Lotus Resources Limited ($LOT)

Good morning, and welcome to the Lotus Resources Investor Webinar. [Operator Instructions] I'll now hand over to Lotus Resources Managing Director, Greg Bittar. Thank you, Greg.

Good morning. Thank you, Nathan, and thank you all for joining this call to discuss the Lotus March quarterly report. I want to start by acknowledging the challenges outlined in our quarterly and the impact on results to date is disappointing to us all. We do continue to advance with safety the priority, the Kayelekera uranium mine ramp-up and moving towards steady-state production. Despite the challenges noted in the quarterly, whether these be related to the accelerated restart and recommissioning of Kayelekera or to the global supply chain headwinds, Lotus remains on the restate pathway and will deliver. Operating momentum is building across all of the key areas; mining ramp-up, processing plant performance and reliability improvements, acid plant commissioning, the TSF construction, the power grid connection project plus many other more minor areas. Kayelekera's technical capability has been significantly bolstered in recent months, led by changes to and addition to -- additions to our site team. We have changed the site and processing leadership with a number of key personnel joining during the March quarter. These include the new Kayelekera General Manager, a new Processing Manager and more recently, just subsequent to the quarter end, a new Engineering Manager, significant investment in equipment, critical spares and technical support, a new specialist third-party laboratory management provider, supported by continued investment in necessary equipment and training and expanded mining, engineering and metallurgical capability. In addition to the additional capability on site, we are learning from actually operating the processing plant and infrastructure and uncovering deficiencies and areas requiring improvement. The enhanced technical capability and the operational experience as we ramp up the plant and infrastructure have identified a number of issues with measuring mill grade, recovery levels and associated metal accounting and reconciliation. These issues necessitated the restatement and retraction of previously reported December 2025 quarterly numbers around mine tonnes, which were restated and mill grade and recovery figures, which were retracted. Up until now, only historical stockpile material has been processed. No newly mined ore has been processed. The company has not identified issues with its ore reserve or mine grades. Uranium produced numbers and ore milled remain in line with the numbers as reported. Across 2 areas, we have identified a number of work streams. Each now has a comprehensive remediation plan with measures already in execution mode. The first of these areas is essentially grade measurement integrity and metallurgical accounting. We identified bias in routine sampling, manual sampling, along with unreliable and constrained laboratory performance that reduced the reliability of our in grade -- our in-process grade and recovery data. As I mentioned, we replaced the laboratory service provider operating our on-site lab with this change taking effect during February and a comprehensive plan to improve the quality, accuracy and reliability of assay data from the laboratory has been compiled and is being implemented. We're upgrading sampling hardware and protocols. We're recalibrating critical instrumentation, materially shortening the turnaround time for these assets and about to commence an inter-laboratory round robin program with Curzon uranium beginning in May, this month. We also have a number of specialist consultants now focused on changes to manual sampling practices in the processing plant in the short term, whilst we reinstate automated samplers in the medium term and we also have consultants working with us to audit the current metals accounting practices and system. The second area is the processing issues responsible for the poor recoveries. Overall, there has been a high degree of process instability in the early stages of this ramp-up in the past few months with production characterized by intermittent performance rather than sustained steady-state operation. As we reported, these issues have largely been resolved, including the April disruption that we announced and we are pleased with the plant availability we are seeing. More stable operations and consistent ramp-up is expected over the next couple of months. Beyond the necessity of having greater operational stability in order to optimize performance, there are a number of specific processing work streams, which will drive recovery improvement. The leach circuit, for example. Acid dosing has been running off target due to dosing pump configuration issues. The pumps have been swapped, the SCADA control system recalibrated, new probes and calibration largely completed, and we will see the benefit of that work flowing through. The resin-in-pulp and elution circuits -- circuit. This is where the largest improvement will be delivered. We're working to restore design residence time and stage configuration. We're addressing the operation of the elution circuit to operate continuously and not by batch. We're looking to ensure that resin is appropriately stripped to design levels before reentering the [indiscernible]. Also progressing a program on a series of other initiatives where very significant -- which have been very significant recurring reliability and recovery factors. The last area worth mentioning is around process control and automation. A lot of the process has been operating under manual control. We are moving to as quickly as possible, automating where we can, well beyond where the processing plant was automated before, prioritized controls, reinstating into locks, alarms and notification systems. So to give you a sense of the amount of work we're doing on site, this optimization plan developed by the new site team with their technical capability has 14 work streams, very rigid timetable, very rigid deliverables, weekly steering committee oversight and independent technical review. The issues and challenges we have faced viewed in the context of an accelerated restart after many years in care and maintenance, whilst disappointing, are manageable. The plan and the progress and the work behind the scenes show us that. We are also keen to start processing the newly mined ore and this will commence soon. From a mining perspective, the ramp-up is well advanced. And coming out of the wet season, mining is now active across 3 fronts. From our run-of-mine stockpiles, we have high-grade stockpiles exceeding 200,000 tonnes at quarter end, representing about 2 months of throughput with more than half of that stockpile being newly mined yet to be processed ore. Stockpiles continue to grow and continue to grow from that mining activity. The Board and management are now very confident in the depth and capability, technical expertise in place at Kayelekera. The right team from the site leadership, greater bench depth and consulting support to complete this ramp-up. It has been delayed and deliver sustainable steady-state production. If we step away from mining and processing, we've restored the sulfuric acid supply and planning has allowed -- supply and planning has allowed us to secure reagent supply after recent disruptions. Diesel, acid, sulfur pricing and freight costs remain highly elevated due to what we're seeing globally. The March quarter saw us secure product acceptance with Orano CE, the French Group Orano's conversion facility in France. This is logistically the simplest and shortest time frame for our deliveries. Furthermore, the ability to swap product between converters gives us delivery flexibility. We are now working towards our first shipment of uranium. Given the impact of global events on shipping logistics and specifically shipping from Dar-es-Salaam to where we plan to transship in Singapore, that is no longer operating. It may in the future, but our contingency planning involved either Barra through Mozambique -- Barra in Mozambique or Walvis Bay in Namibia. We are working with our logistics providers to commence exporting through Walvis Bay in Namibia as soon as preparations principally around permitting are completed. In parallel, key capital projects are advancing with the hot commissioning of the Kayelekera acid plant scheduled for this quarter and our tailings storage facility lift works progressing well. Work to connect Kayelekera to the Malawi electricity grid is also well underway with land clearing, initial supply shipments received, substation construction works underway. Construction and supply delays due to the global disruptions are being monitored with an emphasis on mitigating potential risks to the project delivery timetable, which still has that been commissioned late this year. From a capital perspective, we've always been focused on maintaining a sufficient balance sheet and the flexibility to deliver the Kayelekera restart and ramp-up and support working capital. We had AUD 85 million unrestricted at the end of the March -- at the end of March and discussions are well advanced with potential inventory financing prepayment facility providers and we look forward to providing more details as soon as possible. Before going to questions, we know the challenges. We have the operating and technical team in place, and we are very confident we can build on the work the team has well underway to deliver the ramp-up momentum -- to restore the ramp-up momentum, achieve the recoveries and ultimately deliver the uranium production that Kayelekera and its ore body and processing plant has demonstrated it is capable of. Nathan, maybe over to you for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Branko Skocic at Barrenjoey (sic) [ JPMorgan ].

Branko Skocic, JPMorgan. First question for me, just to get a sense, give us flavor for where recoveries were through the month of April and then even exit rates into May, even a wide range just would be appreciated, but then also your confidence in the steady-state recovery target as well, please?

Branko, look, we won't go into specific numbers. We are seeing improvements in recoveries. There is no reason why with the plans that we've got and the work streams involved that we won't achieve our planned recovery targets where this plant has operated historically. But that's a function of delivering on these work programs and seeing the improvements around the plant. So we are seeing an improvement. We will continue to see an improvement, but we can't provide the numbers at this stage.

All good. And just a question around the cash flow statement. I did note that cash operating costs were quite a bit higher than at least we were expecting. Can you just talk through what drove this and whether a similar run rate into the fourth quarter of the financial year is appropriate as well, please?

And you're referring to the operating expense number in the quarterly?

Yes.

Yes. Look, that number is very noisy. So AUD 36 million. That includes significant expenditure, which we see will come out of future quarterly expenditure. There was $8 million, for example, in critical spares, significant insurance and other duties that needed to wash through the system. A big impact on freight, a very significant impact on freight in that number. So we do see it recalibrating. Obviously, on a per pound basis, it also suffers from the lower pounds produced. But we don't see that as a reflection of steady-state costs.

Your next question comes from Glyn Lawcock at Barrenjoey.

Hopefully, you can hear me okay. Maybe just taking that a little bit further. In your report yesterday, you said outflows for the next quarter would be about $38 million. Could you maybe help break that down into what's like an ongoing spend of the $38 million versus maybe additional capital you're going to need to spend? And then I've got a second.

Yes, Glyn, so we -- the capital projects, including the -- power grid connection, step up in this quarter. So there is significant capital expenditure spend, which was in addition to the $36 million for the March quarter. But in terms of further breakdown, yes, again, it's as you would expect from a processing side, processing makes up a significant portion of our C1 costs, almost half of the C1 cost based on the accelerated restart numbers and even going back to the DFS, about 50% of our C1 was processing. So you've seen a continued forecast of elevated sulfuric acid and sulfur prices. And you will start to see post second -- post June, if the price of diesel continues, a step-up in the cost of diesel. We have benefited through to June of lower diesel prices.

Okay. So of the $38 million though that you put in your cash flow forecast for the next quarter, just wondering how much of that is CapEx versus OpEx? Is there a way to think about it?

Yes. So if you look at the capital number that was spent in the March quarter, that's probably -- and then there's a slight increase for that. There is an increase for that given the power grid connection going into the June quarter.

Okay. And then the rest is sort of $20 million, say, call it, sort of 20-ish, which is going through the operating cash outflow line as well then?

Correct.

And then just taking -- you mentioned inventory financing, prepayments. I mean, obviously, given the delays and the time lag to get money in, you need to think about the inventory and financing and prepayments. Just could you help me think about the cost of that versus cost of debt and cost of equity to yourself? I mean just I can't imagine inventory financing or prepayments are cheap. Are they cheaper than debt or equity though?

This is a debt structure. It would -- it only gets drawn once the pounds are on a ship and it's at a margin over sulfur. So the pounds are the security. It then gets accessed for the period of time between drawing down and ultimately delivering into a sales contract. And so it is -- essentially it's far more attractive than the cost of equity. It's far more attractive than the cost of hybrids and it's quite similar to leaving capacity aside, it's quite similar to various other debt constructs in terms of pricing that we've considered.

And sorry, I'm not fully familiar with how it would work then. So like would you pay it back then once you get the proceeds from the customer in full? Or does it keep -- it doesn't linger with a tail, as you said, a premium over sulfur --.

No, it's a facility that we can add pounds into. And as those pounds wash through the system and we receive money for those pounds, the debt gets satisfied and any excess is for our keeping.

Okay. And that's something you think you'll be putting in place in what the next quarter or so?

We're happy to announce that soon. But yes, obviously, to coincide with first shipment.

And that's now likely to be what, next quarter, given your comments around the need to get through Namibia, get your permits in place, et cetera?

Look, we've still got 2 months, Glyn. We're still hopeful it will be this quarter. There is a pathway through permitting, obviously, dealing with multiple jurisdictions across the supply -- across the delivery chain. We're working as quickly as we can. We're hoping it will be this quarter still.

Your next question comes from Matthew Hope at Ord Minnett.

Okay. Hopefully, that's worked. I just wanted to query the fuel supply. I think you said that the supply lines were still intact. What does that actually mean? Previously, I think your fuel was due to end about the end of this quarter. Is that still the case? Or -- and if you were getting oil or diesel from Gulf refineries, where is it coming from now?

Yes. So Matthew, we don't buy it locally. We've got a license to import diesel and we use international providers. And we've contracted from a pricing perspective through to June. We start -- we put in some beyond that. But we're not seeing any supply issues. So even though we think we're a significant producer -- a significant consumer from our suppliers' perspective, we continue to have comfort that we will see the diesel and we're seeing deliveries and we understand what's in the supply chain. So we're exporting. We're not relying on being locally procured, and there are issues with diesel locally. A lot of that has to do with payment for that diesel, but we are able to import it internationally. And our blue chip or sort of Tier 1 suppliers give us good visibility and confidence on the supply of that diesel.

Right. Okay. So no issues, you think, other than the price.

So we're still receiving deliveries. We've still got a good level of inventory on site and price becomes an issue as we look to contract from July onwards.

Okay. And then in terms of shipping to the Orano converter, and then you talk about swapping so you can sort of get it across to the U.S. and so on. But is there a -- if you try and swap it with another converter, I mean, is there a big cost impact on -- in terms of what you get less than what you would have other done because somebody else is doing something?

It can work the other way, Matt. So it depends on the movement of product and where the product needs to be at the converter level. But it's actually quite attractive to swap out of Orano at the moment.

So can you actually ship everything that was going to go across the U.S. -- say, the U.S. utilities, and you can ship it all to Orano and let somebody else deal with it, and that's attractive. Is that what you think?

Correct. Yes. We have a swap agreement in place with Orano. Each converter has accounts with each other. And this is another vagary, another idiosyncrasy of the uranium sector.

And what happens then, somebody then goes and ships it on your behalf across.

No, no, then there'll be [ Kayelekera ] product that sits in inventory in ConverDyn in Cameco and is being looked to swap to Orano and there may be physical movements, but that's -- our delivery point is our account at Orano.

Okay. And finally, just in terms of trucking across Africa to Namibia, what kind of cost impulse does that have? Because I mean it's 1,000 kilometers, thousands of kilometers.

Thousands. Look, even going through Dar-es-Salaam, it was 1,000 kilometers. So still transport costs according to the accelerated restart plan were a couple of dollars a pound transport insurance and conversion. We don't think that's moved hugely materially, although given freight costs at the moment, there will be some adjustment to that. So yes, longer trucking distance through Namibia. However, we will shorten the shipping time considerably. So rather than from Dar-es-Salaam and going to Singapore being transshipped in Singapore and then reversing coming back under Africa, the ship line from Walvis Bay will go up to Rotterdam and then it will go into Europe from there.

Your next question comes from Stuart Foster at Cranport.

Just had 2 questions I wanted to -- some clarification on. Firstly, just on the fire you had in, does that have much impact on this result?

No, no, that was -- it was in April. It was over Easter. So it was a 2-week.

Yes. Will it impact -- that's right, so not in this current quarter. Will it impact the June quarter?

Not materially. It was -- we expect -- we thought we'd be out for several weeks with the parts and the expertise on site, the temporary panels, we're able to install the mill back up and running within 12 to 14 days.

Okay. And you just mentioned in your lead up that are you only processing historical stockpiles at the moment through the plant, not freshly mined material.

Certainly, for up until the end of March and for most of the period since then, I think we've recently started simply as we go through some campaign testing --.

And do you think the historical -- the old stockpiles compared to freshly mined raw material, do you think that has any impact or is an issue for the plant? I mean given once you get through the old historical stockpiles, do you think that's going to be an easier thing to do than processing a new material?

Yes. Look, I think it will certainly give us more confidence. I think we're going to put a stake in the ground around what's left of those stockpiles, 80,000, 85,000 tonnes are left. So most of our ROM stockpile material is newly mined ore. These stockpiles have been out for 12, 14 years, so.

Yes, that's what I was thinking.

A whole range of weathering factors, refractory component to it is the composition of the stockpiles. You can never be absolutely certain despite doing the test work. But also, Stuart, we saw as we were getting what were clearly inaccurate assay readings from the mill feed and the stockpile feed, we'll bring down the grade. We try and bring down what we thought was a higher than reported stockpile grade. And so we were feeding in mineralized waste as well from the stockpile. So there's a whole range of work going on, the experimental work in some respects without correct and timely data that has led us to this situation. So fundamentally, the stockpile grade is there or thereabouts the Paladin historical numbers. okay? Whether the blending that we've done and the weathering profile have impacted, look, we'll never know. We can't go back, and we'll just look forward that we'll be very soon getting into processing only newly mined ore.

Your next question comes from Mark Wiseman at Macquarie.

I just wanted to understand how we should think about cash costs versus the DFS. Could you maybe just make some comments on the unit rates that you're paying for acid compared to -- obviously, freight is a significant component there. I think it was about $140 a tonne in the DFS. What are those sort of tracking at now on a spot basis? And then how does that change once you switch on the acid plant? Also just with reference to the DFS is the acid consumption that you're observing in the leach and elution phases, is there any signal that it's actually consuming more acid than you were planning for?

So no to that last question. it's really been just us being able to monitor, adjust in real-time pH levels and having accurate systems to do that. So we're still working on that 220 tonnes per day type metric. So from a consumption point of view, nothing has changed in terms of our planning. Keep in mind that the DFS didn't have significant importation of sulfuric acid because it had the acid plant up and running, but didn't have that as deferred to accommodate the accelerated restart. So this phenomenon of asset quickly gets through to sulfur. At the moment, we're jumping both and hence, we are incurring a higher spend to build up an inventory of both. And we have over a month of acid on a stand-alone basis and we have over a month of sulfur on a stand-alone basis if we were in full swing acid production. At the moment, sulfur delivered to site is hugely elevated. We're talking USD 1,300, USD 1,400 a tonne, multiple of where the DFS was. So we do need to be able to make an assessment around where costs are long run, we need to have a view on how that recalibrates. And it will recalibrate. But for the moment, we're planning through certainly quite a few more months this year to continue to see those higher prices.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. So I'll hand back to Greg for closing remarks.

Thank you, Nathan. Look, as I said at the outset, the challenges outlined in the March quarterly and the impact on the results have been disappointing. However, there's nothing identified that presents a fundamental issue or impediment to Kayelekera. The challenges that we have identified come with, to some extent, the accelerated restart, coupled with the temporary global headwinds that impact us both as to time and cost. With Kayelekera's ore reserve unchanged and a detailed processing optimization plan well into implementation, we will deliver the targeted recoveries, and we will see the pounds produced at Kayelekera that it has done so that it has done before. So on that note, thank you all, and thank you, Nathan.