Mineral Resources Limited (MIN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

And welcome to the 2021 Mineral Resources Limited Annual General Meeting. Well, today, I'm speaking with you from Sydney. This year, we are again fortunate to be able to host our meeting in person in Perth, as well as virtually for our shareholders not able to attend in person. I thank you for those who are in attendance today. I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet today, and I pay my respects to elders past and present. At last year's Annual General Meeting, I spoke about 2020 as having been an extraordinary year mainly due to the unprecedented challenges of COVID-19. In 2021, these challenges have continued, but so too has the perseverance and resilience of our company and our people. During the past 12 months, we've not waived in our efforts to keep over 5,000 Mineral Resources employees safe and our operations running across Western Australia. It's been another remarkable effort, of which we can all be proud. Today, it is my pleasure to introduce the Mineral Resources Board and management team with us today. Our Managing Director, Chris Ellison, is joined Perth by his fellow directors, Kelvin Flynn and James McClements. Director Xi Xi joins us from Hong Kong, while Director Susie Corlett joins us from Sydney as well. Also in Perth are Mark Wilson, Chief Financial Officer and Company Secretary; Paul Brown, Chief Executive of Commodities; Mike Grey, Chief Executive, Mining Services; and Derek Oelofse, Group Financial Controller and Company Secretary. Additionally, this morning, we welcome Tutu Phong from our auditors, RSM, Nicole Lewis from Computershare who will oversee today's polling process and local representatives from the Australian Shareholders' Association to provide a valuable sounding board for investor feedback. Before we begin the meeting, for those of you attending in person in Perth, please ensure your mobile devices are silent. And now join me in welcoming [indiscernible] to give our welcome to country.

[Foreign Language]. Very pleased to be back here again because I was here last year with you. And I'm sure we've got a few more faces in our audience. So [Foreign Language]. Hello. [Foreign Language] From the past, the present and the future, I acknowledge the elders, teachers, leaders of the Whadjuk people. They are the archives, the libraries and keepers of the language, culture and stories, which they taught to me. [Foreign Language] Listen. And that's the most important part. Listen to what we say. Sit, laugh and learn about our language and culture that's been passed on for 60,000 years. [Foreign Language] Country is inherent in our identity. It sustains our lives in every aspect, spiritually, physically, emotionally, socially and culturally. [Foreign Language] It's more than a place. When we talk about country, it is spoken of like a person. And most of the time, that person is our mother because she is the center of our universe, the same as the sun, and that's what we use the same word as [Foreign Language] Country is family, kin, law, ceremony, traditions and language. For Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander peoples, it's been this way since the dawn of time. [Foreign Language] Through our languages and songs, we speak to country. Through our ceremonies and traditions, we sing to and celebrate country, and the country speaks to us. To heal country, we must properly work towards redressing historical injustice. While we can't change history, through telling the truth about our nation's past, we certainly can change the way history is viewed. People's personal stories, as idiosyncratic as they may be, are woven within a cultural context and act to encapsulate and represent a broader community narrative. This is achieved by reiterating stories handed down to them of places of cultural significance. Dreamtime stories regarding spiritual beings and creation are community narratives people have given voice to, which in turn sustains their own personal life story in positive ways. Thus, Swan and Canning rivers and their tributaries, on the banks where we stand, hold great significance, especially specific sites, which represent areas thought to be resting places for the Waugal or home to its eggs. Although a number of these places have undergone substantial change, the memories and meanings associated remain. And I want you to help me with this. I'll say it first, then if you repeat. [Foreign Language] This is my land. [Foreign Language] This is your land. [Foreign Language] This is our land. Let's walk together side-by-side in reconciliation and in harmony until the end of time. And Mr. CEO, Chris, I want to say, I recognize a whole number of those faces in the annual report, all those artists. I actually taught a couple. I'm starting to think that really starts to show how old I am. But from Fitzroy Crossing, Wyndham, Halls Creek, Kununurra, right down to Albany, I've had contact with people. And Kenton and Aaron, not Aaron, but Kenton is one of my students from Fitzroy Crossing over many years. And I actually had a photo taken with his mom not so long ago at my 70th birthday party. So good luck and enjoy today, and have a lovely time together. Thank you.

We can say it with all of our people, thank you. In terms of formalities, I can advise that a quorum exists, and I declare the meeting open. The Notice of Meeting is taken as read. In terms of the agenda for today, I'll address the formal proceedings of this meeting and then invite our administrative, Chris Ellison, to provide an overview review of the 2021 financial year performance and outline our great strategy for the next decade and beyond. As always, Chris will welcome questions from shareholders at the end of his presentation. Today's move is what we term a hybrid AGM, meaning it is being held in person and online via the Lumi platform. This allows shareholders, shareholders' proxies and guests to attend the meeting virtually via webcast. In addition, shareholders and proxies can ask questions and submit votes online. We've provided a copy of the Annual Report, which includes the directors' report, financial report and the auditors' report to the ASX and to our shareholders. The company secretary has advised me that we have not received any questions on the directors' report and financial report. So I now lay these reports before the meeting. Shareholders are welcome to ask questions during the meeting. If you are in the room, you can ask a question by raising your white attendance card. If you have joined us online, you can submit questions at any time. Any other questions received prior to the meeting will be answered at the appropriate time. Slide 1 shows how to ask a written question by Lumi. To submit a written question, select the messaging tab at the top of the Lumi platform. At the top of the tab, there is a section for you to type your question. Once you are finished typing, please hit the arrow symbol to send. Slide 2 is how to ask a verbal question via Lumi. To ask a verbal question, you will need to pause the broadcast on the Lumi platform and then click on the link under asking audio questions. The new page will open where you'll be prompted to enter your name and the topic of your question before you are connected. You're listening to the meeting on this page while waiting to ask your question. If you have any issues using this system, please return to the Lumi platform. Please note, although you can submit questions at any time, I will not address them until the relevant time in the meeting. Your questions may be moderated or if we receive multiple questions on 1 topic, they may be amalgamated. Due to time constraints, we may not be able to answer all your questions. If this happens, we will answer them via e-mail or post responses on our website after the meeting. Voting today will be conducted by way of poll on all items of business. To provide you with enough time to vote, I will shortly open voting for all resolutions. Shareholders who have joined us in person should have received a voting paper and registration. If you did not receive a voting paper and believe you should have, please raise your hand now. The computer represent -- Computershare representative will assist you. As we go through the resolutions, please mark the box next to each resolution to cast your vote. Once you have completed your preferences for resolutions, please sign and write your name at the bottom of the page. Computershare will collect your voting papers at the end of the official business. Now Slide 3 is how to vote online. Once voting is open, if you are eligible to vote at this meeting, a new polling icon will appear on the Lumi platform. Selecting this icon will bring up a list of resolutions and present you with voting options. To cast your vote, simply seek one of these options. There is no need to hit the submit or enter button as the vote is automatically recorded. You can, however, change your vote up until the time I declare voting closed. Accordingly, I now declare voting open on all items of business. If you are voting online, the polling icon will soon appear. Please submit your votes at any time. But as a reminder, this is a meeting of Mineral Resources shareholders. And as such, only shareholders, their appointed proxies or corporate representatives are entitled to make comments, ask questions or vote. All other attendees are very welcome as observers. I will leave the polling open while we discuss the resolutions. We will provide you with a warning before we close voting. If you put resolution 1 up on -- resolution 1's slide. Resolution 1 is the adoption of the remuneration report. The first motion for consideration today is the adoption of that report. The Corporations Act requires that a resolution to adopt the remuneration report be put to a vote. However, the resolution is advisory and only nonbinding. All key management personnel and their closely related parties are excluded from voting on this motion. The remuneration fee this year was placed with the overwhelming shareholder support for the 2020 financial year -- I mean remuneration report, and has sought to build on that support into financial year '21. The changes implemented in financial year '20 to remuneration strategy and structures have assisted in the retention of the senior leadership group. During a period of considerable change within the mining and mining services industries, this stability has enabled positive cultural changes to be affected. This change in turn has provided a platform to attract outstanding talent to strengthen the company's capability. And this is essential to the foundation of our business to support the substantial growth ahead of us in a highly competitive market. Financial year '21 remuneration outcomes were driven by significant growth in our business. We invoked the success and continued shareholder support for the remuneration strategy and structures that became effective in last year, in financial year '20. There have been no changes to our overall executive remuneration structure in financial year '21. This has again been a very successful year for the company with considerable operational success achieved and a record operating result for shareholders despite COVID-19 constraints. The remuneration framework is structured to reward long-term sustainable growth of the company through a delivery of a significant portion of remuneration in equity. This aligns the senior leadership team with shareholders. The outcomes of the remuneration framework helped achieve the company's vision to be a leading provider of innovative and sustainable mining services, provide innovative and low-cost solutions across the mining infrastructure supply chain, operate with integrity and respect and work in partnership with clients, our customers, our people and our community to achieve these objectives. The remuneration committee is pleased that the incentive program we placed has assisted in delivering outstanding results to shareholders. The details of proxy votes cast on resolution 1 are now displayed on the screen. Are there any questions or comments on this item that you'd like to discuss? I haven't seen any questions. So if there are no further questions, we'll move on to the next resolution. Resolution 2 is the reelection of Director, Mr. Kelvin Flynn. It is to consider, and if thought fit, to pass with or without amendment, the following resolution as an ordinary resolution after the purposes of clause 13.2 of the constitution, ASX Listing Rule 14.5 and for all other purposes, Mr. Kelvin Flynn be Director of the company, retired by rotation, and be eligible to be reelected as a Director. Mr. Kelvin Flynn has served as Director since 22 March 2010, and was last year elected on the 20th of November 2019. He's a qualified Chartered Accountant with over 30 years experience, investment banking and corporate advisory roles, including private equity and specialty situation investments in the mining and resources sector. Kelvin has also held various leadership positions through Australia and Asia, including Executive Director and Vice President with Goldman Sachs and Managing Director of Alvarez and Marsal in Asia. He's also worked in complex financial workouts, turnaround advisory and interim management. Currently, he is the Managing Director of Specialist Alternative Funds Management in Harvest, which focuses on investments in the real estate and real asset sector. Kelvin is also a Non-Executive Director of Silver Lake Mineral Resources Limited. At the present time, Kelvin is also the Chair of the Mineral Resources Audit and Risk Committee. The Board submits -- support the reelection of Kelvin Flynn and recommends shareholders vote in favor of resolution 2. The details of the proxy votes cast in relation to Resolution 2 are now displayed on the screen. That's a very overall positive vote. Are there any questions on this item? No. As there are no further questions, we'll move on to the next resolution. Resolution 3 is the reelection of Director, Ms. Xi Xi. The resolution reads, to consider, and if thought to pass with or without amendment, the following resolution as an ordinary resolution. That, for the purpose Clause 13.2 of the constitution, ASX Listing Rule 14.5 and for all other purposes, Ms. Xi Xi, being a director of the company, retired by rotation, be eligible, be reelected as a Director. Ms. Xi Xi has served as Director since 11th of September 2017, and was last reelected on 20 November 2019. She has over 20 years of experience in the global natural resources sector, having served as a Director of Sailing Capital, a USD 2 billion private equity fund accounted by the Shanghai International Group in 2012. Xi Xi has also worked with numerous Chinese state-owned and property-owned enterprises, advising on international acquisitions and investments overseas. She has also previously served as an analyst and portfolio manager of Tigris Financial Group in New York, focused in the oil and gas and mining sector. Xi Xi currently service as nonexecutive Director of Zeta Resources, a closed-end investment company with a broad portfolio of oil and gas as well as mining investments. Xi Xi is also the Chair of the Nomination Committee of Mineral Resources. The Board supports the reelection of Ms. Xi Xi, and recommends shareholders voted in favor of the resolution. The details of proxy votes cast for Resolution 3 now displayed on the screen. And again, it's an outstanding positive vote for Xi Xi. Congratulations. Are there any questions on this slide? No questions. So with no further questions, we'll move on to the next resolution. Resolution #4 is the approval for grant of securities to the Managing Director. The resolution reads, to consider, and if thought fit to pass, with or without amendment, the following resolution as an ordinary resolution. That, for the purpose of ASX Listing Rule 10.14, and for all other purposes, approval is given for the grant of share rights to Managing Director Chris Ellison under the company's long-term incentive plan on the terms set out in the explanatory statement. At last year's Annual General Meeting, we committed to provide a resolution addressing the Managing Director's financial year '21 long-term incentive equity award to address comments that we had received in financial year '20 from proxy advisers noting that the company should seek approval to the Managing Director's long-term incentive equity grant despite the equity award being settled by way of MRL shares purchased on market rather than by way of a purchased issue of shares. In response, we have tabled Resolution 4. Following the further feedback from proxy advisers this year, however We, will adjust this approval in future annual general meetings so that shareholder approval for the Managing Director's long-term incentive equity grant is sought prospectively. As a result, the incentive equity grant is -- as a result, the equity -- resolution of the 2022 Annual General Meeting will encompass the Managing Director's long-term incentive equity award for both the financial year ending June 22 as well as June 23, with prospective approval for each of the following financial year's long-term incentive grants being sought at each subsequent Annual General Meeting. The Board supports the grant of equities, securities to the Managing Director. And recommends that shareholders vote in favor of Resolution 4. The details of the proxy votes cast on Resolution 4 are now displayed on the screen. And if there are any questions, please raise them now. Thank you. We'll move on to the next resolution. Resolution 5, which is the last resolution of the meeting is the adoption of a new constitution. The resolution reads, to consider, and if thought fit, pass the following resolution as a special resolution, that pursuant to and in accordance with Section 136 Corporations Act and for all other purposes, the constitution of the company be repealed in this entirety, and the company adopt as its new constitution, the document described in the explanatory memorandum and tabled at the meeting and signed by the Chair for identification purposes with immediate effect from the close of the meeting. The company's existing constitution was first adopted in 2006. Since this time, there has been changes to the Corporations Act, the ASX listing rules and other regulatory requirements. There have also been developments in corporate governance and market practices. The Board believes it preferable in the circumstances to replace the existing constitution with a new constitution rather than to amend a multitude of specific provisions. The new constitution is broadly consistent with the provisions of the existing constitution, and many of the changes are administrative or wider in nature. The details of the proxy votes are -- cast on Resolution 5 are now displayed on the screen. If there are any questions on this item, please raise them. Thank you. As there are no questions, this concludes our discussion on the items of business. In a few minutes, I will close the voting system. Please ensure you have cast your vote on all resolutions. Shareholders in the room need to lodge their voting card in the pallet boxes being brought around the room by Computershare staff. I'll now pause it to allow you time to finalize these votes for approximately 90 minutes -- 90 seconds. [Voting]

Can you please raise your hand if you all get to lodge your voting paper? I think all the voting papers have been collected. Voting is now closed, and the results will be released to the Australian Securities Exchange later today. Thank you all for your patience. Now before I hand over to our Managing Director, Chris Ellison, on behalf of the Board, I would like to acknowledge Chris and his team for their extraordinary results through what has been another challenging year in the face of a global pandemic. To keep our people safe, our operations running and deliver a record financial year performance is an incredible achievement. I'd particularly like thank the entire Mineral Resources workforce of over 5,000 people for their unwavering support and cooperation as we continue to adapt to keep our sites safe and our mine operating. This was not always easy, but the Board is grateful to each and every member of the Mineral Resources team. My final commitment is to pay tribute to the skill, commitment and wisdom of all the Board of Directors in reviewing, questioning and adding value to all Board discussions. It's my pleasure to be the chair of such a strong cohesive and value-adding group of Directors. With no further business to address, I'll conclude formal proceedings for this year's Annual General Meeting. May I invite Chris to talk through what has been an exceptional year for your company and outline our strategy for growth for the future. Thank you for support of Mineral Resources, and look forward to continuing this journey with you. Thank you.

First, I'd like to acknowledge that our AGM to date is being held on traditional land. I'd like to acknowledge they are the traditional custodians, and I'd like all of you to join with me and pay our respects to elders past and present. And I'd like to extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that are here today or online listening. So welcome, everybody. Good morning. Thanks for joining us. It's our -- MinRes '21 AGM. I'm Chris Ellison. I've been with the business from the beginning, and it's good to see some familiar faces in the crowd. Welcome to all our shareholders, and especially welcome to all of the private little investors that have supported MinRes over a long, long time. David Bowden, one of our inaugural Chairman's List shareholders, has been with us from day 1. So it's always really pleasing to see that we're delivering some good stuff for our families. I mean, it's probably the most important thing our business stands for, is to care about our people, to care about the families of our people and try and care about the wider community. It's been another tough year for us, been a very challenging 12 months that we've been through. And I think not just for business for Mineral Resources, I think it's been for the whole world, the whole country, for WA. I think we're all pretty much COVID fatigued. We just want to get over it, and we want to get rid of this thing. And we'd like our borders to open up, go see family, or hop on an airplane or go do something a little bit different than -- it's kind of getting a little tiresome. And so look, I think we're going to get there. The tough thing as a business is when we open up the floodgates, we're not just letting people out. We're going to let the virus in. So we've spent an awful lot of time trying to work out how we can continue to keep all of our people safe. And our extended families around WA, extended to thousands of people. So they rely on our business for the normal bread and butter that goes on their table and pay their mortgages. So it's something we're going to take pretty serious. Over the next 6 to 9 months, it's going to be a very, very challenging time. Thanks to the Board. Welcome for our Board members that can't be here again. I'm sure that next year, we'll all be back together. Thanks for the support during the year. They've been a pretty amazing Board, and they're not a walk in the park. They're tough customers to deal with but they deliver an awfully good result for us. We've been through another cycle, again, last year us standing here. And if you're in iron ore, you're a hero if you're in lithium, you're a loser. And that's not the first rodeo that I've had like that. But here we are, again, iron ore has declined, lithium's at prices never heard of or seen of before, and it seems unstoppable. Lucky, we got both. The Mining Services business has been performing extremely well. But today, I'm going to try and give you a bit of a snapshot of the past 12 months. I'm going to talk a little bit about the strategy and direction of the business. We've done some work around a lot of our shareholders' institutions, and got a fairly mixed reaction on -- a lot of them didn't really, really understand our strategy, where we're going and what the glue is in the business. I'm going to try and deliver a bit more on that. And then I'm going to talk a little bit about our major projects, and try and see if I can get you a little more savvy on how that works in our world. I mean we are -- as you know, we're a mining services company. That's where we started our life. We're one of the premier and largest mining services groups in Australia. We think that over the next 3 years and proceeding to beyond that, the mining services business is going to be incredibly significant. It's going to be large, but it will still maintain a reasonable margin and a return to our shareholders. But the thing that drives us, it's that mining services, that contractor mentality that we have. It's the heartbeat of our business that makes us, those can-do people. We don't see problems. We see solutions. We attract a lot of very, very high caliber people to our business. A lot of people want to be with us nowadays. So the other parts of our business, commodities. We're into iron ore. We're into lithium. We have also found ourselves lucky enough to be in gas. We've been sitting on that land for a couple of years up in the Perth Basin. We just recently drilled a hole out there, and who would have guessed, but we found gas, and we found a lot of gas. So we're working on that. We've got a solid track record. We've delivered a very, very consistent growth story over the years. They don't always follow up that 1 year, it's always bigger than the next. The next, we always have our challenges. We're facing a few now, but we've got a fairly big growth story in the business. But we've got a good track record on being able to build and operate large-scale projects. We have got a good track record on delivering them on budget. We get them done on time. We often beat that, and we generally get a consistent return for our shareholders. So every time we think it's something new, I mean, I face a little bit of criticism, and a lot of different questions coming at me, but we rely on our track record and that is that we're going to continue to run the company the way we have over 30 years, and we're going to try and make sure that we get those same results. So the next phase of our growth is going to be quite significant, much more than we've ever seen before, but we've got a balance sheet that can deal with it. We've got capability out there, and we've got timing on our side where we can strategically time the development of where we're going on the projects. But we're going to multiply our mining services business over the next 3 years, and I'll lay that out how I'm going to achieve that shortly. We're transitioning our iron ore business from small, high-cost operations to long, low-cost operations, that's a 3- to 5-year plan, again. We're going to maximize our lithium production. I mean, our lithium business is one of the premier lithium businesses in the world. We're in the top 5, and we're going to do an awful lot better as we go through the next 1, 2 and 3 years. It's going to become incredibly substantial. And our gas business, we're going to develop an energy business, and we're going to be very focused on how we do that. But I'll give you a bit more color around that shortly. I'll talk a little bit about where we've been over the last 12 months in brief. I think you've all got all the information that's available. There's not a lot more I can tell you. Probably in a lot of terms, I mean, it shouldn't have been, but it was our best year so far. And who would have thought that? If you go back to March 2000, I would have thought the business was going to half, and it just wouldn't stop growing. Safety performance, thanks to our management team, I mean we're in a really good place with that and just outstanding results. The mining services over the last 12 months. NextGen 2 commissioned incredibly successful. It's sitting up on one of our Tier 1 client sites, producing a lot of iron ore. We've started another substantial mining contract out there with one of the Tier 1 blue-chip companies, a lot of yellow goods on site. And productivity levels we're getting out there, exceeding expectations. Carbon fiber. I spoke to you some years ago about carbon fiber and I was going to do this amazing dump truck dravel. It was a flop. It really didn't go anywhere. We couldn't cure that problem. Everything worked on it except when you drop a 15 or 20 tonne rock out of a digger, eventually, it laminates the carbon fiber, but we've got a carbon fiber factory. And there's a lot of things that we're producing out of that factory now that are just game changers in our business. We've developed the first screens in the world, all carbon fiber. We've got them running up at Mt. Marion, and we're building some awfully large ones at the moment. So we just take the weight out of it. We take the corrosion out of it. We get longevity. There's other products we've done. They've got involved with a company that is based over in Germany. They've developed a wheelchair wheel so that instead of trying to skull drag yourself out of your wheel chair, you can pull it up beside the bed, you lift the top 1/3 of the carbon fiber piece of the wheel off and they can simply slide onto their beds. It's a bit of a game changer. But who would have thought a mining company would come up with that? Where else are we going? So Wonmunna. We turn Wonmunna on, 5 months after we turn it on we have the first iron ore coming out. I mean, close on a world record, a great story. We turned it on, 5 million tonnes. We're ramping it up towards 10 million tonne over the coming months. been running reasonably well. I mean, we've had a lot of water in the ore body out there but had a lot of rain this winter, as you know. And we've done a lot of work around the Pilbara and Ashburton hubs. So I'll talk a bit more about them towards the end. And of course, the energy, we doubled our landholding in the Perth Basin. We were lucky enough to put a tender out there with the government. And we also took on a huge amount of land on the Carnarvon onshore basin. So that's adjacent Chevron, but we're onshore, and we've gone into that with our friends from Buru Energy. Financials. You can see, very, very strong. Return on invested capital in a good place. Revenue up, pretty much everything was up for the year. So a pretty tough year to beat. Safety and well-being, as I said earlier, critical to us. It's something that we work on every day in our business. We care about our people an awful lot, and we do that. It's a total package to make sure that we can get our people to work and get them back home in the right condition that we want them home. LTI, 0.12. That was 0 for a number of years. We've had 1 small accident that give us that TRIFR. Again, in our industry, unbelievably unheard of. I mean, we're down there at 2.31. I mean I was talking to the Minister for Mines the other day, and I reminded him that our TRIFR is much lower than his and all other people at this town. So another outstanding result from the team. Labor market has been tough. We're all fishing out of the same pool. We're trying to think of different ways of getting people into our workforce, have been very innovative around the way we've done that. We got 130 apprentices and graduates what's sitting inside the business at the moment, had a huge success with bringing young women into the business. We've been bringing them in and training them to be operative. So if there are any hair dressers or waitresses or banking people, anything out there, and they want to go from $40,000 to $120,000 a year, give me a ring. We'll have them on site within about 10 weeks, and we'll change their lives. So a good story with that. The apprentices have been going well. About 50% of these people that we bring in the business, we call them NextGen people. And that means that they've got a mom or a dad or someone that's been working in the business, and they know our culture, and again, I mean, extremely successful. They say you should never employ relations, we favor them. They understand how we work. Mental and physical health with our people. It's critical. We really have done a lot of work over the last couple of years on the mental health of our people. It's as prevalent as -- in fact, it's more prevalent than the physical well-being of people. We can keep them safe. We can keep them away from the first aid governor. But the times that we go through add a lot of stress to people and we recognize that. FIFO adds some to it. I mean a whole range of things where people need help, and we're there to help them. We've got a great guy in Chris Harris, our psychologist that has been around for a long time and does a great job. Health and well-being advisers. We've got a lot of them in the business. We've got 40 mental health first aiders in the business. We're growing that through training. The work environment, we're setting new standards in the industry. We're developing a new office at the moment. It's running a little over time and a little over budget but we're going to be able to provide people with a platinum standard working environment. So for us to be successful as a business, we've got to not only attract good people, but we've got to do that whole model that goes around it. We're going to attract them. We're going to retain them. We've got to satisfy their egos. We've got to be able to let them move through the management team. We've got to pay them properly. We got to keep them healthy, safe and we've got to support them when they got issues through health or family. And that's the total package we're working towards. Accommodation on-site. When we go to the Ashburton we're going to do resort style accommodation, not the traditional old camps. We're going to have a lot of good things in there. We're going to have a swimming pool, well-being centers for training, restaurants and taverns, not dry messes and wet messes. And we got to make sure that when the people go in there, they've got a different feeling. We're going to make sure that we've got even time rosters, and we're slowly changing the business to make sure we accommodate that where we can. We can't just do that overnight because we need to bring on more people. Very high focus throughout the business, and we always have on behavior and culture. I mean, the culture in our business is really solid. We've worked on that for probably the last 4 or 5 years. We've really been focused on it. We've got people that just work on the culture and make sure that everyone understands how we all play together, the respect that people have to have for others, and that's not just in our camps, it's right across the business, but we're very focused on that. So look, we hear. In short, we care a lot about our people, their safety, their mental and physical well-being and their families. So we've made sure that we've been able to keep everyone pretty safe through the whole COVID deal. And coming through the other side, we're starting to look at -- in our new office, we're going to have some doctors engaged. We've got over 40 nurses on the payroll. We're working towards being able to have vaccine available and be able to take care of our people directly and their families. Contribution to safety -- to society, sorry. About $1.3 billion spent in WA over the last year, about $700 million that were paid in a variety of different taxes. Over 70 charities that we've supported around health and well-being, kids' medical research, youth suicide prevention, domestic violence centers, and we provide substantial funding for scholarships into schools and universities so that we've got young people that come into the business, they get vocational experience. They understand what they're studying for. They fine-tune that. And we try and pick them up and they come out of uni and we bring them into our workforce. So they're the future of our business. We've done a lot of work this year, and it kind of reflects in you see the pictures that we've got around in the background. We've done an awful lot of work around not just indigenous and traditional landowners, but local businesses out in the community towns, engaging with the local councils, station owners, farms. I get on a plane, regularly go up and sit in front of them. Tell them how we're going to behave, tell them what our commitments are. I was up in Paraburdoo on Tuesday and put about 1.5 hours presentation onto the Ashburton Council about how we want to integrate with them in town. We got a little bit of a wild reaction on where we want to locate our resort, but we're going to work through that. It's been a successful year in that since our relationship with all of these communities has been quite exceptional. We've completed our modern slavery statement. And 93% of our supply is Australian. Environmental performance, a real hot topic around at the moment. And we -- and it will be for a long time to come. And we've grown our team internally to be able to deal with a whole lot of new issues we're faced with. We've increased our land rehabilitation this year. We're maximizing the way that we use our water around the plants. We're looking at trying to eliminate tail stems. And we're going to dry stacking. We've been reasonably successful in that. It's going to be a project that takes us a few more years. But the new magnetite project, we're looking at doing down the Yilgarn is going to be completely without tails. So we've got everything kind of heading in the right direction. Decarbonization. Our year-on-year emissions intensity is down by 5%. Diesel is our main enemy that we have sitting out there. It produces about 90% of our emissions. There's no secret recipe on how we can get rid of that at the moment, but we're working on it, and we're going to use gas so we can try and move away from using as much diesel as we are. So all power generation, we're going to try mix it with our diesel engines and reduce the diesel usage and bring up a bit more gas. We're using solar whatever we can, and we're going to keep growing that through our business when we build the big storage shed up at Ashburton, the whole roof is going to be covered in panels. We'll have more power than we can use. We're going to embrace green energy and new fuel sources whenever they become available. We're not capable of developing greenfield inside MinRes. We're focused on running the business, but we certainly will join with anything that comes out where we can incrementally reduce our carbon into the atmosphere. And I can't -- we've tried to put out a road map on where we're going with that over the next and 30 years. We're hoping that over the next 5, 7 years, we'll be able to completely eliminate diesel. So if we can do that, that will be the biggest game changer we can do in the next 30. But whatever we do, look, it's practical and achievable, the plan that we've got, and it's based on the technology that's basically around today. I said earlier, I'm going to try and give you a little bit around our strategy. Am I boring the c*** out of anyone, yet? We still hanging on? Who put their hand out? I just want to talk a little bit about our strategy and for a lot of our institutional investors out there, some of them aren't quite clear on where it is, but it's very simple. In our mining services, the strategy going forward over the next -- I'm going to talk about the next 5 years, and you'll see why at the time I get to it. But the growth plan on mining services is we want to move further up the value chain. We are going to add high-quality infrastructure to our business going forward and supply chain assets. So what do I mean by that? I'm going to build off-highway haul roads that we own and operate. We've developed some awfully big gear, which I'll talk to you about shortly. In the iron ore, it's very simple. We started off with small second rate iron ore deposits with high cost to get them to the coast. We're moving away from that over the next 2 years in the Ashburton, 5 years in the Pilbara, and the next, 1 to 4 years down in the Yilgarn, very simple. So much lower cost. We're going to get our iron ore delivered into China in the low-cost quartile, and we're going to make sure that 2 out of those 3 zones have got a 6 in front of it. So 60.5% FE n the Pilbara, about 65% to 66% in Yilgarn. Lower grade in the Ashburton. But it's our lowest cost operation as well. So I mean, it makes up for it. So the lithium space. Our immediate focus is to get to full production and to make sure that all of the rock that we turn out of the spodumene plants is going to turn into hydroxide, and we get the full value of that. So, look, at the moment, over the last few days, for the last few weeks, hydroxides' up around USD 26,000 a tonne. We are seeing a number of sales go through $2,200 to $2,400 for spod. Going back in the last cycle, we had -- where there wasn't a lot of demand. And I think there's only 1 or 2 companies committed to electric cars. Back in those days, it got up to about $1,300. So it's double that now. And it looks like there's a long-term sustainable demand chain sitting out there. And my view is that there's going to be more demand going forward than there is supply. So fairly simple on that. And gas, again, very simple. We've got a whopping resource sitting out there in the Perth Basin on our first drill hole. We're going to develop that Lockyer deep field. We want to be self-sufficient in gas. Initially, we want to be able to provide it to ourselves and our JV partners. Where we can't deliver it by pipe, we're going to produce our own LNG. We'll build an LNG plant so we can transport it. So we bring it down to a minus 161 C, and we can turn it into liquid and put in a truck and haul it inland for about $1.20 a gigajoule. We're going to provide long-term energy solutions in the medium term to the mining industry through gas power plants, pipelines, all of those sort of things. So again, We're looking to own 20- to 40-year Tier 1 assets. And we're going to -- beyond that, we're going to look at a whole range of downstream opportunities where we can possibly take magnetite, turn it into pig iron. We've got other things out there we can do when we've got probably the lowest-cost gas in the world. So we'll own it, and it will be a very, very small price. I think going forward, gas is going to be one of those highly sought after commodities. We've got to transition out of this diesel and coal somehow. And the easiest way to do that, I think, is at least use gas as a stepping stone. So under the mining services plan, the plan is develop that pit-to-port infrastructure. We want to be the best quality services provider in the country. We can do that with our JV partners, and we're going to do that with our Tier 1 mining companies. So in the Ashburton, we're going to have 30 million tonnes out there of contract crushing, 30 million tonnes of haulage on these big jumbo road trains we've developed, which have cut our off-highway haulage costs in half. So we're down to a low number, almost equivalent to a medium gauge rail system, so very low cost. And then we're going to own -- operate our own transhipping business. So we've been through a lot of design work on those over the last couple of years, and we're about to put some orders out on those transhippers. Then, of course, we're going to grow our organic growth as we have at 15% to 20% a year with the external customers, our Tier 1 customers. And we've got a lot of innovation that we're going to be marketing over the next 5 years or so with our NextGen plants, these jumbo haulage units and carbon fiber products, dump truck trades failed, as I said, but the screens are a huge success, other products we're making down there out of carbon fiber. We're restarting Wodgina, of course. Our crushing business owns the big crushing plant out there. That's a mining services part that we'll have with that JV. And we're looking at 30 years of life on those projects plus. So as I said, the iron ore strategy, a bit more detail. We're going to go to a high volume, low cost. We're going to be in that low cost quartile where we've got businesses settled to outlast or outright any of the down cycles. We've got to spend some money to get there and do that. We're going to have 3 mining hubs. As I said earlier, we're going to have the Ashburton, we're going to have the Pilbara, and we're going to have the Yilgarn. So good quality dirt, and 2 of those are lower quality in the Ashburton but a huge supply. That's several billion tonnes down there are that locked up and stranded, and we'll have a great supply chain. And as I said before, too, we're going to get out of -- slowly work our way out of the hematite and move into the magnetite. And the lithium strategy, I think I laid that out before, but what the interesting thing -- that comes out of that over the next couple of years, we're going to make sure we're running at full production in those 2 hard rock sites at Marion and Wodgina. They are 2 of the best deposits in the world. We're lucky enough to have them. I think it should be noted, too, that we did acquire the Wodgina site from one of our Directors, James McClements, it's one of his companies. We have an arrangement in there. We are -- quite clever of them where they retained the rights to tantalum. So we actually go out there and mine it all. Tantalum's a by-product of what we're doing. They own it, and that will come out. They'll be the lowest tantalum producer in the world. So quite a clever deal from them. So it was a good deal for both MinRes and our partners in that. So where we're heading. Mt. Marion, we're going to take back our offtake agreement, and we've already been talking a game thing about that. So that equates to about 30,000 tonnes of hydroxide will come out of the Mt. Marion or downstream. We want all the benefit of that. Wodgina, our share of that when we're running at 750,000 tonnes with 3 trains is about 42,000 tonnes of hydroxide, and Kemerton will produce about 20,000. So we're kind of going to be up there and a substantial producer of hydroxide. And these deposits we've got -- have got decades of supply. And in fact, we've got a lot of drilling work to do at Wodgina to find out how deep that ore body goes. So that's over the next 3 years, a substantial business, and we're going to beyond that, simply increase production where we can in line with demand and make sure that we always get the benefit of the downstream lithium. And the energy, of course, we want to use that to reduce our emissions as quickly as we can and work towards a decarbonized world. That's probably our biggest bang for our buck going forward is trying to get as much as we can on a much cleaner burning fuel. The next 2 years, as I've said, self-sufficient in gas. We're working with some joint venture partners in there, Norwest Energy. It's got 20% of the field that we got in the Perth Basin. In the longer term, we've got a whole range of opportunities sitting with that gas. So I mean, we're just going to be staying focused on getting that well into production and making sure that we've got gas coming out so we can pay the bills on and get some of the capital back. The operating environment today, as said, we've had some -- the last couple of years have been fairly tough. We've been in different conditions that we've never operated in before. We're kind of getting the hang of it now. I mean, it's all around people. It's certainly going to get a lot tougher going forward than it has over the last 12 months. We've got a shift in the commodity prices. We've had iron ore come off about $130 a year ago. The discounts on the lower grade ore are getting wider. They're down around 42%. So shipping is -- shipping cost is probably 2.5 to 3x what they were a year ago. So challenge is out there. But as I said earlier, it's not my first rodeo, it's not the second. I mean, we'll work through this, and we'll grow the business, and we'll keep developing where we're going with the all of the commodities that we got in the mining services. We are going to carve out some of the high-cost tonnes down in the Yilgarn. We're doing that pretty much immediately. So we're going to pull back down there 2 million or 3 million tonne, and we'll just keep an eye on where the price goes as we always do. Mining services is going to be pretty much unchanged. There's absolutely no job losses out of the adjustments that we're doing, I mean, we're out looking for a fair number of people, and our people will stay well-employed. So just around the iron ore, the operating costs. We are moving pretty quick to do what we can, but we'll keep you posted on that. I don't think it's going to be a disaster, but at this way, it will be a repeat of last year. The Ashburton project. As I said, 30 million tonnes run rate where we're heading. It's about a 2-year build. We're not quite there with being able to get it in front of our Board for approval. We've been going through getting a whole range of different approvals out there, and there's literally thousands to get, and we've got to thread our way through different land tenure and holdings. We've been very successful. I mean we're not far off that. But we're probably going to order a couple of the transhippers shortly. We have to do that because we got a build slot. We want those things delivered in '23. Bungaroo South is probably where we're going to start at sort of ready to go now shovel-ready, and we just need to get the haul road. And this is going to be the first iron ore mine in Australia that's been designed and built dust-free. So the iron ore won't see the light of day when it comes -- from when it comes out of the crushing plant onto our haulage fleet, It will stay under cover until it gets 22 miles offshore in the transhippers and it goes into the big cape carriers. So we wanted to do that because I think that's where we need to be today. I mean, it's much easier to design that sort of a facility now than try and retrofit it down the track. It certainly costs a bit more money to do that. But we're developing this thing at $80 a capital tonne, very rare for this sort of a size development to be done at that. The normal number, it's sitting at around $150 to $180 a capital tonne. So I've read a few notes earlier that someone said they thought the cost is a bit more than what they thought. Obviously, they're not tuned into developing iron ore mines as we are. So full pit-to-port infrastructure. We're going to chop that up, as I said earlier. So what we're going to do, we're going to have what we call Mine Co. That's got the mining tenements in it, and it's got the mining, the on-site mine itself. From the gateway into town, we call that Infra Co. That will be owned 100% by MinRes. And that's the supply chain to get the product all the way into town, covered storage and town covered unloading, transshipping berths. You can see there. Somewhere, there's some pictures. So if you have a look, the transhippers are designed by MinRes with the help of some great marine engineering experts out of Canada and out of Germany. A couple of those ocean going tugs, as you see the clip in the back of the transshipping barges there, the propulsion, and we get alongside, the ship later stands up and that goes over the top of the cape. Currently, we load in about 8,000 tonne an hour per transhipper. So about 2 at any time can be alongside loading. That will be our cheapest port on the WA coast. The big jumbo road trains I spoke about. You can see them there, the 3 trailers. We've been working with CIMC over the last couple of years. We've literally cut our off-highway haulage costs in half with these big girls. They carry 320 tonne of payload. And there's a picture there that's top middle down at the Kwinana Speedway. Those trucks are running down and around. They're driverless. We've been working for about a year on trying to get to driverless. I'm not sure when we're going to get there, but these things here have been running driverless, getting them on these private haul rodes loaded with iron ore is a bit different. But we think that worst-case scenario, we'd probably have 1 driver per 5 or 6 trucks, but we will get to driverless in the next couple of years. So that's all about sort of Ashburton. I mean, so the third part of that, of course, is -- so we got Mine Co., we've got the ore, and that is allowing where there can be JV partners that -- where we go out and use third party ore if we choose to. Infra Co, we own and control that, and then we're going to have mining services, which is 330 million tonne contracts that are going to go for 30-plus years. So a couple of the best mining services contracts in the country. And again, look, the accommodation. We're going to go to a much more resort-style accommodation, lots of facilities in the camp. So when people come back into it, they have got a good feeling. They're in a place where they're comfortable. We're going to have queen-sized beds in every room. The rooms will be twice as big as they ordinarily are, and we're going to encourage couples to go and work on site. There'll be -- they'll have a small laundry in their rooms, their own on-suite, of course, some minor cooking facilities. We're going to make it like a little bit of a home, but we're really hopeful that we're going to get a large percentage of females into the Ashburton region. We can do that with our training program. We're looking to try and soften our camps down, get away from the camps and get into more of a family lifestyle facility. We're going to start in Onslow with 25 houses and the people in those houses are couples. We're hoping that we're going to be able to at least employ the wives on a part-time basis. And add all that value to us around these facilities. So we've got a plan there. I'll let you know in about a year or so if it all works. Project economics. I tried to give you a few numbers around where we're looking at, as I said, about $80 a capital tonne to build this thing. We're sort of out at the moment with about $2.4 billion. I think my construction and projects team are just making sure that they can always deliver on time and on budget because we always aim to be able to trim those numbers back, and we're working on doing that. But that's about what the number is going to land at. It's going to give us iron ore, FOB, for around about AUD 30 to AUD 35 a tonne. Those costs include our mining services charges in there. We've got typical return on invested capital that we always have. We have a clear vision on what that is. And if we're not going to get that, we don't start a project. So -- and this project has also got the capability of going to a second stage. There's several billion tonnes of iron ore in that region, and it can probably go to -- on stage 2, we've looked at around 55 million to 60 million tonne a year run rate. So that again just brings our fixed cost down. South West Creek. It's been going on for -- it's probably consumed about 7 or 8 years of my life. I talk about it every year. We are close. We expect to have some sort of result. But look, we're waiting on the government to finalize the allocations around that Southwest Creek berth. If that happens in our favor, it will unlock our Marillana development. We've got 20 years alone, sitting in there at 60.5% FE. And then beyond that, we've got a lot more ore sitting out there. So that one there. If you want to know how we're going to fund all this. So that's about a 5-year horizon to get it developed. Once -- if we're successful on the birth, we've got about 2 years of getting approvals and getting agreements put in place. And then beyond that, it's about another 2.5 to 3 years to do the build. And I think we're going to come out with something quite outstanding out of that. So we kind of know where we're going to fall, but we just can't say anything at the moment. Yilgarn project, look down there. We kind of spread out over about 200,000, and we're mining an awful lot of pits. We've got a lot of -- dig is spread out. It takes our GM down there a couple of days to be able to get around each operation. It's a high-cost operation, and we have got a couple of fairly substantial magnetite deposits sitting down there. So the original Collie pit, there's 6, 8, 10Ks of strike sitting under there. We've got a drill rig down there now. We've put about 7 or 8 holes in the ground. Our guys have got big smiles on their face. But I haven't got the -- we've got a few results out of the lab, we're happy with, but we got a lot of work to do on the metallurgy. But I think somewhere around about next March, we'll have a good guide. But what we want to do is we want to find about 400 million or 500 million tonnes, and that will allow us to go and put a 5 million tonne per annum plant in there. It will produce 5 million tonne of product. Once we do that, we're going to carve back on the hematite, and we're going to come back to a much tighter circle of pits. And then if we can get it out around 1 billion tonnes, we'll put another 5 million tonne module in. And we've got the modules designed. We do know there's been a lot of unsuccessful magnetite mines developed. One thing that MinRes is very good at is we can turn little rocks from big rocks. So we know how to crush and we know how to grind, and we're actually putting together a small-scale plant that's going to do about 60 or 70 tonnes an hour. And we're going to be able to use that not just for down the Yilgarn, but a whole range of all of these different hard rock deposits we tackle, lithium and iron ore. So we'll be able to run that for 6 or so months and just make sure we understand what we're doing. So we won't be putting any of your capital at risk on that. But good quality coming out of that. Gas development. Shelley Robertson, over here on my right, runs our energy. She told me pretty much within an hour of when we were trying to hit gas. We were actually watching the All Blacks beat the Wallabies, which was a nice sight. And about halfway through the game, as Shelley predicted, we hit the gas in the zone. Again, look, we've got to wait. We've probably got 4 or 5, 6 months to go through and understand what's there, but the preliminary results from our third-party experts looks exceptionally good. So we want to get that into production. Shelley and I have got different points of view on the timing it will take to get that done. But she tells me I have to learn that gas is somewhat different to iron ore. We're also going to have a crack at getting that Red Gully back in line. So Shelly is looking at putting a hole down there and being able to tap back into that gas, bring it back online. And then we've got a lot of exploration work we're going to do in the Perth Basin and up in the Carnarvon Basin over the next few years. And we're going to go find some more gas. So look, that's pretty much it for me. That's sort of where we've been, where we're going. I'm going to be happy to field any questions as well our Directors. I've got Paul Brown and Mike Grey sitting over there that operationally, I'd be happy to give you any information you need. Where's Dianna? Thanks, Dianna for putting these words together for me. You've done an amazing job. We all had a crack it, but Dianna got it. Thanks to Russell James, Ali Franco, I mean all of the staff that you see, what our welcome to country comments were, that's these guys that have been out there. We've got a lot of art that we're bringing into our new office. Russ and Ali have been out there amongst all the communities. They have got a lot of experience in doing that over the last 20 years. I've been working with Hugh Jackman on a whole range of products around caring for our indigenous folk around the country, and they know what they're doing. And we've had an amazing result out of being able to do that. What we're actually doing is we want to bring those communities that we work in inside our office. We want to welcome them inside our business. and we want them to know how much we care about them. We're going to do that through our actions, not through our words. So guys, thanks for doing that. And you can see the annual report that's been turned out. And a lot of the information that we hand out today, I mean, we're trying to make sure that we're culturally aware of what we're doing, and we're trying to do that in a whole range of different ways. So we're going to see a lot more of that in the future going forward. The borders are opening, so come on Emirates. We want to get out of here, make sure all is safe. I mean, we encourage, not forcing any of our people to get vaccinated, but medical advice that we're getting says that you're probably 6 or 7 or 8x less likely to catch the virus if you have been vaccinated. And if you do get it, you may not end up in intensive care. We're trying to get that message to our people loud and clear. But we've got to make sure that whatever decisions they take, we're going to be there to support them in whatever way we can. We've got a video that we're going to turn on. I mean you're welcome to stay on watch it. It's being put together. It gives you a pretty good snapshot of the business. And if you want to stay on line, please make sure you do, thanks to my management team. Thanks again to the Board. And thanks to the shareholders. Happy birthday to Jenny Robinson, her birthday, today, sitting up there in the back. And Jimmy, of course. So if you've got no questions, we're done. We can go and have coffee.

Okay, I'll start again. We've done a great job with Women in Kwinana and training these dump truck drivers? Have you thought of training some road haulage drivers to -- women road haulage drivers because you're always saying you're short of those?

We're more than -- yes, we are. So these big road trains you're looking at, where our intention is that we would like to mainly have women. I can't say that. I mean -- you used to say you wanted to have all men, you're not allowed to, but mainly women running those trucks. Look, the productivity that we get out of our dump trucks with the women behind, Paul Brown will tell you, if you like. Paul, tell them about the -- can you tell them about the success that we've had with these ladies that we brought on board, it's quite amazing.

Am I on? Yes. Great. Yes, about 2 years ago, we embarked on a program. We're really quite short of operators. And what we saw coming through was a really talented diverse group of individuals who, quite frankly, were more -- better productivity, probably more pleasant than a lot of males that we employ and certainly look after the gear a lot. And as Chris said, I get to open the LO program. We run a program every 3 months. And it's incredible to see the lives that we change. People who have -- could be stacking supermarket shelves or have various other careers, but to get an opportunity to come into the industry and really earn a good dollar and change their lives is awesome for us. So it's been great, and we look forward to continuing.

Nobody else is on, I'll carry on. The mining industry, we know is going through this difficult time with sexual harassment and all the rest. We hear more every day. Have you done a submission to this committee, the parliamentary committee at all?

Have we? No. So we haven't -- we're involved in it through the CME. Do we care about it? Immensely. Our camps, I consider, have always been a fairly safe zone. We've had a couple of minor issues over the last 4 or 5 years that -- and we deal with them fairly harshly. But look, generally speaking, I mean, the level of engagement that we have with our people all the way down, they have a very clear understanding of our culture, and our culture is respect to people and to make sure that everyone that comes to work deserves to have a good day every day. And we don't put up with a******* that are going to go and have inappropriate behavior and make their day a bit less than what it should. That's across the board, not just with women, but with everyone. We've got a fair bit of security and surveillance around all our camps. So we can pretty much see if there's any footsteps in the snow. We go looking for that. But look, at the same time, we're trying to encourage a lot of relationships to move forward. I mean, we're encouraging boyfriend-girlfriend to go and work together on a site and give them accommodation together and we're trying to get husband, wives, partners, whatever we can. We're expanding the camp so that we can get the room sort of into double configuration. All of those sort of things are softening the whole blokey construction and the style of the way that we're going to build the camps, it's going to be a much more respectful environment. But we're focused not just on that. There's a whole range of different issues out there that we face today with different sexualities, different races, different everything. And I mean we cater for all.

Thank you. Chris, we've got a couple of online questions as well. The first question is from Dr. Colin, and he's asked what we're doing to get to net zero pollution by 2030?

Derek, I'd say to that, everything we possibly can. But look, let's be real. I mean we've only got the fuel that's available to us. We are trying to make sure, as I said earlier, I think I covered it. I mean, we're getting out of diesel wherever we can. That's our priority. We don't consume any power that comes from a coal source, with the exception, I guess, of our head office in Kwinana probably comes from Collie. But in saying that, we've got lots and lots of panels on the roof of our office and down on our workshop. We're simply going to use any green fuel that comes available. But I think, like I said, our trump card is that we're going to be self-sufficient in gas. We're going to have low-cost gas. And whenever we can replace any of the dirty fuel that we're using, that's our key focus. So that's about the only commitment I can make to between now and 2030. And of course, a BP or Shell can come out with a different kind of fuel, we'll be on to it straightaway.

The next question is from Howard Coleman of Teaminvest. He's asked, thanks for holding a hybrid meeting, which is enabling many of our Teaminvest members in the eastern states to attend online. Congratulations to the Board and Chris and his team for the outstanding past year and the impressive strategy for the future, also for the highly appropriate remuneration structure. My question is, what does Chris see as the biggest potential risk that could derail the strategy that's been outlined today? And how would Chris mitigate this risk should it come to pass?

Okay. Well, look, thanks for the compliment. Thanks. It's for our MinRes team. It's not an easy question to answer because, I mean, we mitigate the risk across our business depending on where we see -- I mean, commodity price is always a big risk in our business. You can't control it. Shipping, you can't control it. The exchange rate, you cannot control it. But how we see our business going forward, we're going to have a -- in the time we build these infrastructure assets, and they're under our control, we're not out there tendering to the world to win those. We actually have those contracts, and we're going to develop them. Two years from now, we'll have 3 30 million tonne 30-, 40-year contracts running. So our mining services business is pretty much bulletproof. It works for all of the majors, and it works on these joint ventures that we're on. Our biggest risk that we have in the business today is the iron ore business, and we know that's been a huge winner over the years, and it's been the poor cousin. We're dealing with that in the sense that we're going to have 3 different zones with our ore that are all going to be in the low-cost quartile. It's going to take us 2 years to get the first one going. Probably, I would expect within 2.5 years, we may have the first 5 million tonne magnetite plant with 4.5 to 5 years out in the Pilbara. So we'll just manage the deposits going forward on the iron ore. The lithium. I don't want to say too much about it, but I see the lithium as being a great business. It's in that green zone. I mean, if you want to store power, you got to have lithium. They're getting better and better at it. But if you have a look at the cards that are coming on stream in the lithium business, I'm not sure where the supply is coming from. But I mean, I said a couple of years ago, there's nowhere near as much lithium on the planet as people think there is. The deposits have got to be economic. You got to be able to mine them. You've got to be able to get them out of the brines over in South America, have got a whole range of challenges over there because when you go mine that stuff, you're sucking down the local water for all the local indigenous folk that are living in those regions, the water keeps going down as you keep pulling it out. But I'm not sure if that answers your question. But we've got 3 main areas that we're managing. And the iron ore is the risk, but we manage that, we've -- with plenty of experience in dealing with it. And I don't see a lot going forward on the bigger projects that we're talking about. I don't see any risk on them or whether they will or won't happen. Of course, the one up in the Pilbara is dependent on the government allocation around the berth.

The next questions come from G&J Rogers Investments Pty Ltd. Can you comment on our iron ore cost per tonne compared to Rio, BHP, FMG and others?

Probably not. Look, FMG and -- sorry, Rio Tinto and BHP were blessed back in the '60s with the pick of the ore bodies. And they took the risk. They gambled. They put their big supply chains in. Our cost base is way different. When we get down to 2 years down the track with Ashburton, we'll will be in that same cost quartile. The Pilbara one will be very similar. So it will be -- those 2 projects will be down in the zone where they've got a 30- or 40-year horizon. But right now, we're not.

Thank you, Chris. We'll go to the floor and then come back to some online later.

[ David Mane ] here. You mentioned your iron ore costs. They seem to be very competitive, but they include the services revenue from the services side. Do we perhaps have an element of double counting here?

That might be a question for Mike Grey. He seems to have his finger in every contract that we do. So...

Look, I'd never say we double count. But certainly, the mining services provides that buffer that we require in our own business and our external business. And as we see the iron ore price come down and mining services opportunities go up, that's what historically happens. So I can't answer your question directly. But what I can say, it's a good model, and it's a great model.

I think the other thing, too, that's important on that is that we've always designed the business in a way that if we decide that we're going to sell off a mine, we would sell it off. We'd retain the services side of that. And that's sort of -- it's sort of always been on the table, and it probably will stay on the table moving forward so that in any of our projects that we've got -- and most of them, where we've got those services, we're sitting in there with joint venture partners but it does give us the opportunity to go sell them off and retain the mining services.

Chris, you talked about the Wodgina agreement where you've -- the tantalum is available as a by-product. And what about other byproducts that may or may not become economic like vanadium, et cetera, out of Wodgina. Are they part of that agreement as well?

No. They've just retained the tantalum. And look, so far, there's nothing else there, that we've seen there that's economic. It's just -- I mean, the tantalum there is very good. And as I said, they were very clever the way they structured it. And we went in there eyes wide open. It was a great deal for both of us, but they become the lowest-cost tantalum producer in the world, and we have probably closed on the largest ore body in the world.

David Newport. By some calculations, your market cap would equate to your lithium production. If you compare it with, for instance, Pilbara mining and several other, like companies, have you had any thoughts about demerging your lithium business, and perhaps giving it to the shareholders or...

You know how hard it is to run a lithium mine? That Wodgina is a very tricky beast. I mean, not sure you'd want to give up your weekends. But look, the answer, we've set it up in such a way that, that's possible. At the moment, it's way too soon. If we're going to do that, I mean, we want to get full value out of where we're heading. So ideally, I mean, we want those mines in full production and we want all of the downstream hydroxide coming off them, and I read out before what our expectation is on that. So roughly, if you think about it like for every 7 tonnes of 6% spot, it will turn into a ton of hydroxide. So the business, as I said, is set up in such a way that, that can happen. And look, I have no doubt that history tells you that it probably will happen somewhere down the track. I'm just not sure that I'm the one that wants to break the family up.

Thank you, Chris. There's a series of questions from Mr. Stephen Maine. First question is for the Chair. Did any of the 5 main proxy advisers in the Australian market, ACSI, ASA, Ownership Matters, Glass Lewis and ISS recommend a vote against any of today's resolutions? Which of the proxy advisers are covering us? And has there been a material proxy protest vote against any of today's resolutions?

We are followed by all of the main proxy advisers, ACSI, ASA, Ownership Matters, Glass Lewis and ISS. As you expect, the proxy advisers have done a thorough review of all the information that we put out in the marketplace. We have received no material proxy protest votes against any of the resolutions to date.

The next question is, Treasury Wines Estates has voluntarily moved to annual elections for Directors in line with the best practice that occurs in both the U.S. and the U.K. Dual-listed companies like News Corp, BHP and Rio Tinto, all do this due to the laws in the U.S. and the U.K. Does the Chairman think that Mineral Resources adopting this model at the 2022 AGM so that all Directors can be more regularly accountable to shareholders?

I personally think that the Directors are all accountable to shareholders in any sense of the word. I have great trouble in understanding or thinking that there should be annual elections for all the Directors. I don't see that would add any real value and make the Directors more accountable to the shareholders if that was the case.

Thank you. The next question is, given the interesting discussions across a range of topics today, could the Chair undertake to make an archived copy of the webcast plus a full transcript of proceedings available on the company's website. Nine Entertainment Chairman, Peter Costello, who appreciates the benefit of a parliamentary Hansard transcript where MPs don't have to scroll through old videos to find out what was said, made this change last week and has a full transcript of Nine AGM online before the end of the day.

The undertaking I will give is that we will have a look at what that means to us as a company. And if we can achieve that sensibly, I'm more than happy to agree to it.

Thank you. Could the CEO, please comment on how important this grant is to keeping him motivated given that he already has such a large shareholding?

Back when I was a kid growing up, I never knew what my dad was getting paid. And it seems that it's pretty public information. Does it motivate -- I mean, my passion for the business motivates me. There's money, no, it doesn't. Yes, I do have a lot of shares, and I have more money than I know what to do with. I come to work as I have the passion for this business and the people I'm with and the industry that we're in. I mean why else would you do it?

Thank you. We'll pass to the floor.

Chris, last year, you mentioned that you were going to be the owner of a Tesla. Is that the case?

No. No, for the last 2 years, let's be clear. I've been cornered about why don't I drive an electric car with all this lithium. So I ordered an electric car earlier this year, and it was going to be -- the deal was, it's going to be here before the AGM, when it didn't turn up. I've ordered it. I'm paid for it. I didn't get a Tesla. I just got an SUV, not at Tesla. It's not quite here. But, look, in my defense, I'd love to have a picture put up of my wife, she's been more committed than I have. So she went out and bought an electric car only a few months ago. So we are committed. Hers is a little bit more expensive than the average Joe bloke. She might want to put a picture, it's the first Ferrari electric. So probably an answer to that last question. I haven't made a little bit -- my money, I need to be able to pay for the car yes.

My name is Jerry Bailey. I'm also a shareholder of FMG, and there's an awful lot of talk about hydrogen, green hydrogen generation and use within the mine site. And I'm just wondering where Mineral Resources go with that?

Look, we work closely with FMG wherever we can. And if they produce it, we will be buying it off them so that we don't have to run diesel. So look, anyone that can produce clean energy, I mean, we'll be up the front of the line -- with all the other miners. I mean all of us some, FMG, Rio, BHP, Roy Hill, all the iron ore miners are really serious about trying to get this carbon out of the atmosphere, and they've been world leaders over the last -- the original iron ore miners in the Pilbara, BHP and Rio, I mean, world leaders in a whole range of practices. I mean, the fact that something happened recently with traditional land, that's no reflection on the quality of those companies. I mean -- but look, the answer is when -- whoever brings it out, I mean, whether it be FMG or whoever, we'll be in line with them. I've been waiting to have a drink outside if we're done. Derek, are we done?

One the last question, I think? Two questions, sorry, Chris. This is from [ Eddie John Cop and Dr. Raney and Sharon Cop. ] What is the single biggest opportunity facing Mineral Resources and the one that has you most excited?

Tough question again. I mean, it's trying to separate, pick your favorite kid. The lithium business, no doubt. I mean, it's out there, and it's not something that can be replicated. I mean, a lot of these deposits have been known about for 50 or 100 years. I mean, Wodgina has first started mining in 1901, I think, James, is it? These deposits have been around a long time, and I just don't think that anyone's going to go out -- I'm really excited about that lithium business and where we're going to take it. We are incredibly well set with that, probably not overly public knowledge, but I mean, we've got 2 great hard rock deposits there. One of them is running well, and the other one was just -- there's no better hard rock plant than what Wodgina's has got when we built that. It's a big robust plant, 3 big trains, self-sufficient big natural gas power station with a pipeline that feeds it. Plenty of good facilities out there with tailings, and we're looking at trying to get rid of the tailings. But look, that's an exciting business, and we've got 2 great partners, 2 of the best partners in the world with Ganfeng and Albemarle, and they'll be working with us particularly Albemarle on managing the hydroxide. So we don't have to do a lot. Our share of the deal there, it's to run Wodgina, that's what we're good at. So if you kind of fast forward and have a look at where our share price is sitting and the value of that business sitting in there, it's quite significant. But look, again, iron ore, I mean, I love the iron ore because one of the greatest businesses in the world, the Rio Tinto and BHP iron ore businesses, I mean, tell me a business that's going to go on for another 50 years. And iPhones can change and Nokia comes along, but these are great long, long-term businesses that they employ people, they put money into the community. We're going to grow people living in Onslow. We're going to do a lot of really, really good things. And we shave off a chunk of that money we earn every year. As I said earlier, more than 70 charities we give it to because we have a social responsibility. That all comes like iron ore. And our mining services, we will have -- I don't know, a better mining services business in the country. I mean, we rate in the world as the biggest crushing contractor in the world. And I mean, we aim to more than double that mining services business over the next 3 or 4 years. So I think the answer is MinRes.

Okay. Good answer, Chris. And the last question is, what is the single biggest misunderstanding the investing community has of Mineral Resources?

I think they probably -- they take the rock star of the day and judge us on it. So right now, I mean we're getting belted over iron ore. A few years ago, I think we got beaten up over lithium. And they always pick the one that's falling, not the other 2 that are rising. So I just think -- and it's probably a lot of our responses, but I'm trying to make sure that's why I went through a little bit of pain today. Thanks for sitting through that. Trying to explain what we've got inside our business and trying to lay it out in sort of simplistic terms. And it is really simple. I mean, we can control the growth of our mining services business like no other because we form joint ventures and we've got a connection to ore bodies, and we award ourselves long-term mining services contracts at good rates, I mean, when I say good rates, I mean, no one else will be able to move that dirt in the Ashburton the way we can. No one can get to the cost base that we can get to, and it's a mining services contract. If you want to crush rock, if you want to do 10 million, 20 million, 30 million tonnes, we're the best at it, and we're the lowest cost at it. And we've got a lot of people that have been with us 10, 15, 20, 25 years running these plants, and we got their kids working on them. We're the best deal in town. You can tell everyone that. That's it, Derek. I'm done.

Thank you. Thank you, Chris.

Thanks, everyone, for coming. Thanks for joining. And I hope that we can keep up delivering for years. We will. I'll work as hard I can, as does our Board. Just to mention on that question that Peter fielded about how do you feel about having a director getting voted for every year. I mean, we've got a really great Board of Directors. It's an onerous role. I mean, they put a lot of time into it. I mean, we need to at least give them some sort of expectation and longevity. I mean, we've got our directors and most directors get judged every year, every quarter. I just don't think we need to be putting any more pressure on them. I mean, it's just not -- I mean, I took on a role as a non-executive director for a subsidiary we joined up to about 6 months ago, and it's the pits, I can tell you. I hate it. So directors, thank you for doing what you do. We've got a great Board. And I hope we can get you in WA soon. Look, thanks, everyone. We're done. Go and enjoy the food and drinks outside. Thank you.