, even though formally, yes, we kicked it off in the second half of last year.

Bernard, I'd like to just add one thing to that last part of your answer. Look, it took a lot of courage on our part to not try to take tough bad deals that would have been bad for our shareholders. There are people who are very interested in coming in, in the bottom of this cycle and trying to put on very complex, very expensive capital deals on us. But it would not have been favorable to our shareholders. So we -- despite how much we wanted to get on with building this thing, we had the courage to say, we think things will get better. and that we think that the trends are in favor. And I think we -- I'm fully confident that, that's going to turn out to be true. So that was another part of the equation. Olga, further questions?

There's a question from Craig. I'm a shareholder holding in excess of 1 million shares and have been an investor since 2000. Can I ask why you do not personally answer the e-mails that have sent to Investor Relations? Second question is, what is management doing releasing and quarterly reports and having to make corrections to the report? And third, as the MD, what controls and governance do you have in place?

So firstly, it doesn't make sense that there would be a shareholder from 2000 because the company listed in 2007. But anyway, I'll take that there have been -- this question is coming from someone who's been a shareholder for a long time. It takes a long time to develop projects like this. I mean we drilled the first hole into this project in December 2016. And the reality is it takes a long time to drill out a project to do all the engineering work to piloting the estimations and the permitting. That's just the reality of big projects like this, unfortunately, but that's what it is. And there's many examples in North America of projects that have some comparison to this Rhyolite Ridge in terms of scale that have taken much, much longer than that. So we're well below the average. So I think it's just a function of the -- of what we're doing here with a project like this. And remembering it's not just a mine. It's a large chemical processing plant that had to be studied, engineered, piloted, modified, piloted again, and that's just a function of these sorts of deposits. In terms of the quarterly report, that was an unfortunate circumstance, no question. We had a transition from a number of -- several of our staff. And new people coming in and people that left the company on favorable terms. But nevertheless, we lost a couple of people and we have to replace them. And it came at a very busy time, and there was just some things that got overlooked, and hence, unfortunately, we noticed those, and we corrected them accordingly. And we do have processes in place, but people were coming up to speed, new people in the company, new processes. And unfortunately, we made a couple of mistakes there, but we're doing things to make sure that doesn't happen again, and I'm sure it won't. So I'm confident around that. And then in terms of responding to shareholders, well, we endeavor to respond to shareholders. Sometimes there's information that's in our ASX announcements and in our quarterly reports, well, we're not going to repeat all of that every time we get an e-mail question. We are relying on people reading the information that we disclose publicly. And -- but if there's clarifications and et cetera, that are required, then we do endeavor to reply.

Thank you, Bernard. Next question is from Mark. Where does the U.S. buy its present need to meet its current demand? Will this ioneer project with critical domestic supply approval, from government provide a preferred supplier status? Do the offtake agreements take all the proposed supply for Phase 1? What is the equity need to meet the CP terms of the loan facility? And what dollar equity has been committed to raise to date? I assume the government loan accommodates all Phase 1 cost with co-invested equity. Those shareholders be provided with financial projections of what cash flow and profitability is expected from the Stage 1 assuming FID is made and when it is expected?

I'll answer the last part of the question first while I remember it because there was a lot of questions there. We have disclosed that information. We have made public our feasibility study and then our update economics based on the increased -- reduced leach times. That's all been disclosed. And we've disclosed through submittal of S-K 1300 reports on the NASDAQ as well. So all of that information relating to projections, cash flow analysis, financial returns has all been made public already by the company on multiple occasions. In terms of the offtakes, the offtakes are for approximately 18,000 tonnes. So there's about 8,000 tonnes of lithium that's not under offtake agreement, and that was a deliberate strategy. We were holding that back so that, that could be part of the strategic partner discussions. Where does the U.S. get its lithium and boron from? All over the world. It imports boron from Turkey of the order of 100,000 tonnes of B2O3 a year by USGS Estimates. Lithium comes from all over the world, from South America, from China. A lot of it comes from China because a lot of spodumene gets converted into lithium chemicals in China. And will there be preferred status? That's something that this administration is definitely working on. And one of those initiatives, as an example, is Project Vault, and we are involved in those discussions. There has been no outcomes of that yet, but it's early days. But the government are incentivizing or encouraging end users to support domestic production of these critical materials. I don't know, James, do you want to add anything to that?

No. That's good.

Next question is from Craig. Will the partnering process be completed in the first half as previously notified by management?

Our guidance right now is in the middle of the year, and we feel like we'll get it done.

Our next question is from Mark will new equity raise be pari passu with the current shareholders?

I'm sorry, which new equity raise. We're not raising equity. We've raised equity. We've approximately USD 70 million in the bank, and we're not intend there's no intention to raise further equity through capital raisings in the market. The equity for the project that we referred to will be through a sell down at the project level with a strategic partner or partners, and that information has all been disclosed publicly.

Thank you, Bernard. Mark appreciates your response. We also have received 2 questions that were submitted online before the meeting. The first question is, when will the joint venture partner be announced? I believe this 1 has been already responded.

It will be announced when it's announceable. But we are currently focused on getting a project deal done in the middle of the year. Obviously, as soon as we can announce it, we will.

Thank you, James. And there's another question we received in advance. How does the Board intend to address the erosion of investors' capital over the next 3 years based on a time value of money?

Well, the way we're going to do that is we're going to execute a project very well, hit our milestones, deliver a functioning, well running facility and have dramatic increase in the value of our company through that process. That's the only way we can do it and be very mindful of what we spend. We -- when we travel, we travel cheap. We pay very close attention to how we're using the money and when we spend money, it's only to further our ability to execute this project.

Thank you, both. I'm confirmed there are no more questions at this stage.

Okay. Great. All right. So, now we will move to the formal business of the meeting. The Notice of Meeting was lodged with ASX on 20 April 2026 and has been sent to all members and can be found on the ioneer website. All voting today will be conducted by way of a poll. As already noted, voting is open on all resolutions. For each item of business, the Company Secretary will display the full resolution to be considered and the total number of valid proxies received in respect of each resolution. In accordance with the proxy form, which forms part of the AGM pack, I intend as Chairman to vote all eligible undirected proxies in favor of Resolution 1 through 9 and against Resolution 10. We will now move to the first item of business as set out in the Notice of Meeting. To receive and consider the consolidated financial statement for 6 months ended 31st December 2025. The company's financial statements and reports have been released to ASX in the annual report. Olga, are there any questions or comments on the company's financial statements and reports or questions for the company's auditor?

Thanks, James. No questions. There are no questions.

Thank you. The first resolution is to consider and if thought fit pass that the remuneration report for the year ended 31 December 2025 be adopted. The remuneration report is contained in the annual report. Note, your vote on this resolution is advisory only and does not bind the directors of the company. Number of proxies received on this resolution are shown. Should 25% of the vote be cast against this resolution, this will constitute a second strike for the company for the purposes of the Corporations Act 2001. Olga, are there any questions or comments on this resolution?

We haven't received any questions, James.

Okay. Thank you. So see -- so the next -- I -- the next item of business is Resolution 2 is to consider and if thought fit pass the Rose McKinney-James, who retires for by rotation and being eligible, be reelected as a nonexecutive director of the company. The number of proxies received for this resolution are on the screen. Your directors, including Rose, unanimously recommend voting in favor -- excluding Rose, excuse me, unanimously recommended voting in favor of this resolution. Olga, are there any questions or comments on this resolution?

There are no questions or comments on this resolution.

Okay. The next item, given my personal interest in the next 2 items of business, I will hand you to Bernard to chair the meeting for these 2 resolutions. Bernard?

Thank you, James. The next item of business, Resolution 3 is to consider and if thought fit, pass that James D. Calaway, who retires by rotation and being eligible, be reelected as an Executive Director of the company. The number of proxies received for this resolution are on the screen. The directors, excluding James, unanimously recommend voting in favor of this resolution. Olga, have we received any questions or comments on this resolution?

We have not received any questions or comments on this resolution, Bernard.

Thank you, Olga. We'll move on to Resolution 4, approval of issue of performance rights to James Calaway in lieu of directors' fees. The next item of business, Resolution 4 is to consider and if thought fit, pass approval of performance rights to James Calaway in lieu of directors' 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. Olga, have we received any questions or comments this resolution?

We have not received any comments or comments on this resolution.

Thank you, Olga. I will now hand you back to James to resume chairing the meeting.

Thank you, Bernard. Next item of business, Resolution 5 is to consider and if thought fit, pass approval of performance rights to Alan Davies in lieu of directors' 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. Olga, are there any questions or comments on this resolution?

James, there are no questions or comments on this resolution.

Thank you. The next item of business Resolution 6 is to consider and if thought fit, pass approval of performance rights to Rose McKinney-James in lieu of directors' 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. Olga, are there any questions or comments on this resolution.

There are no questions or comments, James.

Thank you. The next item of Resolution 7 is to consider and if thought fit, pass approval of performance rights to Margaret R. Walker in lieu of director fees on the terms and conditions set out in the explanatory memorandum. Number of proxies received for this resolution are displayed on the screen. Olga, are there any questions or comments on this resolution?

We have not received any questions or comments on this resolution.

Thank you. Next item of business resolution is consider and if thought fit, pass approval of performance rights at Timothy R. Woodall in lieu of director's 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. Olga, have we received any questions or comments on resolution?

There are no questions or comments on this resolution, James.

Okay. The next item of business, Resolution 9 is to consider and if thought fit, pass ratification of the prior issue of 400 million placement shares on the terms and conditions set out in explanatory memorandum. The number of proxy received for this resolution are on the screen. Directors unanimously be voting in favor of this resolution. Olga, are there any questions or comments on this resolution?

James, there are no questions or comments on the resolution.

Okay. The next item of business, Resolution 10 is considered and if thought fit, approve, subject to a condition on at least 25% of the votes validly cast on Resolution 1, adoption of the Remuneration Report being cast against the adoption of the Remuneration Report for the year ended 31 December 2025 set out in explanatory memorandum. The number of proxies received for this resolution are displayed on the screen. The directors unanimously recommend voting against this resolution. Olga, are there any questions or comments on this resolution?

James, there are no questions or comments on this resolution.

Thank you. That concludes our discussion on the items of business. I will close the poll shortly. Please ensure you have cast your votes. [Voting]

Voting is now closed. Results of these votes will be released to the ASX later today. Thank you for your attendance today. We look forward to working hard on your behalf to ensure the development of Rhyolite Ridge and the success of ioneer Limited. Thank you very much. And all the best to everyone. Bye-bye.