Lynas Rare Earths Limited (LYC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and thank you for standby. Welcome to the full year results investor briefing. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Ms. Jennifer Parker. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to the Lynas Rare Earths investor briefing for the 2021 financial year. The briefing will be presented by Amanda Lacaze, CEO and Managing Director, and joining Amanda will be Gaudenz Sturzenegger, CFO; Daniel Havas, VP of Strategy and Investor Relations; and Sarah Leonard, Company Secretary and General Counsel. I'll now hand over to Amanda Lacaze. Please go ahead, Amanda.

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to our annual results 2021's dial. I think we actually have a few rather less people than we normally do on our calls. I'm not sure whether that might have been some challenges with us using this new platform. For those who have not been able to join, certainly, we will be recording it, and it will be available. So it really is my great pleasure to be able to present these results today. We have had a record year on all financial metrics. Certainly, the market has helped us. Demand and price growth has progressively strengthened through the year. And really, I think that it's always hard to pick the inflection point in any market when you're in the market at the time, but in retrospect, you can often see it. And it does very much feel like 2021 has been the inflection point for us as the rare earths market and particularly for magnetic materials has really started to accelerate. Of course, in 2021, we faced challenges that none of us have ever had to face before, and we felt that particularly, and our Malaysian team felt that particularly. I will deal with the operational impact later, but of course, the financial effect of some of the challenges presented by the COVID pandemic have included subdued production, some challenges for our team in terms of logistics scheduling, significant increases in shipping costs, and indeed, we've had to allocate some additional cash to hold inventories for some of our key inputs. Despite all of these, costs are in good shape, and I'm really very pleased with the team's performance in that area. And of course, our balance sheet is in the best shape ever. The convertible bonds, the last of the convertible bonds converted in August 2020. The JARE debt is stable, as all would expect. We've been -- we've disclosed the terms of the repayment of that previously. And of course, it seems like quite a while ago now, but we completed a very successful capital raise in September last year, which sees our key growth projects fully funded. So as I look at these charts, I'm delighted that we're back on an upward trajectory for most of the measures and even on production where, as I said, we've been somewhat subdued, even though it's been constrained, it's still the second-best year in our history for the production of NdPr. Production was at levels, which was sufficient to meet our current customer demand. And today, I'm really pleased to be able to say that we have a portfolio of high-value customers. It includes both some of the big magnet makers. Of course, everybody knows that customers like magnet makers in Japan are amongst our largest customers, but also some smaller volumes to magnet buyers, particularly in the European market where we operate, as we've described previously, 3 cornered contracts where the magnet buyer can be confident that they've got Lynas material inside the magnet that they're purchasing from the magnet maker of their choice. Demand is up across all customer segments. And when, in the future, we are able to dial up production again, we are very confident that we will be meeting demand, certainly not ahead of it because of the strength of demand in all areas. The focus on the elements associated with COVID, health and safety, doesn't mean that in this year, we've had a reduced focus on other aspects. For example, our total recordable injury frequency rate has gone down, so we're really pleased with that. We've maintained our certifications, and that is really important to all of our stakeholders and particularly our customers. But I do think that it's important to take a moment for everyone to remember that we only succeed on the back of our employees' hard work and effort. The environment and the challenges in Malaysia have really been unrelenting. And our people have responded, in particular, our leadership team, but all of our people. Our protocols touch not just their work life but also their personal lives. Our people there have had masks on in the workplace now for almost a full year. We test them, and anyone who's had a COVID test knows that it's not necessarily the most pleasant of activities. We test them, in many instances, every 5 days. Many of our people have had to isolate during the year, and that's not been because of workplace exposure or workplace transmission, but the virus is ever present in the community. And so we've only had a small number of our people who have tested positive, but when that's happened, we've rapidly undertaken our own tracing methods and put others into isolation. As a result of that, we have had no workplace transmission in this year. Many of our people have been significantly dislocated from their family and their friends so that they are able to continue to present in the workplace. For all of these things, I say thank you. And certainly, at Mt Weld, although the compliance task has been less onerous for many of our people, there have been more than one occasion during the year where our people have been required, for example, to wear masks all day long despite how far away we are. We've put constraints on their ability to interact in the local community at relevant times. The local community is 80% indigenous, and so we certainly are very alert to the potential for the effect of our operations in that area. So as I said, our success rests on the hard work and continued application and dedication of our people. At the same time, we've certainly been able to see some real positives, some continued growth in our key diversity measures, and of course, that makes me very happy to see that we continue to have a workplace which is gender diverse, certainly diverse on an ethnicity basis. We've, I think, got 10 different nationalities just in our first 2 layers of management. Diverse in terms of age and industry experience. I think all of these things contribute to us being a better company and delivering better outcomes for our shareholders. On that matter, all of our stakeholders but most particularly our customers and you, our shareholders, know that ESG is not a 3-letter acronym which is just to be trotted out at relevant times and hope that people will think, well, therefore, we've ticked the box. For us, we are embracing some of the new ESG requirements and measures within a culture which already is very focused on the things that matter. Our people know the importance of the products that we produce and as the globe -- as right across the globe, we meet the challenges of climate change and other environmental impacts from the human race on the globe, I mean, frankly. Our people understand the importance of what we do. They understand that it's also critical that we do it sustainably. So as we look to transitioning some of the things that we -- some of the ways that we work, moving into new modes of operation, our people understand the importance of that and embrace it with a great deal of enthusiasm. Practically, we've completed life cycle analysis, which allows us to see the potential effect of our activities. We keep that up to date. We've also, in this year, completed greenhouse gas analysis, which will inform some of our very real actions to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, including signing up to science-based target initiatives, which means that we can't just say, "We'll buy a certificate here or there, and then everything will be all right." And of course, the other thing which has remained critically important this year is engagement with community. Certainly, in Malaysia, many of our local community members have been very challenged by the effects of the pandemic and also by, unfortunately, some natural events, including a tornado in one of our local villages. So we've actually stepped up our support to our local communities through this time. I think many of the people on this call -- sorry, despite all of these challenges which have been presented by the pandemic, our focus on operational excellence and asset management continues. At both of our sites, we've now got plants which have been in operation for 8 years. It's sort of 10 years since they were built. It's really important that we sustain the quality of these assets, their ability to work -- to do the work that we need them to do as we meet this growing market. We're very focused on the operational excellence in terms of our people's performance and behavior, and it's quite exciting. We're implementing 7S management at Lynas Malaysia even in amongst all of the other challenges. And many of you know Pol Le Roux, who heads up our marketing and sales, and he -- and downstream operations, and Pol has committed to eat ice cream off the floor in our plant once we reach all 7 Ss. I might even share that video with you, shareholders, when it happens. But we are continuing to focus in all of these areas to ensure that we are really well placed to push harder as we transition out of the constraints presented by the pandemic. Many of you on this call track the external market, probably more breathlessly even than we do. The bounce back in 2021 from the effects in 2020 has been quite extraordinary. As we look at global vehicle sales demand, for electric vehicle sales, all of these are very much feeding demand, which, in turn, is feeding into price. And even in our catalysts segment, we're back to pre-COVID demand levels. I'm very excited about some of the work that we're doing at Mt Weld. For a long time, Mt Weld has simply just been sort of this steady rock, no pun intended, on which the rest of our business rests. And as we move into the new growth phase for our company, we need to be looking at investments in all of our sites. And most certainly, at Mt Weld, we have a really substantive plan with enough in it to keep the geos really excited, to keep the mets really excited, keep the mining team really excited and keep the operations team all likewise really excited. We have exploration. We've talked a little bit about and disclosed the results of our deep drillhole. The final analysis of all of that and report should be available towards the end of this calendar year. We've just commenced operations in our fourth mining campaign. This will be the largest cutback that we've done in the mine pit at Mt Weld. And so certainly, the miners who like to move a lot of turnaround, they're having a pretty good time. In processing, we're making investments to both improve the effectiveness of the flow sheet but also to improve the quality of the finished material. You would have seen that we've talked about the installation of a dryer, which will improve the quality of the con that we produce. That matters as we feed it into the front end in Malaysia. It will matter also as we feed it into our new facility in Kalgoorlie. And finally, we're starting the process of building a stockpile of concentrate really for when our Kalgoorlie facility comes online. In Malaysia, as I've already covered, we've had very careful management of activities with external constraints on the number of people that we can have on site at any time. And as you all know, we are always a lawful and compliant business, and so we have not breached those levels. It means that we can't have all of our process staff and all of our maintenance staff and all of the contractors that we would normally have on site all at the same time. It can be seductive to think, well, we'll sacrifice some of our maintenance activities, given those constraints. We have not done that. It is important that the plant is running reliably, that we have it available as we see the opportunities to increase production. So the team has worked very carefully there to ensure that we are implementing a proper maintenance schedule even as we continue to meet the sorts of production outcomes that we're seeking. And of course, we announced just earlier this week that even though the work on the PDF in Malaysia has been slow due to movement controls, which has limited the number of people who can be on site, complete studies, et cetera, we are moving forward. Kalgoorlie is another very exciting activity for us. Progress is really on track with our miner and preliminary works commencing earlier this year. The 4-week public review completed in June. We're very, very engaged with the local community and Kam and his team has run pop-up information points in Kalgoorlie to enable the local community to ask us directly about opportunities and effects of the investment in the Kalgoorlie facility. Our engineering design is very well progressed. As I said, we're on site, and the kiln is almost on its way. It's at the port in Spain, ready to get on the ship. U.S. is still a fabulous prospective market for us. We have done a lot of work on the design and engineering here, and we await, with some excitement, the next-stage communication from the U.S. government with respect to that facility. 2021. So for the first time, I think, governments, other than the Japanese government, really taking action as far as supply chain resilience and the supply chain diversity is concerned in this sector. There's been quite a lot of rhetoric on it over many years, but as you look through, certainly, on this presentation, you will see that it's now being backed with some serious action, whether it's policy or financial to really fund the development of a much more -- a much healthier -- I'm just trying to think much more dynamic outside China market for rare earths. And I think this will be good for everybody, including other participants in the market that operate within the Chinese market. So Lynas 2025, we've spoken about on many occasions. It is really exciting, and our current effort is really focused on finding ways that we might be able to accelerate elements of our Lynas 2025 plan because we are looking at demand, we are looking at returns, they're very favorable, and we really need to step up and ensure that we can meet the demand in the market. So there's a lot more in the presentation and also in the financial report, which I assume that all will read in their own good time. But with that as an overview, I'm very happy to take any questions that people might have.

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from the line of Jack Gabb.

I guess first question for me is just relating to the constraints you mentioned in Malaysia. Is 75% of nameplate capacity realistic this quarter?

I think that we will be stretching to get to the 75% this quarter, Jack, although we're almost 2 months into it, but every day has got its own challenges. There is risk because Pahang now has many more COVID cases than it had in the first 6 months of this year. On a daily basis, we're typically looking at between 500 and 700 cases in Pahang, where we were previously looking at maybe 100 to 300. The effect of that on us is that because our people are in the community, if we have anyone who is exposed, then we have people who are isolated, who are required to quarantine under our own policy because ensuring that people don't come into the workplace, don't bring infection into the workplace is so important. So I'm cautious about giving anything that may be construed as guidance on this because we are dealing with such uncertainty. We have a plan all going well. We should be able to execute effectively. But it is -- we are dealing with challenges that we haven't had quite as sort of clear and present previously. This, too, will pass. I mean we understand this, too, will pass. And that's my point about ensuring that we have our assets locked and loaded and ready to go the minute that we can sort of turn up and turn the production up well above that 75%.

Yes. Absolutely. And second question is just on Malaysia still. So I guess we've got a new PM, and I've heard he was the previous proponent of CondiSoil and of Lynas. I've also read he's previously questioned the renewal of your operating license, albeit by the previous government. And I guess while I think it's fair to say that political opinions change, particularly when out of government, it can be very different when in-government. Are you able to clarify Lynas' previous interactions with him?

I think you would be aware that for many years, we operated in Malaysia with a lot of support from government because of the benefits that we bring to Malaysia. One of the benefits is that Malaysia is really ahead of the game when you think about that sort of global map and the importance of resilient supply chains. Malaysia gets to stand in that value chain in a way that, actually, nowhere else does outside of China. And so we are an exemplar foreign direct investor. We employ locally. We buy locally. We support our local communities. And so for many years, we operated with a very sort of collaborative and productive relationship with government, and that government was an [indiscernible] government. Of course, 2018 caused us quite a lot of challenges. I would point to the fact that through all of this, our underlying principle has been that if we operate safely, if we are compliant with regulations and if we are continuing to contribute to the capability, skill and quality of life for our people and the people in our local communities, that, that is the best way for us to handle any political situation. Malaysia does have a strong respect for the rule of law and also for scientific data, and that has always held us in good stead. So in terms of the politics, I would be foolish to predict what any politician might say or do. I accept what you're saying, Jack, the politicians' positions can change over time. However, I think that this government will be focused on recovery from the pandemic. Malaysia has been very battered by the pandemic, and companies like Lynas that really make a serious contribution whilst complying with all of our operating license conditions, I would expect that we will be able to continue to do so, and I'm hopeful that at some stage, we will be able to look to continue to grow.

And just 2 last ones from me. Firstly, just on your iron phosphate, I call it byproducts, given it contains a reasonable amount of NdPr, just curious whether this could be reprocessed through the new circuit or the existing circuit, I guess, both in Kalgoorlie and Malaysia, or whether you would need additional infrastructure to reprocess that. And I guess just how far into the future is that likely to be considered?

We don't know the answer to that yet. We do have people working on what would the flow sheet be. And I think that as someone who works in the minerals industry, you would know that the idea of being able to reclaim valuable material from tailings is not unique to Lynas. And in most operations, at some stage, companies go back and process the tailings. The material is in a slightly different form, whether it's in our tailings storage facilities at Mt Weld or whether it's in the iron phosphate in Malaysia or in the iron phosphate that we will be producing in Kalgoorlie. We don't know how to process it. I have a fundamental faith that we will resolve this and that the team that's working on it has got some good indications to date but not finalized. So there are different ways that you can think about doing it. You can think about sort of adding -- blending it back through the current flow sheet, but it may be that we're better off looking at an alternative flow sheet.

Perfect. And then very last one is just on the markets. We've seen, I guess, a few companies come out and announce the impact of chip shortages. Just curious, and obviously, you don't have direct exposure, but whether you're hearing anything from your magnet maker customers or others, whether that's starting to impact rare earths or rare earth permanent magnet demand. Are you concerned about that at the moment or not really?

We're alert to it, and we're certainly aware of it. But at present, we're not seeing any effect on demand for our material. But certainly, we are highly alert to this because sort of the key end market -- one of our key end markets is automotive, and anything which is going to affect automotive and then -- is potentially a risk. And then, of course, anything which affects electronics is potentially a risk. But we are not seeing it at present, notwithstanding our understanding of the shortages.

And your next question comes from the line of Daniel Morgan.

I just wanted to follow on a little bit about some of the challenges of operating in Malaysia at present and also with COVID. Can you just touch on these a little bit further, these logistics issues? And are they more pronounced now on getting your concentrate to site and other consumables? Is it more pronounced now than it has been in the past?

Look, the thing with COVID, and I think we're all over listening to politicians, but the challenges change. Unfortunately, it's never the same challenge every day. So we sort of fix one, and then we find sort of a different challenge coming through. So I think I've covered quite clearly the issue around constraints on site. As we think about logistics, the first thing that COVID has done is it's increased freight costs by, I think, almost double. And so that's just a straight-up financial impact. Through the year, we had some quite significant challenges with delays in concentrate shipments where the primary driver of that was much longer-than-normal transshipment times in Singapore. We have now been able to build up our supply chain to accommodate that longer period of time, and concentrate is not -- the availability of concentrate to feed the facility in Malaysia is not a big issue. So we've got inventory onshore, but we are still looking at sort of quite long delays at times. It's certainly taking a lot more time for material to find its way from Fremantle to Kuantan than it did pre-pandemic. With respect to some of the other inputs, we're fortunate that sort of some of our largest inputs are sourced locally. Sulfuric acid and hydrochloric acid just both come from local producers very close to our plant. But there are some of the other materials which we use on some of the other reagents, which have been disrupted at various times. And because the pandemic sort of waxes and wanes in different countries, we can't always predict when it's going to happen. So even though China has not been reporting a lot of cases, we actually see that there must be challenges at times when we see that we can't get material out of a particular province or otherwise. And so the way that we've responded to this is we've got sort of a multiple supply panel for all of our key materials and are managing those very carefully so that we can switch between suppliers to keep consistent supply. The most recent that was challenging for us was material coming out of the Middle East. And so once again, we've actually increased our planned inventory. So we had a few hairy days on that, but we've increased the amount of inventory that we have and the number of shipments that were coming through. It seems to be the best way to deal with the uncertainty. Sorry, I'm just thinking back to your question. When we talked then outbound logistics, that also has given us quite a lot of challenges but less today than earlier in the pandemic. But we certainly have had times where we simply had not been able to get product on ships on the days that we would have normally expected that we would be able to get it on ships. But generally, we have been able to do it within a reasonable period of time. But once again, very active management by -- Wayne Park is our GM Commercial. He is sort of really managing that shipment sort of program very actively on a daily basis.

And I guess a follow-up question on COVID in Malaysia. I mean it has caused more disruptions in some other factories in the country, which have been forced to do short-term shuts and things. You haven't been forced into that. But can you just talk about that risk to your business? What would trigger a potential shut and how you're managing that?

That's the reason why we stick things up our people's noses every few days. That's the reason why we've had people in sort of accommodation, hotel accommodation close to the site rather than having to travel across districts. That's the reason why at one stage, we had just over 50, I think, of our people in isolation. It is all about doing everything that we can to not bring the infection on site. So the operations which have been shut down have typically had an incidence on site and an incidence of workplace transmission because it is so prevalent. This is a daily risk, and it is just relentless for our people in Malaysia to manage it. At the heart of the reason why we're doing it is to ensure the safety of our people. We were amongst the first companies in Malaysia to sign up to the public/private vaccination program. As we've said in our release, we've got 98% of our staff first vaccinations; 94%, second vaccinations. And the ones who haven't completed their second vaccination will do it within the next couple of weeks. And I think that we've only got a grand total of about 3 or 4 staff who, for medical reasons, are unable to tolerate the vaccine. So this should reduce risk, but as we all know, vaccine doesn't completely eliminate your ability to acquire the virus, but it does mean that it is less likely to be a serious disease. So even with a fully vaccinated workforce, we will still have to have all of these various controls in place. I think even our local Ministry of Health in Malaysia recognizes that our control is really strong and, in fact, go further than some of the Ministry of Health guidelines themselves. And for that reason, we have -- that is the reason why we've been able to continue to operate, whereas there may be some other businesses where they have been less stringent in their controls and less disciplined in their compliance. Once again, and I know I say this a lot, but our Malaysian staff -- the level of compliance with the conditions that we have set upon them, which don't only apply in the workplace, but which have limited aspects of their personal life, has been amazing. And that has really been at the heart of us being able to continue to operate, but it is a daily risk.

It sounds like a commendable effort in managing what is an external risk. And then my last question, I guess, is a little bit more strategic. I mean there's growing talk of a number of potential greenfield rare earth facilities being considered in Australia and possibly with government support as well as government looking at the supply chain risks that you've identified. Does it make sense to team up and reduce capital duplication? Or can you just talk through that strategic element?

The first thing that I would say is that isn't it great that we have a market where demand is so strong and forecasted growth is so strong that people might want to invest in developing this market. And my history is the more investment you have, the more innovation you have, the more activity you have, the healthier your market is. And so I think that's a terrific sort of outlook for industry. On the other hand, we certainly operate, and some of the prospective projects operate in a stage of the value chain which is very capital intensive. A capital low build when we're competing with a planned and well-executed industrial strategy is probably not going to have a really happy ending for a lot of people. So it's for this reason that we have often presented and promoted the concept of Kalgoorlie becoming a real hub for rare earths processing. It's the reason why we continue to engage with prospective providers of third-party material that could be processed through that facility. We will continue to do so. And certainly, I think that we should be looking for efficiencies. We talk to the government about creating sort of an environment in which we can be successful, so infrastructure and utilities that facilitate successful outcomes. Certainly, I think that we should be looking to make sure that we don't have unnecessary overbuild and that where it is relevant to have shared facilities or co-located facilities even that we certainly look at doing that.

And your next question comes from the line of Reg Spencer.

Congratulations on a very good FY '21 result. My question relates to project time lines. And I know a few weeks back, at a quarterly call, we discussed at length how you thought Kalgoorlie was progressing. Noting the recent extension that was being granted for your PDF construction in Malaysia, should there be any delays in receiving necessary approvals or construction time lines at Kalgoorlie? What might we think the prospects are of a similar extension being granted to your Malaysian operating license?

Reg, how long is a piece of string? So we are fully committed to our Kalgoorlie facility being up and running and running at our target rates and plenty of time for us to be able to meet the current license conditions in Malaysia. And we have no showstoppers on that at this time. And the project team, the energy and enthusiasm for completing this task is palpable. It's a pity you can't actually see them in person, but they are sort of so energized to actually get this up and running. So we are completely committed to doing that. On the other hand, it has always been our position that our current operations in Malaysia are good for us, but they're also very good for Malaysia. And so as we move through continuing to engage with government on some conditions which were introduced by a government which is no longer in government, yes, I mean we'll continue to have those discussions. But we are fully committed to Kalgoorlie, and we are confident of meeting our time line.

Okay. Great. Just a follow-up question to Jack's on the supply chain downstream with respect to chip shortages, acknowledging that you mentioned that you're not seeing any effect on demand for magnet material at this point in time, are you able to comment on whether or not this could be an indication of some stockpiling in the supply chain? I think most people who are following this chip shortage issue would know that it's likely to be a reasonably shorter-term constraint and would be resolved in due course. But any comments on behavior of the midstream, if you're able to share those?

Are you asking is there a pipeline fill on rare earths?

Correct. Yes. Yes.

No. There's none. Yes, I can comment on that. I can say that this is not inventory build in the supply chain. It is real demand, and it's moving through the value chain fast.

And your next question comes from the line of Trent Allen.